IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 18 June 2013

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
                              Brad Brim
                            * Kumar Keshavan
                              Ken Willis
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
                            * Hassan Rafat
                              Ron Olisar
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
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:

- None

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None

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Review of ARs:

- Ambrish update BIRD 147
  - Ambrish recalls a slightly different AR, to update the group

- Arpad contact Fangyi about BIRD 155 updates
  - Done
  - Fangyi will do it, but can't be here today

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New Discussion:

Interconnect update:
- Arpad: Michael Mirmak gave a presentation about the extent of IBIS overhaul
- Walter: It revolved around bare die model issues

Eye Mask Definition:
- Ambrish showed Extending IBIS-AMI to Support Back-Channel Communications
- slide 4:
  - Ambrish: Need to have AMI_parameters_ in and out
    - Also need bit pattern keywords
- slide 6:
  - Ambrish: TX and RX must have the same protocol for back-channel to work
  - Arpad: Can the parser check that?
  - Kumar: It can only be checked at run time
  - Ambrish: The simulator must check
- slide 7:
  - Walter: Are the commas required in "1,9,11"?
  - Ambrish: Yes
  - Walter: Are there always 3 numbers?
  - Ambrish: Yes
  - Walter: What is "r"?
  - Ambrish: It denotes a seed number
- slide 9:
  - Ambrish: The RX decides when training is complete
  - Arpad: Can there be an infinite loop if the TX can change no more?
  - Ambrish: There is a time limit
  - Kumar: The TX can communicate when it has reached limits

- Arpad: The IBIS website has an older BIRD 147 version, ATM is more up to date
  - This seems to be a completed BIRD

- Todd: How does the RX communicate when it is ready to tell the TX something?
  - It may take any number of GetWave calls
- Walter: On any GetWave call the returned recommendation may be to do nothing
  - If the tool uses small chunks it may take many calls
  - A large chunk size might slow down convergence
  - When the RX decides convergence the simulator may want to let some bits
    flush out
- Mike: Maybe Ignore_Bits should begin then
- Walter: Gennum should supply example files for this before we vote

- Walter: this is about the KR flow, training could be done different ways
  - Hopefully new protocols can be supported with this
- Kumar: The EDA tool is only a messenger
- Todd: How is the input to GetWave received?
- Walter: BIRD 128 allows AMI_parameters_out to be overloaded as an input
  - It would be good if other vendors would express support for this protocol
  - The standard calls for TX to have three taps
- Todd: The name tap_inc_dec is hardcoded here
- Kumar: It is an abstracted standardized name
- Todd: Will the simulator monitor the passed data to check legality?
- Ambrish: No
- Todd: AMI_parameters_out already has other data in it, this is mixed in
- Kumar: The simulator simply passes it
- Mike: Some protocol may wish for the RX to know what state the TX is in
- Arpad: We have to watch out for name collisions
- Walter: We have to carefully document how these strings work
- Todd: It is important that a model from one vendor works with another vendor
- Ambrish: In training mode this should be the only data
- Kumar: They will be mixed together, maybe there should be a (BCI root
- Walter: I had shown a parameter passing example at one point
  - It should be documented in words and example
- Todd: We need to address what happens with legacy models
- Walter: We need examples
- Arpad: We should write the spec first and examples will flow from that
- Mike: If BCI is a root name no Model_Specific parameter can be "BCI"
- Todd: The BCI sub-parameters probably should be declared in the AMI files as well

Arpad: We will have a presentation from Fangyi next week

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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
