[ibis-macro] Minutes from recent ibis-atm meetings
- From: "Mike LaBonte (milabont)" <milabont@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 15:13:44 -0500
Minutes from the last 4 ibis-atm meetings are attached.
Mike
IBIS Macromodel Task Group
Meeting date: 23 March 2010
Members (asterisk for those attending):
Adge Hawes, IBM
* Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
Anders Ekholm, Ericsson
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
Brad Brim, Sigrity
Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems
Chris Herrick, Ansoft
Chris McGrath, Synopsys
* Danil Kirsanov, Ansoft
David Banas, Xilinx
Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft
Donald Telian, consultant
Doug White, Cisco Systems
* Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks
Eckhard Miersch, Sigrity
Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
* Fangyi Rao, Agilent
Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
Gang Kang, Sigrity
Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
Ian Dodd, consultant
Jerry Chuang, Xilinx
Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
John Shields, Mentor Graphics
* Ken Willis, Sigrity
* Kumar Keshavan, Sigrity
Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems
Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx
Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
Paul Fernando, NCSU
Pavani Jella, TI
Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
Ray Komow, Cadence Design Systems
Richard Mellitz, Intel
Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
Samuel Mertens, Ansoft
Sam Chitwood, Sigrity
Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems
Sid Singh, Extreme Networks
Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
Steve Kaufer, Mentor Graphics
Steve Pytel, Ansoft
Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
Ted Mido, Synopsys
Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
* Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov, Mentor Graphics
Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
Wenyi Jin, LSI Logic
* Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:
- Bob would like to speak about roles and responsibilities
--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:
- No one declared a patent.
-------------
Review of ARs:
- Walter send split-up AMI BIRD documents to ATM reflector
- Done
- Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the
various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL
- TBD
- Arpad: Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft)
for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the
parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
- TBD
- TBD: Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE
- [External ...] also?
- TBD
- Arpad: Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries.
- Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do
-------------
New Discussion:
Bob clarified task group roles:
- Bob reports to Arpad in this group, but is speaking as IBIS chair now
- The task group is only to provide proposed specs to the Open Forum
- IBIS 5.0 is the official AMI spec
- IBISCHK is the official checker
- Nothing changes until the IBIS committee approves a new spec
- Deprecation is a serious concern, but everything remains until approved
otherwise
- The biggest concerns are clarity and process
- Arpad: What are we doing incorrectly?
- Bob: We don't know what the goal is
- Arpad: We are responding to specific problems discovered in 5.0
AR: Bob and Arpad meet to discuss group goals
Ken Willis gave a feedback presentation from Sigrity:
- Presentation is posted on the ibis-atm website
- Slide 3:
- Ken: Could be problems with Init_Returns_Filter
- The existing API can already do time domain and statistical analyses
- Could get different results from the same model
- Arpad: This means different results from different tools?
- Ken: Even from the same tool
- Slide 4:
- Ken: Is the proposal to remove existing branches still on the table?
- Walter: Yes
- Ken: Would rather not drop them
- Slide 5:
- Ken: Tx_Jitter and Rx_Clock_PDF should be kept
- Slide 7:
- Ken: We found good uses for Table, would rather keep it
- Slide 8:
- Ken: Is Array only for Tap?
- We may not need it
- The same goes for Step and Increment
- Slide 9:
- Ken: We should be able to simply clarify without adding keywords
- Fewer data types are better
- Slide 10:
- Ken: Anything new should do something that can't be done today
- There should be golden data to test against
- Arpad: Agree that we should try to avoid mission creep
- Slide 3:
- Walter: We should be able to give the option of Init_Returns_Filter
- Ken: The model can write extra information as files
- Walter: That can be considered
- How would the EDA tool know the model can do that?
- Kumar: The tool can figure it out
- Todd: The purpose of a standard is to have a standard way to do it
- We can't have different tools doing it different ways
- Todd: It's useful to have a model that can do approximate LTI
- It should not require 2 different models
- Kumar: It's up to the EDA tool to do that
- It would be better to have 2 different models
Questions followed the presentation:
- Slide 4:
- Walter: Some reserved params really tell you how the model works
- There are different kinds of jitter params
- They are used by EDA tools to analyze results
- A separate Jitter BIRD will put all of them together
- Jitter may be handled by the EDA tool, not DLL
- But some tools may work differently
- It should be in the model
- For example if Tx_SJ becomes Reserved our Model_Specific becomes illegal
- Only the name of the parameter should determine if it is reserved
- Ken: Putting it all in the Jitter BIRD makes sense
- We should not guess what will happen in this BIRD
- Walter: A model may have an Info putting jitter in the stimulus
- Which branch does it go into?
- Ken: Put it in Model_Specific if the model handles it
- John: It's hard to see why we have branches
- Kumar: It becomes very gray for jitter because it can go either way
- Todd: If it's Info it's for the simulator
- If Input it's for the model
- If Output it's a result
- Walter: There is confusion because this is in the .ami file, not the DLL
- Slide 5:
- Walter: We couldn't use TX_Jitter and Rx_Clock_PDF
- We thought no one was using it
- If we keep them they should be clarified in the Jitter BIRD
- Slide 7:
- Walter: This was already implemented by a model as an array
- This change was to support that model, but we might not want to
- It should be handled as Taps
- Kumar: Agree
- Arpad: We can contact the vendor
- Ken: Is there any generic value in Table anyway?
- Walter: A series of numbers could be passed by string
- Ambrish: Or List
- Walter: Then the DLL gets only one value
- Slide 8:
- Walter: Agree
- The DLL needs to know the number of taps
- Ken: Is Step and Increment used anywhere?
- Todd: Some lists just have too many values
- Slide 9:
- Arpad: Are there any examples about MatLab data types?
- Kumar: For example you only need matrix
- A single number is a 1x1 matrix
- Scientists need more types, engineers need less types
- Slide 10:
- Walter: There will be issues with jitter, for example
- For example jitter in the stimulus may be unclear
Bob: I didn't see the .ami section in the files sent by Walter
- Walter: That is in the reference document
- I only said what I intended to do
- Bob: There is a problem with "In the context of"
Bob: IBISCHK is a good way to to test any syntax against 5.0
Next meeting: 30 Mar 2009 12:00pm PT
--------
IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:
1) Simulator directives
IBIS Macromodel Task Group
Meeting date: 16 March 2010
Members (asterisk for those attending):
Adge Hawes, IBM
* Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
Anders Ekholm, Ericsson
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
Brad Brim, Sigrity
Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems
Chris Herrick, Ansoft
Chris McGrath, Synopsys
* Danil Kirsanov, Ansoft
David Banas, Xilinx
Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft
Donald Telian, consultant
Doug White, Cisco Systems
* Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks
Eckhard Miersch, Sigrity
Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
* Fangyi Rao, Agilent
Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
Gang Kang, Sigrity
Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
Ian Dodd, consultant
Jerry Chuang, Xilinx
Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
John Shields, Mentor Graphics
* Ken Willis, Sigrity
Kumar Keshavan, Sigrity
Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems
Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx
Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
Paul Fernando, NCSU
Pavani Jella, TI
* Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
Ray Komow, Cadence Design Systems
Richard Mellitz, Intel
Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
Samuel Mertens, Ansoft
Sam Chitwood, Sigrity
Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems
Sid Singh, Extreme Networks
Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
Steve Kaufer, Mentor Graphics
Steve Pytel, Ansoft
Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
Ted Mido, Synopsys
Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
* Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov, Mentor Graphics
Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
* Wenyi Jin, LSI Logic
Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:
- None
--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:
- No one declared a patent.
-------------
Review of ARs:
- Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the
various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL
- TBD
- Arpad: Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft)
for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the
parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
- TBD
- TBD: Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE
- [External ...] also?
- TBD
- Arpad: Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries.
- Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do
-------------
New Discussion:
Walter showed the AMI Improvements BIRD:
- Added an example to explain "what is a parameter"
- It shows a Framis as defined in .ami and as passed to the DLL
- Arpad: There is a paren missing after "(Type Integer"
- Walter: Will there be Root/Branch/Parameter/File naming conventions?
- It specifies some characters that are not allowed
- Added the explicit allowed character set
- Some of these characters are problematic:
- Some are reserved for command lines, escapes, math, logic, vectors, etc.
- Some simulators require first character to be alphabetic
- Mike: We had a rule about not using case as the only differentiator
- Walter: For file names forward slash is allowed to support paths
- Enhancements have been made to the description of Default
- Changes made to example of tree structure
- Hopefully any debate will be held by email
Bob: I have registered a number of objections with Walter:
- Character set:
- This would be OK if we were starting from scratch
- Arpad: A spec can not say things are "problematic"
- Walter: This recommendation came from Adge Hawes
- Bob: This points out an inconsistency in IBIS itself
- Walter: It is copied from IBIS
Bob: If vendors have shipped non-compliant files should the parser reject them?
- Walter: Vendors can register objections
- We should wordsmith these to be perfectly clear
- Arpad: The question is about what vendors should do
- Walter: The parser should check the rules
- Bob: The word "must" is key
- The rule is good
- This is a parser issue
- We should recommend that names begin with alpha and have certain characters
- We will kill models if we make it mandatory
- Walter: If we recommend, the parser can warn or ignore
- We agree
- Bob: The supporting material is not needed
- It can be moved to the bottom of the BIRD
- The parser can have a warning check
- Walter: If I move it now the change tracking will be confusing
Bob: It would be better to not use NA
- We can make the value optional instead
- Walter: Let's look at Range
- Without NA it would not be known what the next value represents
- Bob: This is a corruption of Range, which has a well established meaning
- Now it requires a different data type
- Why specify Range and leave one or both ends open?
- Walter: This is nitty gritty
- Bob: We will postpone this until next time
- Walter: We should handle this by email
- Bob: How we handle it is up to the committee
- Walter: We can do things in parallel by email
- Unresolved items should come back to the committee
Walter: I have partitioned the BIRD into 7 separate files
- A new document gives an overview of AMI and the related documents
- It contains block diagrams with graphical elements
- Blue, red and green boxes show different sections of channel system
- It covers theory, DLL, .AMI file, parameter classification
- It is pasted without reformatting into another document
- Who would like to take ownership of these documents?
Ambrish: Will the IBIS Open Forum approve this?
- Arpad: We discussed it last time and there was no objection
- Bob: Who is "we"?
- Arpad: It was our group, not the Open Forum
- We need 2 BIRDs
- Making AMI independent
- All the correctional changes
- Ambrish: We can see if the first BIRD passes
- Bob: It would be easier with 2 BIRDs
- Radek: Will we keep the [Algorithmic Model] keyword inside the IBIS file?
- Todd: The IBIS file has a collection of constraints that go with it
- Also AMI is a completely different syntax
- Bob: There is a standalone AMI file checker
- Ambrish: Will we still use the IBIS bug process?
- Bob: Walter states that whatever works in 5.0 works in 5.1
- We should maximize compatibility
- Todd: We should not obsolete 5.0
- AMI is alien to most people reading IBIS
- Walter: We have the BIRD process
- Touchstone 2 is working on their process
- We will probably follow what they do
- Bob: We mainly have to reach consensus
- The .AMI syntax is most important
- Walter: Does this have to go to Open Forum?
- Arpad: Yes, it has to follow the normal BIRD process
- Bob: There should be no issue about having a separate document
- Walter sent a new section 6C which should be fine
- Todd: So if we agree here there should be no problem in Open Forum
- Bob: It could be brought in as a question to vote on
- It doesn't have to be a BIRD
Walter: Should we post these documents?
- Arpad: It needs to be edited for style
- Walter: Agree
- Todd: I could help too
- Arpad: We should post these
- Ambrish: Should we give the Open Forum a heads up?
- Todd: Every interest party should already be here
- Arpad: It could be posted on the ATM reflector
AR: Walter send split-up AMI BIRD documents to ATM reflector
Walter: Should we discuss Gaussian now or next week?
- Arpad: We are over time and there have been several line drops
- We can discuss by email
Next meeting: 23 Mar 2009 12:00pm PT
--------
IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:
1) Simulator directives
IBIS Macromodel Task Group
Meeting date: 9 March 2010
Members (asterisk for those attending):
Adge Hawes, IBM
* Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
* Anders Ekholm, Ericsson
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
Brad Brim, Sigrity
Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems
Chris Herrick, Ansoft
Chris McGrath, Synopsys
Danil Kirsanov, Ansoft
David Banas, Xilinx
Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft
Donald Telian, consultant
Doug White, Cisco Systems
Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks
Eckhard Miersch, Sigrity
Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
* Fangyi Rao, Agilent
Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
Gang Kang, Sigrity
Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
Ian Dodd, consultant
Jerry Chuang, Xilinx
Joe Abler, IBM
John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
John Shields, Mentor Graphics
* Ken Willis, Sigrity
Kumar Keshavan, Sigrity
Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems
Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx
Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
Paul Fernando, NCSU
Pavani Jella, TI
Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
Ray Komow, Cadence Design Systems
Richard Mellitz, Intel
Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
Samuel Mertens, Ansoft
Sam Chitwood, Sigrity
Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems
Sid Singh, Extreme Networks
Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
Steve Kaufer, Mentor Graphics
Steve Pytel, Ansoft
Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
Ted Mido, Synopsys
Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
* Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov, Mentor Graphics
Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
* Wenyi Jin, LSI Logic
Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:
- Wenyi Jin from LSI Logic is new to the group
- He works in system design
- Mike will repost minutes files that have incorrect dates.
--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:
- No one declared a patent.
-------------
Review of ARs:
- Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the
various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL
- TBD
- Todd: Update the BIRD for IBIS S-parameter box based on feedback from
discussion
- Todd: This is folded into Walter's proposal
- Arpad: Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft)
for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the
parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
- TBD
- TBD: Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE
- [External ...] also?
- TBD
- Arpad: Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries.
- Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do
-------------
New Discussion:
Bob: Considering Michael Mirmak to edit the AMI Improvements BIRD:
- He should have a fresh view of the work, having been out of the meetings
- Currently he is in Taiwan until the end of this month
- He has a talent for clarity
- There should be an editorial group including Michael, Walter and others
- Todd: I would like to join the editorial group
- Arpad: Is this a paid job?
- Bob: No
- Walter:
- Would like to follow these steps:
- 1 Have a 1 meeting final review to resolve open issues (2 or 3)
- 2 Brainstorm (this group) to decide on document restructuring
- We have restricted to the previous structure so far
- Do we want an intro to serdes modeling?
- What we have is a reference manual
- 3 Editing group produces the document
- Walter: There are two parts to the BIRD:
- syntax
- reserved parameters
- We also need a jitter BIRD and an analog amendment
- We may be one month away from editing
- Bob: The editing group might propose restructuring
- We need to move the IBIS portion from the middle of AMI
- There might be some new topics too
- A compatibility section, for example
- We don't have an outline yet
- The IBIS committee should not have to deal with editorial issues
- We need to review the whole document with any new parameters in it
- Walter: Should this committee create the BIRD?
- Bob: That would be preferable
- Michael M should head the editorial group
- Walter: The editorial group might decide to put it in a non-text format
- It might have graphics
- It may not be compatible with the IBIS spec
- Bob: I would not favor that
- Arpad: Would it be an independent spec?
- Walter: That would be better
- We should not have put AMI into the IBIS spec 2 years ago
- Todd: IBIS has caused some difficulty by being restricted to text only
- Arpad: Other specs like VHDL have PDF formats
- We could have an independent spec referenced by IBIS
- Randy: People mostly look at our PDF IBIS spec file anyway
- Arpad: We had decided to make the IBIS spec parseable
- The IBIS comment character leads most lines, for example
- Bob: We could reduce section 6c to IBIS format
- The rest could be in a separate document
- We are not ready to rework all of IBIS
- An ANSI standard submission should not be all jumbled up
- We just want to get this AMI document out
- Walter: We should have a state-of-the-art AMI spec
- Mike: The current IBIS spec is an MSWord document
- Can a multi-file document be an ANSI standard?
- Bob: We should be able to convert the editing group product to text
- John: The issue may be that the editing group product may be hard to
convert to text
- Arpad: The comment character on every line is an issue
- Bob: This should be done for the whole spec if at all
- Todd: Are we moving away from having a .txt version of the spec?
- Arpad: The .txt was only there to be parseable
- Mike: The current .txt file has 436 errors and 57 warnings in IBISCHK5
- Todd: We saddled ourselves with a very large spec
- We need a strategy to evolve it more rapidly
- We could reference a separate document
- The AMI syntax is very different anyway
- We should also deprecate some language features, like HTML does
- Walter: Agree, some keywords can go
- Bob: Are people expected to render things obsolete with the new release?
- Walter: Models written to 5.0 standards will still work
- Only minor editing or parser tolerance is needed
- Arpad: We should write a BIRD to move most content to a new document
- Walter: There would be 2 documents, voted on together
- Bob: We could take section 10 out of IBIS
- That would put the process on hold
- There would be nothing to submit
- Walter: I will prepare a new chapter 1 Introduction
- Bob: It needs an outline
- The Touchstone spec gives us a template
- Walter: A tech writer can do that
- We should brainstorm next week
Next meeting: 16 Mar 2009 12:00pm PT
--------
IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:
1) Simulator directives
IBIS Macromodel Task Group
Meeting date: 30 March 2010
Members (asterisk for those attending):
Adge Hawes, IBM
* Ambrish Varma, Cadence Design Systems
* Anders Ekholm, Ericsson
* Arpad Muranyi, Mentor Graphics Corp.
Barry Katz, SiSoft
* Bob Ross, Teraspeed Consulting Group
Brad Brim, Sigrity
Brad Griffin, Cadence Design Systems
Chris Herrick, Ansoft
Chris McGrath, Synopsys
* Danil Kirsanov, Ansoft
David Banas, Xilinx
Deepak Ramaswany, Ansoft
Donald Telian, consultant
Doug White, Cisco Systems
* Eckhard Lenski, Nokia-Siemens Networks
Eckhard Miersch, Sigrity
Essaid Bensoudane, ST Microelectronics
* Fangyi Rao, Agilent
Ganesh Narayanaswamy, ST Micro
Gang Kang, Sigrity
Hemant Shah, Cadence Design Systems
Ian Dodd, consultant
Jerry Chuang, Xilinx
Joe Abler, IBM
* John Angulo, Mentor Graphics
John Shields, Mentor Graphics
* Ken Willis, Sigrity
Kumar Keshavan, Sigrity
Lance Wang, Cadence Design Systems
Luis Boluna, Cisco Systems
Michael Mirmak, Intel Corp.
* Mike LaBonte, Cisco Systems
Mike Steinberger, SiSoft
Mustansir Fanaswalla, Xilinx
Patrick O'Halloran, Tiburon Design Automation
Paul Fernando, NCSU
Pavani Jella, TI
* Radek Biernacki, Agilent (EESof)
* Randy Wolff, Micron Technology
Ray Komow, Cadence Design Systems
Richard Mellitz, Intel
Richard Ward, Texas Instruments
Samuel Mertens, Ansoft
Sam Chitwood, Sigrity
Sanjeev Gupta, Agilent
* Scott McMorrow, Teraspeed Consulting Group
Shangli Wu, Cadence Design Systems
Sid Singh, Extreme Networks
Stephen Scearce, Cisco Systems
Steve Kaufer, Mentor Graphics
Steve Pytel, Ansoft
Syed Huq, Cisco Systems
Syed Sadeghi, ST Micro
Ted Mido, Synopsys
Terry Jernberg, Cadence Design Systems
* Todd Westerhoff, SiSoft
Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov, Mentor Graphics
Vikas Gupta, Xilinx
Vuk Borich, Agilent
* Walter Katz, SiSoft
* Wenyi Jin, LSI Logic
* Zhen Mu, Mentor Graphics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:
- None
--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:
- No one declared a patent.
-------------
Review of ARs:
- Arpad and Bob: Discuss process and goals for this group
- Arpad: Write a clarification BIRD to discuss accuracy issues related to the
various AMI clock_tick algorithms in an IBIS-AMI DLL
- TBD
- Arpad: Write parameter passing syntax proposal (BIRD draft)
for *-AMS models in IBIS that is consistent with the
parameter passing syntax of the AMI models
- TBD
- TBD: Propose a parameter passing syntax for the SPICE
- [External ...] also?
- TBD
- Arpad: Review the documentation (annotation) in the macro libraries.
- Deferred until a demand arises or we have nothing else to do
-------------
New Discussion:
Arpad showed an ATM Process and Goals presentation:
- Slide 4:
- We will submit to Open Forum BIRD(s) to solve problem with AMI
- Only to correct errors and inconsistencies in 5.0
- No new features will be addressed
- Slide 5:
- The draft BIRD is discussed in ATM meetings
- The BIRD will be submitted to the Open Forum for review
- The Open Forum will call for a vote for acceptance into IBIS 5.2
- Slide 6:
- The BIRD addresses multiple issues, there are opinion differences
- Need feedback from:
- EDA vendors
- Model makers
- IBIS parser developers
- Some "mission creep" is slipping into the BIRD
- Slide 7:
- Our problem is that we chose to write a single BIRD for all issues
- This is like writing a new specification
- Slide 8:
- We should adopt a minimalist approach
- Consider writing multiple smaller BIRDs
- We should clarify semantics more than changing keywords
- We should have a toolkit on the web with functioning example models
- Todd: The TX model in our toolkit is complete and ready to run
- Arpad: We should have RX too
- Radek: Is it posted on the IBIS website?
- Todd: Yes it is the latest in the ATM work archive
Arpad: Would like to discuss the checklist
- Bob: The main goal is that we are clear and accurate
Arpad showed a checklist spreadsheet:
- Items are divided into four categories
- Parser
- Flow
- Ambiguities
- Existing BIRD
- "Must fix" items are identified
- Walter: I am working to eliminate "Array"
- Bob: That row (28) could just be removed
- Walter: Agree
- Radek: Quotes and characters should be in ambiguities
- Arpad added that
- Bob: We also have to separate the .ami and .dll portions
- John: This could go in flow
- Fangyi: COuld this be part of row 11?
- Bob: No
- Todd: The new text doesn't spell it out
- John: At least not well enough
- It should have a diagram
- Fangyi: Should we clarify the string extraction form .ami files?
- Bob: Arpad's diagrams do that
- Todd: That is different
- We only need to record that it needs to be fixed, not how
- Fangyi: We should clarify the units of the ??? function?
- Arpad: Would like to post this on the ATM website
- Do we need other columns?
- The BIRD ID column is there to deal with multiple BIRDs
Bob: Do we need one BIRD to set a baseline for the others?
- Arpad: Any single large BIRD will cause problems
- Todd: For each BIRD we have to define the mission
- Walter had talked about Jitter and Analog BIRDs, for example
- This has to be doing up front
- Bob: Are we talking about BIRDs in this committee, or to submit?
- Arpad: To be submitted
- Bob: A large number of BIRDs have not integrate well at the Open Forum
- Arpad: Some things can be grouped together
- Bob: We have to consider deprecation
- Eliminating Format may be OK
- Deprecation must be a last resort, however
- One BIRD may contradict another BIRD
- Todd: We have a process to clean 5.0, Jitter, and Analog
- How should we submit this to the Open Forum?
- Bob: For example, the clock_tick problem should be a BIRD
- Arpad: That is a 5.0 problem
- But Bob said we should have one BIRD for 5.0 cleanup
- Ambrish: Rows 16 to 20 could be submitted together
- Arpad: We should not do enhancements
- We may need to take apart our flows
- They contain both fixes and enhancements
- Scott:
- We should have a clear delineation betwwen:
- 5.0 spec clarification
- Full BIRD for this
- This can be tasked out in subsections
- Other BIRDs to clarify specific things
- 5.0 clarification is primary
- Todd: This is what we have discussed, except for tasking out the clarification
- We are talking about "micro-BIRDs"
- The point is that this group must approve
- Scott: Maybe "baby BIRDs"
- Bob: Not in full agreement
- Walter: I thought many of our ideas were already approved
- We have to have formal approval
- Arpad: That's why I added column D, to record approval
- Walter: If we skip row 25 we need do define Reserved_Parameter carefully
AR: Arpad send presentation and spreadsheet to Mike for posting
AR: Mike post presentation and spreadsheet to website
Next meeting: 06 Apr 2009 12:00pm PT
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IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:
1) Simulator directives
Other related posts:
