                                             
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 28 Aug 2012

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                    * Fangyi Rao
                            * Radek Biernacki
Altera:                     * David Banas
                              Julia Liu
                              Hazlina Ramly
Andrew Joy Consulting:        Andy Joy
ANSYS:                        Samuel Mertens
                            * Dan Dvorscak
                            * Curtis Clark
			      Steve Pytel
			      Luis Armenta
Arrow Electronics:            Ian Dodd
Cadence Design Systems:       Terry Jernberg
                            * Ambrish Varma
                              Feras Al-Hawari
Cavium Networks:              Johann Nittmann
Celsionix:                    Kellee Crisafulli
Cisco Systems:                Ashwin Vasudevan
                              Syed Huq
Ericsson:                     Anders Ekholm
IBM:                        * Greg Edlund
Intel:                      * Michael Mirmak
Maxim Integrated Products:    Mahbubul Bari
Mentor Graphics:            * John Angulo
                              Zhen Mu
                            * Arpad Muranyi
                              Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
Micron Technology:            Randy Wolff
                            * Justin Butterfield
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
                              Ray Anderson

The meeting was led by Arpad Muranyi

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Opens:

- Arpad: Should we meet next week, given the labor day holiday?
  - No one said they can not attend
  - We will meet next week?

- Arpad: Should we allow TX and RX of different AMI_Version in the same simulation?
  - Walter: This is somewhat academic
    - Only one old model has Use_Init_Output
    - Our tools will have no problem
  - Mike: Models from different vendors might be in the same simulation
  - Arpad: The question is whether to allow it in the specification
  - Radek: The spec already allows an older model to be in a newer IBIS file
  - Arpad: The question is if they should be allowed in the same simulation
  - Radek: We can't restrict that, people will mix models
  - Walter: Certain combinations require deconvolution
    - The math for that is clear, this is not a problem
    - It is a rare case anyway
  - Radek: We could post guidelines outside of the IBIS spec

- Michael M: Thank you to the group for making IBIS 5.1 a reality

- Greg: We should discuss roadmap, especially packaging
  - Arpad: There is an agenda item for that

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

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Walter send slides with modifications for posting
  - Done

- Arpad prepare example BIRD 125 IBIS file set
  - Not done
  - Will do this only if we keep BIRD 125

- Bob to propose a simpler way for addressing the needs of parameter passing
  under [External Model] and [External Circuit]
  - Not done
  - We can drop this

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New Discussion:

Arpad: We need to discuss what is next for our group
- Walter showed a presentation "IBISx"
- slide 2:
  - Walter: Legacy IBIS has everything in one file
    - Package information should be in a separate EMD file
- slides 3 & 4:
  - Walter: Translating an legacy package model to EMD is straightforward
- slide 6:
  - Walter: The die model is similar
- slide 7:
  - Walter: Models also translate easily
- slide 9:
  - Walter: This is the roadmap
    - Some BIRDs should be rejected
    - Some BIRDs that are AMI related would not be rejected, go into 5.2
    - Backchannel BIRDs would be in 5.3
    - We have not seen demand for backchannel modeling
    - New BIRDs for 6.0 will be needed
  - Ambrish: We should make backchannel higher priority
  - Walter: That is OK
    - Gennum has asked for it, but not many users yet
  - Arpad: We should have a new category for analog models
  - Radek: This is an overhaul of the general IBIS syntax
    - Legacy IBIS has no clear hierarchy
    - We need to analyze what we gain and lose

- Greg: Do we maintain backward compatibility?
- Walter: No, this is a new standard
- Bob: I am not in favor of splitting IBIS into different sections
  - IBIS will continue for a while
- Walter: It will continue but we do not have to maintain it
  - I/V curves and other things would be reused, not reinvented
- Arpad: We explored going to equation based models
  - This might be a good time to revisit that
- Walter: Yes, that might be an additional parameter to Legacy and IBIS-BSS
  - Kumar proposed parameter trees years ago, and they are easy to work with
- James: This is mostly about syntax
  - Are we propose any changes to the functional part?
- Walter: Adding a Tstonefile is a functional improvement, for example
- Ambrish: The other proposal is to use IBIS-ISS
- Arpad: This is starting over
  - It might take years to finish this
  - Can a well defined analog model wait that long?
- Walter: I think this can be done in six months
- Arpad: IBIS 5.1 took 4 years
- John: AMI was going to be simple too at the beginning
  - I don't see a difference
- Arpad: It could take quite a while to do equation based models
- Walter: Yes, but I am proposing stuff we already know how to do
  - Originally we made mistakes because we did not understand the problems
  - We have better understanding now of the physics
- Arpad: Writing a specification is not just about physics
  - Getting vendors to agree on details can be difficult
- James: We need to address the question of what problem we are trying to solve
- Walter: IC vendors need to supply broadband package and on-die models
  - For both signals and power delivery
- Arpad: The point is that we don't have to rewrite the syntax for that
- James: We need to analyze how this helps achieve that
- Walter: We still have no example of how to create needed models with the existing BIRDs
  - On-die models are independent of package models
- John: Having just a proposed syntax may not help enough
- Michael M: We should have a drawn example, not in the proposed syntax
  - Then see what it takes to create examples
- Walter: Greg said he was willing to supply examples
- Arpad: We could try that
- Walter: IC vendors should report what they can supply and what they want

AR: Greg and Michael M provide examples to show what IC vendors need

Bob: I do not agree with the roadmap slide
- We should not assume that it has been accepted

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Next meeting: 04 Sep 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
