IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 19 September 2023

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Achronix Semiconductor:       Hansel Dsilva
Amazon:                       John Yan
ANSYS:                      * Curtis Clark
                            * Wei-hsing Huang
Aurora System:                Dian Yang
Cadence Design Systems:     * Ambrish Varma
                            * Jared James
Google:                       Hanfeng Wang
                              GaWon Kim
Intel:                      * Michael Mirmak
                            * Kinger Cai
                            * Chi-te Chen
                              Liwei Zhao
Keysight Technologies:        Fangyi Rao
                              Majid Ahadi Dolatsara
                              Stephen Slater
                              Ming Yan
                              Rui Yang
Marvell:                      Steve Parker
Mathworks (SiSoft):           Walter Katz
                              Graham Kus
Micron Technology:            Justin Butterfield
Missouri S&T:                 Chulsoon Hwang
                              Yifan Ding
                              Zhiping Yang
Rivos:                        Yansheng Wang
SAE ITC:                      Michael McNair
Siemens EDA (Mentor):       * Arpad Muranyi
                            * Randy Wolff
Teraspeed Labs:             * Bob Ross
Zuken USA:                  * Lance Wang

The meeting was led by Arpad Muranyi.  Curtis Clark took the minutes.

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Opens:

- None.

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Review of ARs:

Kinger: Send out draft2 of BIRD223.1 with the changes and updates noted during
        the ATM meeting.
        - Done.

Michael: Send out draft8 of the [AMI Test Data] proposal including more feedback
         from Ambrish and the ATM meeting.
         - In progress.

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Call for patent disclosure:

- None.

-------------------------
Review of Meeting Minutes:

Arpad asked for any comments or corrections to the minutes of the September 12th
meeting.  Michael moved to approve the minutes.  Ambrish seconded the motion.
There were no objections.

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New Discussion:

BIRD223.1 draft2:
Kinger reported that Lance had helped him generate a version of draft2 that
tracked the new changes, and it had been uploaded to the IBIS Open Forum BIRDs
page.  Kinger said he had since realized that he had inadvertently removed one
"NA" from a column of one of the examples.  Bob offered a few editorial
corrections to the header information.  Bob and Arpad suggested the new version
with these minor corrections should be uploaded and overwrite BIRD223.1.  They
said it did not require a BIRD223.2.  The group agreed.  Arpad encouraged people
to review BIRD223.1.  Arpad said he would remove this item from the ATM agenda.

[AMI Test Data] proposal:
Michael referred to an email he had sent to the ATM list after the previous
meeting, which contained a table of the combinations of Tx/Rx and statistical
or time domain.  He said that we want to make the input impulse response
explicitly available, but we are also trying to distinguish between statistical
and time domain flows and between calls to AMI_Init and AMI_GetWave.  He said
he thought one problem with the current draft was that it alternated between the
terms statistical and time domain and referring to AMI_Init and AMI_GetWave.
He asked whether for time domain models we may not want to use AMI_Init and may
not need the input impulse response.  Curtis and Arpad said the input impulse
response is always required, because even in a time domain only model AMI_Init
must be called first, and the tool must be provided with an input impulse
response to pass to AMI_Init.

Michael asked whether we could reduce confusion by simply referring to AMI_Init
or AMI_GetWave and leaving out the use of statistical or time domain.  Ambrish
said that statistical and time domain flows are used in the specification and
generally understood.  He suggested we should continue to leverage that and keep
referring to statistical and time domain as appropriate.

Arpad reiterated his concerns about the use of the term "digital" when
describing the Stimulus_file contents for the Tx in time domain.  He said that
even the name "stimulus" tended to make him think of an input bit stream, but
the contents of the Stimulus_file would be a sampled analog waveform.  Ambrish
suggested that Stimulus_file be renamed Input_waveform_file, and Arpad then
suggested that we change Impulse_matrix_file to Input_impulse_file for
consistency.  Michael and the group agreed with the suggestions.  With these two
Sub-Param names we explicitly call out impulse or waveform, as opposed to the
way in which the original Stimulus_file was overloaded depending on the
situation.

Ambrish emphasized that in this proposal we are addressing one model at a time.
The model might be a Tx or an Rx, but this proposal is providing the inputs to
and expected outputs from a particular model.  The name "Input_waveform_file",
for example, is relative to the model being tested and contains the waveform
that is input to that AMI model.

Michael confirmed that he understood the suggestions.  He said in the next draft
he would ensure that the Direction Sub-Param and the AMI input descriptions are
in sync.  He also said the next draft would recommend that this proposal be
added after section 10.4, so it will be preceded by the AMI function signature
descriptions to which it refers.

Ambrish asked if Michael could create a syntactically complete example to fully
demonstrate his proposal.  Michael agreed to do so.

- Ambrish: Motion to adjourn.
- Curtis: Second.
- Arpad: Thank you all for joining.

New ARs:

Kinger: Provide BIRD223.1 draft2 with minor cleanup changes to Lance to post
        to the IBIS Open Forum BIRDs page as BIRD223.1.

Michael: Send out draft8 of the [AMI Test Data] proposal including more feedback
         from the ATM meeting.  (continued from previous meeting)
         
Michael: Develop a full syntactically complete example demonstrating the
         [AMI Test Data] proposal.

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Next meeting: 26 September 2023 12:00pm PT
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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives
