[ibis-macro] Re: About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

  • From: "Muranyi, Arpad" <Arpad_Muranyi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <msteinb@xxxxxxxxxx>, <ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2010 07:21:38 -0800

Mike,

 

Could you please clarify which distinction and rule

you are referring to?  Are you talking about the

following sentence:

 

|*                                                 ...  A branch which

|*              contains one or more sub-branches may only contain the

|*              Description <string> leaf/value pair in addition to the

|*              sub-branches.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Arpad

====================================================

 

From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Steinberger
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 9:02 AM
To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

 

Arpad-

I think you're trying to create a distinction and a rule when none is
necessary. If an AMI parameter were to have additional data, is there
anything that would make it impossible or unreasonable to simply ignore
the additional data?

I think maybe its high time we started putting this type of material in
a separate HOWTO document.

Mike S.

On 12/02/2010 01:43 AM, Muranyi, Arpad wrote: 

Fangyi,

 

Thanks for the example, this answers my question, and your

suggestion below makes sense to me now.  I agree with your

suggestion and changed the proposed text in red below to

incorporate it in the Typos BIRD draft.

 

|*              A branch in the .ami file is an "AMI Parameter" if it

|*              contains the leaves Type, Usage, and any of the
following

|*              leaves:

|*

|*                   Default

|*                   <data_format> or Format <data_format>

|*

|*              and does not contain another branch.  A branch which

|*              contains one or more sub-branches may only contain the

|*              Description <string> leaf/value pair in addition to the

|*              sub-branches.

 

This, however, raises another question in my mind about the next
paragraph:

 

|*              The tree data structure passed in and out of the DLL

|*              described in section 3.1.2.6 of Section 10 of this
document

|*              is similar to the tree data structure in the .ami file
except

|*              the 'Reserved_Parameters' and 'Model_Specific' branches
are

|*              not included, the "AMI Parameter" branches become leaves
and

|*              the "AMI parameters" of Usage Info and Out are not
included.

 

 

According to this, a normal branch would translate from this example:

 

(Model_Specific

      (Tx_Strength (Usage In)(Format List 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)(Type
Integer)(Default 0)(Description "Differential Swing")

         (Label "000: 1100mV" "001: 1050mV" "010: 1000mV" "011: 900mV"

                "100: 800mV" "101: 600mV" "110: 400mV" "111: 0mV"))

      (Tx_Equalization (Usage In)(Format List 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7)(Type
Integer)(Default 0)(Description "Pre-Emphasis")

         (Label "000: 0%" "001: 3%" "010: 4%" "011: 10.5%"

                "100: 18.5%" "101: 28%" "110: 39%" "111: 52%"))

      (Process (Corner 0 -1 1)(Usage In)(Type Integer)(Default
0)(Description "Process Corner")

         (Label  "0: tt" "-1: ss" "1: ff"))

   ) | End Model_Specific

 

 

 

To the following parameter string (to be passed into the DLL):

 

 

 

(AMI_RootName (Tx_Strength 0)(Tx_Equalization 0)(Process 0))

 

 

Based on the above text, I am not sure we have enough information

to translate your example to a parameter string.  What would this

look like in the parameter string?:

 

(Model_Specific

  (ffe (Description "FFE taps")

    (-1 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 0.0) (Description "precursor"))

    (0 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 1.0) (Description "main cursor"))

    (1 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 0.0) (Description "post-cursor"))

  )

)

 

(AMI_RootName (ffe (-1 0.0)(0 1.0)(1 0.0) )  )

 

or would it only be

 

(AMI_RootName (-1 0.0)(0 1.0)(1 0.0) )

 

This second translation will have problems if two branches contain

identical AMI parameter names, because they will become
indistinguishable

and repeated in the parameter string.

 

The other thing I don't like in the wording of the text in this

paragraph is that words: "the 'Reserved_Parameters' and 'Model_Specific'

branches are not included," sound like that the entire branches are

eliminated, when it actually refers to the "Reserved_Parameter" and

"Model_Specific" branch names only and not the rest that is in those

branches.

 

So I would revise this paragraph to this (change in red):

 

|*              The tree data structure passed in and out of the DLL

|*              described in section 3.1.2.6 of Section 10 of this
document

|*              is similar to the tree data structure in the .ami file
except

|*              the 'Reserved_Parameters' and 'Model_Specific' branch
names are

|*              not included, the "AMI Parameter" branches become leaves
and

|*              the "AMI parameters" of Usage Info and Out are not
included.

 

I still need to find a good way to describe what should be done

with the sub branch example you showed me.  Do you have any

suggestions?

 

Thanks,

 

Arpad

=================================================================

 

 

From: fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 12:25 AM
To: Muranyi, Arpad; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

 

Hi, Arpad;

 

An example would be FFE taps.

 

(ffe (Description "FFE taps")

  (-1 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 0.0) (Description "precursor"))

  (0 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 1.0) (Description "main cursor"))

  (1 (Usage In) (Type Float) (Value 0.0) (Description "post-cursor"))

)

 

Here "ffe" is a branch with sub-branches "-1", "0" and "1". Each of the
sub-branches is an "AMI Parameter".

 

Does this answer your question?

 

Fangyi

 

From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Muranyi, Arpad
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 10:16 PM
To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

 

Fangyi,

 

I am trying to understand when we can have a branch with a

sub-branch.  So far I could only find the Reserved_Parameters

and Model_Specific keywords as branch starters.  Well, there

is Table, but I will ignore that for the time being.  What

else can start a sub-branch?

 

I need to understand that before I can attempt to understand

and respond to your suggestion.

 

Could you please give me some hints here?

 

Thanks,

 

Arpad

===============================================================

 

From: fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 9:13 PM
To: Muranyi, Arpad; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

 

Hi, Arpad and Walter;

 

Thanks for the clarification. Based on your emails there are two types
of branches.

 

A branch with sub-branch can only have leave of "Description"

A branch without sub-branch mush have leaves of Usage, Type, .... and
such a branch is an "AMI Parameter".

 

If this is correct you might want to add the first statement to the BIRD
to make it clear.

 

Regards,

Fangyi

 

From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Muranyi, Arpad
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 4:48 PM
To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ibis-macro] About the Typos BIRD comments from Fangyi

 

Walter,

 

(I changed the subject line so we know what this thread is all about).

 

Thanks for your comment, I agree partially, but not completely.

You say "...if it has one of the following leaves...", which doesn't

make sense to me.  We can't have Usage or Type alone.  What did

you refer to by "one of"?  The bottom part of the list under

"Allowed-Value Method" or the whole list?  Even with considering

the bottom part of the list, this interpretation is flawed because

under certain circumstances Default and Value are mutually exclusive.

 

On the other hand, I like the sentence "A branch that is an AMI

parameter may not contain a branch."  I think we should use that

in the BIRD.

 

How about if the Typos BIRD would say the following:

 

|*              A branch in the .ami file is an "AMI Parameter" if it

|*              contains the leaves Type, Usage, and any of the
following

|*              leaves:

|*

|*                   Default

|*                   <data_format> or Format <data_format>

|*

|*              and does not contain another branch.  A branch which

|*              contains one or more sub-branches may only contain the

|*              Description <string> leaf/value pair in addition to the

|*              sub-branches.

 

Note that I left out the word "only" Fangyi suggested, but added

the words in red at the end.

 

 

To address comment #3 from Fangyi, I added a few words to the end of the

paragraph on the top of pg. 5 of the BIRD draft shown in red:

 

|*              The tree data structure passed in and out of the DLL

|*              described in section 3.1.2.6 of Section 10 of this
document

|*              is similar to the tree data structure in the .ami file
except

|*              the 'Reserved_Parameters' and 'Model_Specific' branches
are

|*              not included, the "AMI Parameter" branches become leaves
and

|*              the "AMI parameters" of Usage Info and Out are not
included.

 

 

This actually raises a few more questions in my mind, especially

with the other email thread I started not too long ago about the

AMI_parameters_out argument in mind.

 

I can't find anything in the specification that describes how the

DLL returns an Out or InOut parameters and how the EDA tool is supposed

to look for them.  Here are the possibilities that come to my mind.

Let's start with an InOut example first to make my question easier to

understand.

 

The AMI_parameters_in argument is a pointer to a string, and the

content of the string contains the InOut parameter name with a value.

The DLL reads this value, and after some number crunching decides to

return a different value.  Where should this output value go?

 

The DLL could overwrite the string that it was given by the

EDA tool in the same memory location.  Recall, the argument

is a pointer to the string, and it could be processed "in

place", just as we do with the impulse matrix.

 

On the other hand, we have another argument for AMI_parameters_out.

Is this where the DLL is supposed to put the output value it

generated?  If so, I would imagine that the DLL has to make a

copy of the AMI_parameter (leaf value) string with the new value

in the value location and put it in the memory location of

AMI_parameters_out.

 

However, let's consider an example when the Init function contains

an optimizer which takes initial values for the tap coefficients

and after some number crunching returns better coefficients.

 

I would think that in this case the tap coefficients will be

declared as InOut arguments, and the initial values given to the

Init function will be overwritten by the Init function when the

optimizer is done.  Now, how is this result propagated to the

GetWave function?  Notice that the GetWave function doesn't have an

AMI_parameters_in argument.  This makes me think that the

AMI_parameters_in argument of the Init function is also visible to

the GetWave function, and the modified tap coefficients from the

Init function are passed to GetWave through the AMI_parameters_in

memory location.  This implies that the return value of an InOut

argument should be returned in place (which is #1 above).  Using

this thinking we won't need the AMI_parameters_out argument for

returning the values of InOut arguments.

 

Now let's put another twist to this story and consider an Out

argument.  Is the parameter string supposed to contain the name

of the AMI parameter name and a place holder for the return value

so that the Init function can modify this string in place when it

outputs the value?

 

Or, is the parameter string not supposed to include the name of

the Out argument, and is the Init function supposed to modify this

string in place and add that AMI parameter to it?

 

Or, is the Init function supposed to use the AMI_parameters_out

argument for returning Out parameters?

 

Studying the spec I also noticed that the AMI_parameters_out argument

is optional for GetWave, but for Init we don't say that it is

optional, so I assume it is required (correct me if I overlooked

something).  Shouldn't the AMI_parameters_out be consistently

optional or required for both Init and GetWave?

 

Depending on the answers above, if the output should be placed in

the AMI_parameters_out argument, we can't say that it is optional,

at least not if the input parameter string includes Out or InOut

parameters.

 

Sorry for the lengthy discussion here.  I almost feel like I may not

see the tree from the forest here, and if that is true, please correct

my "observations" above.  On the other hand, I the tree is indeed not

visible in our "spec forest", I think we need to do a little more
cleaning.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Arpad

========================================================================
==

 

From: Walter Katz [mailto:wkatz@xxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 2:42 PM
To: fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx; Muranyi, Arpad; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [ibis-macro] Re: IBIS-ATM teleconference - Agenda for
11/30/2010

 

My definition of a parameter is:

 

A parameter tree contains a root, branches and leaves. A branch of the
parameter tree is an AMI Parameter, if it has one of the following
leaves. A branch that is an AMI parameter may not contain a branch.

Usage

Type

Default

Allowed-Value Method

Value

List

Range

Increment

Corner

Steps

 

Walter

 

From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
fangyi_rao@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 2:53 PM
To: Arpad_Muranyi@xxxxxxxxxx; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: IBIS-ATM teleconference - Agenda for
11/30/2010

 

Hi, Arpad;

 

I have following questions regarding the Typo BIRD.

 

On page 2, shall we merge the two modifications on line 140 into one?

 

At the bottom of page 4, shall we say "A branch in the .ami file is an
"AMI Parameter" if it only contains the leaves Type, Usage, and any of
the following leaves"? Shall we explicitly state that a branch having
Usage and/or Type and a sub-branch is illegal?

 

The first paragraph on page 5 seems to suggest that parameters of Usage
Info and Out are also passed into the DLL by the parameter string for
AMI Init.

 

Thanks,

Fangyi

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