                                             
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 09 Oct 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: We will need to discuss meeting dates during the summits

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

- David asked about the purpose of this requirement.
  - Michael M: It is an IP protection requirement from TechAmerica
    - We would have to know what the terms are for use of patentable ideas
    - The TechAmerica operating manual has specifics
- David: Is it required when the patent is initiated or granted?
- Michael M: I will find out
- Walter: IEEE requires this to know if something they are discussing might
  be patented later
  - There was a stateye development that was patented later, causing turmoil
- David: Then the announcement must be before the patent is granted
- Walter: Yes, for example I could patent dependency tables and that would impact our spec
- Michael M. read the official TA language, found at http://fileshar.es/Mx32Rzi

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Review of ARs:

- Walter post BIRD 123.4 draft 4 with updates
  - Done
  - Arpad: A draft 5 was also sent

- Walter post BIRD 121.2 draft 5 with updates
  - Done

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New Discussion:

Interconnect task group report:
- Michael M: The minutes were sent recently
  - The question is update, deprecate or fork?
  - The consensus was not to have a new specification

BIRD 121:
- Arpad showed BIRD 121.2 draft 5
- Arpad: I hope we can vote on this today
  - A question came up about slashes
  - I suggest requiring the ending slash
- Walter: That should be optional
- Arpad: Why does it now say there should be no slash?
- Walter: My tool works that way, but it could be optional
- David: "D:" is not a relative path
- John: That goes to whatever is the CWD on drive D, it is relative
- Walter: Relative paths help especially when running on simulation farms
- David: Any absolute paths in zip files are likely to fail
- Arpad: Why would the tool need to use relative paths when it knows the full path to pass?
- John: DLLs for different OSes each need a valid path, and relative paths help?
- Walter: Yes, it may be different on each OS
- Arpad: Does the spec have to discuss what the EDA tool does internally?
- Walter: The tool only needs to know where the files are delivered
- James: It should be possible to find out where the DLL file itself is
- John: We might want to set the DLL CWD on a per simulation basis
- Mike L: DLLs have no process, no CWD, no ability to call functions in the host program
- Walter: The DLL still needs to find it's supporting files
- Ambrish: Maybe the name should be Supporting_Files_Path
- Arpad: By knowing the DLL location we can find the other files
- Arpad: The CWD might change by the time the DLL does it's work
- Walter: The DLL itself might even change the CWD
- John: We have no loss of flexibility by having relative paths
  - The DLL does rely on the calling tool for CWD
  - It should rely on DLL_Path instead
- Arpad: We may need to reword the sentence somewhat
- Walter: We could do that offline
  - I still object to requiring a slash
  - It is very easy for software to just add missing slashes
  - It would be more consistent to not allow it
- James: This should not be a problem
- Arpad: We will not vote on this now

Arpad: I checked BIRD 150 and found no technical losses in the new format version.

BIRD 123:
- Walter showed BIRD 123.4. draft 5
- Walter explained the changes
- David: Why is there a "2" in front of Dj but not the others?
- Walter: Not sure. Dj is half peak to peak.
- David: Is Rand() defined clearly?
- Walter found the definition
- Bob: It should appear before its first use
- Walter: rand() is defined where first used, and so is gaussian_rand().
- Arpad: We should vote on this next week
- Walter: This will be posted as draft 6 with changes accepted
- Arpad: We should not do that
  - Was a draft 6 already sent?
- Walter: I don't have that

Walter: There was an interesting email from Ambrish about BIRD 150
- Walter showed the email
- Walter: I have no objection to changing the examples
- Ambrish: It is not specified if the conditions are OR or AND
- Walter: They are all AND except for PWL
  - Only one of those would be allowed
- Ambrish: Why is Corner not defined?
- Walter: That is an intrinsic parameter
- Arpad: Corner is well defined in IBIS 5.1
- Ambrish: Corner is a format, not a parameter
  - Why do we need these tables?
- Walter: Adge has asked for it
  - For example he needs to know which touchstone file to use
- Arpad pointed out some typographical errors
  - Walter and Ambrish can clear up the language offline

Ambrish: Please look at the latest backchannel BIRD that has been posted
- Walter: It would help to have an operational backchannel DLL to look at this
- Ambrish: I have those, but may not be able to post them

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Next meeting: 16 Oct 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
