
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 24 Apr 2012

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                    * Fangyi Rao
                            * Radek Biernacki
Altera:                     * David Banas
Ansys:                        Samuel Mertens
                            * Dan Dvorscak
                            * Curtis Clark
Arrow Electronics:            Ian Dodd
Cadence Design Systems:       Terry Jernberg
                            * Ambrish Varma
                              Feras Al-Hawari
Celsionix:                    Kellee Crisafulli
Cisco Systems:                Ashwin Vasudevan
                              Syed Huq
Ericsson:                     Anders Ekholm
IBM:                        * Greg Edlund
Intel:                        Michael Mirmak  A
LSI Logic:                    Wenyi Jin
Maxim Integrated Products:    Mahbubul Bari
Mentor Graphics:            * John Angulo
                              Zhen Mu
                            * Arpad Muranyi
                              Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
Micron Technology:            Randy Wolff
NetLogic Microsystems:        Ryan Couts
Nokia-Siemens Networks:     * Eckhard Lenski
QLogic Corp.                * James Zhou
Sigrity:                      Brad Brim
                            * Kumar Keshavan
                              Ken Willis
SiSoft:                     * Walter Katz
                              Todd Westerhoff
                              Doug Burns
                            * Mike LaBonte
Snowbush IP:                  Marcus Van Ierssel
ST Micro:                     Syed Sadeghi
Teraspeed Consulting Group:   Scott McMorrow
                            * Bob Ross
TI:                           Casey Morrison
                              Alfred Chong
Vitesse Semiconductor:        Eric Sweetman
Xilinx:                       Mustansir Fanaswalla

The meeting was lead by Arpad Muranyi

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:

- None

--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:

- None

-------------
Review of ARs:

- Arpad update BIRDs 117 & 118 to generalize parameter references
  - Done

- Walter/Bob update Table example based on discussion requests
  - No update

- Arpad to propose IBIS spec changes to clarify ISS D2A & A2D interfaces
  - In progress

- Ambrish update BIRD 145 for pad to pin mapping and other clarifications
  - Tabled, waiting for outcome of other issues

-------------
New Discussion:

BIRD 123.3:
- Walter showed the latest BIRD 123.3 draft
- Walter: The "half peak to peak" language has been used in 3 places
  - Rx_Clock_Recovery_Sj should use "ideal_time" as reference
- Arpad: Is that ideal clock time?
- Walter: It is halfway between the median of the eye crossing zero
- James: Are the zero crossings available in statistical mode?
- Walter: It is based on the median crossing based on probability distribution
  - Alternative methods are welcome
- Walter: Rx_Rj is now defined based on time
  - James found several places where this change had to be made
- James: Rx_Sj should be based on Rx_Dj time
- Walter: Yes, same for Rx_DCD too
- Walter showed changes to Tx_DCD
- Walter: I recommend a straw man vote in the open forum

Arpad showed an email from Walter about UI:
- Walter: The question is how to pass Model_Specific params of type UI to a DLL
  - The conclusion is that it should be fractional UI, not converted to seconds
  - Do we need a BIRD?
- Bob: No
- Arpad: Michael Mirmak plans to use our decision for the editorial work
- Radek: This applies anywhere, not just Model_Specific
- Walter: Agree
- James: Sample_interval is in seconds?
- Arpad: Yes
- James: The spec does not give the units
- Radek: The editorial group should add that
- Bob: We might already cover this

Arpad showed a new Analog Model Boundary Definition BIRD draft:
- Arpad: One small paragraph is added
- Bob and Radek approved
- Arpad: This would apply to our other language definitions
- Bob: That would include Touchstone
- James: Does this apply to the A2D?
- Arpad: It defines the places to be probed

BIRD 117.4 and 118.3 updates:
- Arpad showed BIRD 117.4 draft 3 and described the changes
- Arpad: No change about relative paths has been made
  - Also no change for parameters within "this" IBIS file
- Walter: In EBD we have "*.ibs" to mean it is in this file
- Radek: There was discussion whether it should be allowed in the IBIS file
- Arpad: We decided to allow it, but with keywords to enclose it
- Arpad: Kukal had a question asked if two different AMI files could be used
  - He suggested prohibiting that
  - It might be a parser problem
- Bob: I have concerns about putting trees in IBIS
  - This is becoming logistically complicated
  - It is different from AMI rules, no Reserved_Parameters required for example
- Kumar: We should not have those requirements here
- Arpad: Agree
- Walter: There is a difference between syntax and context
- Bob: Is Usage Info supported?
- Walter: Yes, but Out does not make sense
- Bob: The rules for this should be documented
  - This may pose problems writing the parser
- Arpad: The goal is to pass in values that might come from other files
  - We have wanted this for some time
- Bob: Complication proves it is not a good approach
  - I am leaning toward Walter's approach
- Ambrish: What if it is not an AMI model?
- Bob: Use IBIS
  - We have to get this under control
- Walter: We need a syntax that knows nothing about Model_Specific, etc.
  - Then another for context rules for AMI
  - Then another for context rules for ISS
- Ambrish: Agree
- Bob: It should be separated out of IBIS
- Arpad: The immediate goal is to pass parameters to [External Circuit]
- Walter: The parser will have to have two parts
  - It will be painful if syntax checking is combined with context checking
- Bob: We have funding issues for parser development, can't afford big changes
- Arpad: Is this 5.2 or 6.0?
- Bob: It just has to be well documented
  - If we break something fixing it is a priority

Arpad showed the old ARs:
- Arpad: One is to find a way to parameterize models
  - The need for this has existed for years
- Bob: I support BIRD 116
- Arpad: That has no parameterization
- Walter: Several of us want parameter trees
  - We should have a vote which path to go down

-------------
Next meeting: 01 May 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

-------------
IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
