
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 15 May 2012

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                    * Fangyi Rao
                              Radek Biernacki
Altera:                     * David Banas
Andrew Joy Consulting:      * Andy Joy
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
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

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Opens:

- None

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Walter make typographical changes to BIRD 123.3 draft 2
  - Done

- Bob propose method for parameter passing
  - In progress

- Arpad revise BIRD 117 and 118 to generalize parameter file references
  - In progress

- Ambrish update BIRD 145 for pad to pin mapping and other clarifications
  - This is tabled, waiting for the outcome of other issues

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New Discussion:

BIRD 123.3 draft 3:
- Arpad: Are there any comments?
- There were no comments
- Mike motioned to send the BIRD to the Open Forum for a vote
- David seconded
- There were no objections

AR: Arpad submit BIRD 123.3 draft 3 to Open Forum

BIRD 150:
- Arpad showed an email with comments from Arpad and Walter
- David: What was the origin of the idea of using squiggly braces for string substitution?
- Walter: Adge Hawes of IBM requested it
- Arpad: It is unusual to have specific control words like "In" "Out_Match" in labels
  - The commands could be placed elsewhere or Labels could be something else
- Walter: When we decided on Labels for table columns we didn't know how it would be used
  - It seems to be a natural place for this information
- John: Labels are just tags for user consumption
  - There is also a question about how 5.1 will handle labels
- Walter: 5.1 allows labels
  - It must be ahead of the data
  - Alternative keyword suggestions are welcome
  - SiSoft uses Labels for List parameters
    - A BIRD will be submitted to allow this for 5.1
- Arpad: In 5.1 Labels comes up only in the context of Table

- James: The BIRD title is for a new Reserved_Parameter, but the text is for Model_Specific
- Walter: It is Model_Specific but it could be used anywhere
- James: No Reserved_Parameters use Table format
- Walter: Tx_Rj could use it
- James: Tools should not try to recognize Model_Specific content
- Walter: It could be an Info parameter such as MyCorner, which has more than 3 values
  - This would control other things in a dependency table
  - If a dependency table output is Info the EDA tool has no idea what to do with it
- James: So the tool would not try to understand the meaning of it
  - For dependency use only exact matches are recognized
- Walter: An exception is numbers, where 1 equals 1.0, for example

- Arpad: How was it decided to use Labels this way?
- Walter: It passes the parser

- Arpad: About #5, we should have a more explicit way to identify dependency tables
  - Name ending in "_Dependency_Table" is not very clean
- Walter: Agree

- Arpad: About #6, Info means the information is used only by the EDA tool
  - This is ultimately providing data to the model
- James: The first issue is how to know it's a dependency table
  - The second is how to know the key
- Walter: The Usage could be DependencyTable
  - That would be better than using the name
- Arpad: Any parameter except Out can be control input for the table
- Walter: Agree

- James: Which parameters listed in the Table have to be present
- Walter: The first word of each item in Labels has to exist
- James: The wording needs to be more clear
- Walter described the processing

- Mike: If a Labels entry has no " In" or " Out*" instruction is it an ignored column?
- Walter: That is illegal

- James: Does this set the Usage of the other parameters?
  - In the example Tx_Strength may not be needed by the model
- Arpad: The model may still need it
- James: How does the tool decide whether to pass it to the model?
- Walter: It is always passed to the model if In or InOut
- Arpad: The analog model is part of the tool, so Info is for that
- James: How would this be used for an ISS circuit?
- Arpad: It always begins with a [Model] or parameter in [External Model]

- Walter: We have not discussed the various types of Out* instructions
  - I will not be present here next week
  - I have posted a revision of BIRD 121 for data management
  - The part about the report file has been removed
  - We could untable it any time for discussion
- Arpad: Will there be a new draft of BIRD 150?
- Walter: I would prefer to wait

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Next meeting: 22 May 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
