Minutes, IBIS Quality Task Group

2 November 2021

12:00-13:00 EST (09:00-10:00 PST)

ROLL CALL

ANSYS                               Curtis Clark
Intel Technology                    Michael Mirmak
Micron Technology                 * Randy Wolff
Signal Integrity Software:        * Mike LaBonte
Teraspeed Labs:                   * Bob Ross
Zuken USA:                        * Lance Wang

Everyone in attendance marked by *

NOTE: "AR" = Action Required.

-----------------------MINUTES ---------------------------
Mike LaBonte conducted the meeting.

Call for IBIS related patent disclosures:

- None


Call for opens:

- None


Review of previous meeting minutes:
Minutes from the October 26, 2021 meeting were reviewed.  Lance Wang moved to accept the
minutes.  Randy Wolff seconded the motion.  Without objection, the minutes were approved.


ARs:
- AR: Bob Ross to ask for IBISCHK message string fixes
  Not done yet. Bob said the distribution should also be named ibischk710, not ibischk71.
- AR: Bob Ross to check IBIS QA tests
  Work had been started.
- AR: Mike LaBonte to test new IBISCHK executables
  Mike had tested with the EMD example models, and found that many errors were printed.
- AR: Mike LaBonte to create server folders for IBISCHK 3 through 6
  This was done.
- AR: Bob Ross to upload prior IBISCHK source code distributions
  Bob was waiting for the new folders to upload into.


NEW ITEMS:

New parser bug reports:
Bob Ross reported there were none.


IBISCHK710 development:
Bob Ross said two fixes would be requested:
- Fix a bug where IBIS-ISS files that did exist were flagged as not existing.
- Rename the package and contents from "ibischk71" to "ibischk710".

Mike LaBonte showed the output of checking a sample EMD model.
There were many errors like:
W6706 (line  183) - NC: Reserved word used for signal_name
E6711 (line  183) - Invalid signal_type (NC)

Randy Wolff said the rule about NC was still in discussion.  The EMD part really had NC
pins, but declaring those had been disallowed for EMD designators.  Mike suggested the
pins could simply be omitted.  Randy said IBIS had a rule that all pins were required to
be included.  Bob said it was not correct to use the signal name "NC" to represent
connections because then all NC pins would be tied together.  Randy said numbers or pin
names could be appended to "NC_" to keep them unique.  He said "NC" was allowed at EMD
outward-facing level, but it could not be used on an internal designator.  Bob said some
NC pins might be present for future use.

The example model Mike had was missing a z11b.ibs file. Randy sent the file to Mike and it
was added.  It should have been placed in the top folder, because the EMD file referred to
it without a sub-folder name. But ibischk was able to find it only when placed in the
*_files folder that the .iss files were in.

There were two E6749 errors related to bus_label and signal_name.  Bob said it was an
error for two pins withe the same bus_label to have different signal_names.

Bob showed buslabelerrors.emd. He said the testcase had 4 errors. It resulted in the same
W6706 and E6711 messages as above.  Bob showed aaaa.txt. He said the caution messages were
hard to understand. They warned that 13 of 25 terminals had been defined.  Mike looked at
the EMD file and verified that [EMD Model] DQ1_Victim indeed had only 13 terminals
defined.

Randy showed a DDR4 IBIS file.  Randy said checking the IBIS 5.0 file did not show errors,
but there were errors when [IBIS Ver] was changed to 7.0.  The error was about conflicting
use of signal_name and bus-label.

AR: Bob Ross to ask ibischk developer for package naming and .iss file lookup fixes


Tabled topics (no discussion without motion):
  - BIRD181.2
  - IBISCHK security fixes


Bob Ross moved to adjourn. Randy Wolff seconded. Without objection the meeting ended.

Meeting ended: 13:08 ET

Next meeting November 9, 2021
