Todd, This was exactly my point. On what bases would an EDA tool be expected to plot Type Tap and none of the other Types? Or, are we saying that the tool is expected to plot any Usage InOut/Out regardless of its Type? And could any other expectations from the tool arise for the other Types, depending on what their meaning is? This is where the spec is clear as mud. If we say that the tool should plot the Type Tap, because we know the meaning of it (Tap), people could also come up with other rationale for the other types. But these expectations may all be very subjective, personally biased. We can’t have such expectations and such loose ends in a specification. On the other hand, if we do not have such expectations, then why would we allow to have InOut/Out for Model Specific parameters? It just doesn’t make sense… In my opinion the specification should mention what the tool should or could do with these InOut/Out parameters, or prohibit them. Thanks, Arpad ============================================================= From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Todd Westerhoff Sent: Monday, February 21, 2011 8:08 AM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Arpad, It’s School Vacation week here in MA and I’m out this week – which just means my access to email will be sporadic, so please bear with me. 1. If we collect data returned by a parameter of (Type Tap), we get a list of timestamps and floating point numbers 2. If we collect data returned by a parameter of (Type Float), we get a list of timestamps and floating point numbers 3. If we collect data returned by a parameter of (Type Integer), we get a list of timestamps and integer numbers 4. If we collect data returned by a parameter of (Type String), we get a list of timestamps and strings There’s nothing special about (Type Tap). Does that help? I have to run a few errands, but can put an example together later today if needed. Todd. ________________________ Todd Westerhoff VP, Software Products SiSoft 6 Clock Tower Place, Suite 250 Maynard, MA 01754 (978) 461-0449 x24 twesterh@xxxxxxxxxx www.sisoft.com From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Muranyi, Arpad Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 12:35 PM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Todd, Scott, Let’s put the finger pointing and personal overtones aside and talk on a technical level. The issue is not whether anyone did or does something special. The issue is that the spec allows that to happen. Todd, SiSoft’s responses to this thread mentioned on multiple occasions that since the parameter is a Type Tap, the tool should know to plot the returned values. In that case we should put it into the specification that for Type Tap the tool is expected or encouraged to plot, or write a log file, or report the returned values in some way that is useful to the user. But we have other Types in the spec in addition to Tap. What are we suggesting for the EDA tool to do with those? Regarding “The model’s documentation should describe what each parameter represents, and therefore whether it makes sense to plot it in some special way” I don’t see how you can say that an EDA tool could do anything based on interpreting each model’s documentation and respond accordingly. This would take a little too much of artificial intelligence and a self modifying software code. Remember, there are other Types of Model Specific parameters of Usage Out or InOut. What should be the expectations for those? Take for example my previous example of the Float parameter CorDeNuit. If I put it in the “Description” of this parameter that the EDA tool should blow its horn, but only at night, is your tool going to be able to read and interpret this description (documentation) and blow its horn if this parameter returns a value during the night time hours? Besides, what is the definition of night time hours? Is it midnight to 6 a.m. or 5 p.m. to 8 a.m., etc…? In addition, I don’t see how an EDA tool will read a Word document or PDF file, or a Readme.txt file to find out how to interpret the Model Specific parameters of an .ami file… This sounds a little too new age-ish to me… Arpad =============================================================== From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Todd Westerhoff Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 5:15 PM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Scott, Looks like you’re assuming we’re doing something special because we “know” something about the parameter being plotted. That isn’t the case. The .ami file snippet for the model in Mike’s paper looks something like this: (dfe (taps (1 (Usage InOut)(Format Range 0 -1.0 1.0)(Type Tap) (Default 0)(Description "First DFE tap.")) (2 (Usage InOut)(Format Range 0 -1.0 1.0)(Type Tap) (Default 0)(Description "Second DFE tap.")) (3 (Usage InOut)(Format Range 0 -1.0 1.0)(Type Tap) (Default 0)(Description "Third DFE tap.")) (4 (Usage InOut)(Format Range 0 -1.0 1.0)(Type Tap) (Default 0)(Description "Fourth DFE tap."))) This declares the parameter names used to pass tap data into the model, and tells the simulator the model may pass data back via ami_parameters_out using the same parameter names. Declaring the parameters as (Type Tap) tells the simulator the data to be passed to/from the model is a floating point number – so, in this case, the simulator collects the values for each parameter at each Getwave call, associates them with the appropriate timestamp, and then plots them. No magic there. Fact is, we could have just as easily called the parameters “Frobozz” or “My_Little_Froggie” with (Type Float) … and the process would have worked the same. There’s nothing magic about the parameter names. If you want to collect a whole bunch of parameters and scatter plot them against each other, go for it. The model’s documentation should describe what each parameter represents, and therefore whether it makes sense to plot it in some special way. When a parameter returns a number, it just makes sense to plot how that value progresses throughout the simulation. I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t. Making that “illegal” makes no sense at all. If you’re proposing a standardized form of post-processing ami_parameters_out data, then write it down & let’s discuss it in the Tuesday meetings. Talking about potential applications is all well and good, but it doesn’t move the spec forward. Have a good weekend, Todd. ________________________ Todd Westerhoff VP, Software Products SiSoft 6 Clock Tower Place, Suite 250 Maynard, MA 01754 (978) 461-0449 x24 twesterh@xxxxxxxxxx www.sisoft.com From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott McMorrow Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 2:14 PM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Todd In short, no. You keep avoiding the point. Your last step is undefined and requires someone, either the EDA software writer, or the end-user, to determine: 1. What the parameter is. 2. What to do with the parameter. If you are both the model maker and the EDA vendor, then you are in the privileged position of knowing what the parameters are, how they work, and whether or not there is an "interesting" way to present or post-process the data. Since a model specific parameter is provided blind, without additional documentation, processing or presentation of these parameters by anyone else, would be a guess, possibly educated, but still a guess. The only way to know how to plot, present, or post-process a Model Specific output parameter today is via a-priori knowledge of the "meaning" of the parameter. Yes, DFE taps are a no-brainer, only because we all believe we have a-priori knowledge of what a Tap is. The parameters could have just as easily have been named XYZ_frog1, XYZ_frog2 ... etc. Do you know how to deal with this parameter? Neither do I. I maintain that the model maker needs to document, in a machine and human understandable way, what the EDA tool is expected to do with these parameters whether it be, plotting, presentation, or post-processing. Otherwise, the parameter is not needed. This means that we as a committee have to come up with documentation on what to do with these model specific output parameters. The point is, no one knows whether these outputs are important unless they are documented. IF they are unimportant, then they should not be there. An example of acceptable processing might be: * Reserved for Model Development/Debug * Plot with respect to time * Plot against another parameter as a scatter plot * Status with a some sort of text description * For example 0 = PLL out of lock, 1 = PLL locked * Loss of signal Scott Scott McMorrow Teraspeed Consulting Group LLC 121 North River Drive Narragansett, RI 02882 (401) 284-1827 Business (401) 284-1840 Fax http://www.teraspeed.com Teraspeed® is the registered service mark of Teraspeed Consulting Group LLC On 2/18/2011 1:38 PM, Todd Westerhoff wrote: Arpad (and Scott), For anyone who may not recognize the picture, the excerpted diagram is Figure 7 from the 2008 DesignCon Paper “Demonstration of SerDes Modeling using the Algorithmic Modeling Interface (AMI) Standard”. The paper is available on-line from both the DesignCon InfoVault (http://www.designcon.com/infovault/) and SiSoft’s eLearning site (http://www.sisoft.com/elearning/). I think we’re debating a semantic difference between post-processing and plotting. The graph in the presentation was created by accumulating the AMI_parameters_out data passed back from each Getwave call and then plotting the value of the DFE taps as a function of time. I’m hoping you’ll agree that the EDA tool knows the timestamp associated with Getwave call, so we don’t need to debate the meaning of “as a function of time.” If you believe we need to spell this out in more detail, how does the following text: Add the following step to each of the application scenarios in section 10.2: Optionally, the EDA platform may log the contents of AMI_parameters_out for later display. The generic steps to do this are: Parse AMI_parameters_out according to the syntax definition provided in section 10.3.1.2.6. Record the name and value of each leaf of the parameter tree. The type of each value is determined directly by the BNF syntax rules that were used to parse the value's representation in the parameter string. Present the data to the user in whatever manner the EDA tool deems suitable Suit you? Todd. P.S. I really proofread this one … hopefully I got all the typos out! ________________________ Todd Westerhoff VP, Software Products SiSoft 6 Clock Tower Place, Suite 250 Maynard, MA 01754 (978) 461-0449 x24 twesterh@xxxxxxxxxx www.sisoft.com From: Muranyi, Arpad [mailto:Arpad_Muranyi@xxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 9:53 AM To: twesterh@xxxxxxxxxx; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: [ibis-macro] One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Todd, Regarding “Thus far, I don’t see any examples of that, which leaves me wondering what the actual problem we’re debating here is.” your own tools and presentations are the examples for that… The very fact that your tool displays a plot of the tap coefficients as they converge to a final value as the optimizer is doing its job is post processing. Or even just putting these values into a log file is post processing. The only thing that is not post processing is if these returned parameters would be ignored. But in that case the model might as well not return them, which is the same as prohibiting Out and InOut for Model Specific parameters… Arpad =========================================================================== From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Todd Westerhoff Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 7:27 AM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] One MORE time without the typo ... RE: Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Man, I hate it when this happens … perhaps a sign that I should be using my reading glasses more often? All, I’d like to point out that Model Specific output parameters already have a machine parsable spec, because their names, data types and output format (i.e. how the model passes them back) are defined by the combination of the IBIS 5.0 spec and the .ami file. Thus, if the EDA tool wants to collect and display that data (even if it’s in a tool-dependent fashion), there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. The potential issue with model portability arises when the simulator is expected to post-process the Parameters_Out data in some fashion, affecting the assessment of the link’S BER (or whatever other key metric you choose to focus on). Thus far, I don’t see any examples of that, which leaves me wondering what the actual problem we’re debating here is. My $0.02. Todd. ________________________ Todd Westerhoff VP, Software Products SiSoft 6 Clock Tower Place, Suite 250 Maynard, MA 01754 (978) 461-0449 x24 twesterh@xxxxxxxxxx www.sisoft.com From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott McMorrow Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 9:22 PM To: kwillis@xxxxxxxxxxx; Arpad_Muranyi@xxxxxxxxxx; ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Ken I agree and would like to make model specific output parameters illegal when they are not accompanied with a machine parsible spec for processing. Scott McMorrow President Teraspeed Consulting Group LLC (401) 284-1827 <tel:4012841827> -----Original message----- From: Ken Willis <kwillis@xxxxxxxxxxx> <mailto:kwillis@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: Arpad_Muranyi@xxxxxxxxxx, ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Thu, Feb 17, 2011 15:47:43 GMT+00:00 Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Hi Arpad, I am working on a back-channel BIRD draft now, so this will hopefully help to shed some light on the parameter usage being considered. But I agree that if there are standard things the EDA tools are supposed to do with model outputs, they have to go in the spec. Otherwise it is all open to interpretation and model makers don't have a standard to build their models to. Thanks, Ken Willis Sigrity, Inc. 860-871-7070 kwillis@xxxxxxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Muranyi, Arpad Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 10:36 AM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Thanks for all the responses. None of these concepts were unfamiliar to me, but it was still nice to see them mentioned and summarized. But most of you missed the point of my question, most notably Mike's question at the end of his reply: > Given that so much information has been publicly and widely available > since before IBIS 5.0 was ratified, how is it that you came to conclude > that "no EDA vendor has the knowledge on how to interpret or post > process these returned parameters"? The answer to Mike's question "how is it that you came to conclude" is exactly the point of my discussion: ---> Because the specification doesn't say so. A Model Specific parameter can be anything. I agree that in case of a Type Tap the EDA tool could have some clues to show or print the returned values to the user, but the specification doesn't say so. If this is an expectation from the EDA tool, then the specification should talk about that. But the bigger problem is that there are other Types also which could be Out or InOut. What if my AMI model has a parameter called CorDeNuit, Type Float, Usage Out? What should my tool do with it? Blow its horn at the frequency given in the parameter value? (Those of you who know pipe organs will get this...) :-) I am not challenging the technical explanations give to me in any of your responses. The point I am trying to make is that this is simply bad spec writing. If the model returns something to the tool which supposed to be plotted or printed, or post processed in any way as shown in Mike's DesignCon 2008 paper, the specification should define the appropriate mechanisms to do so. I am getting even more concerned that the Back Channel communication was also mentioned in this discussion as a reason to keep Out and InOut for Model Specific parameters. I am concerned that these will cause further problems and confusions in the future. I think we should strive to have a well defined feature set in the specification so that individual misinterpretations or tool specific features based on secret insider information etc... could be prevented. Any comments or suggestions? Thanks, Arpad ======================================================================== === -----Original Message----- From: ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ibis-macro-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Steinberger Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 8:43 AM To: ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [ibis-macro] Re: Question about Model Specific parameters Arpad- Please find attached a copy of our DesignCon2008 paper on AMI modeling. Among other things, this paper describes the use of parameters of Usage Out to monitor the adaptive loops in receivers. In point of fact, every receiver model that SiSoft writes (and most will admit that's a fair few) reports the behavior of its adaptive loops in exactly this way. Furthermore, many users of SiSoft's Quantum Channel Designer use this data to obtain valuable information about their systems. Even at the last IBIS Summit, there were two presentations on channel optimization that reported the application of parameters of Usage Out and InOut. If you want to know how all this is done, Mike LaBonte's explanation is right on target.. Given that so much information has been publicly and widely available since before IBIS 5.0 was ratified, how is it that you came to conclude that "no EDA vendor has the knowledge on how to interpret or post process these returned parameters"? Mike S. On 2/16/2011 7:02 PM, Muranyi, Arpad wrote: > Hello everyone, > > I stumbled on a situation with an .ami file which has > a few Model Specific parameters of Usage InOut. Our > customer is wondering why we don't do this and that > with the data that is returned by the model in those > parameters. This triggers the following thoughts in > my mind. > > Model Specific parameters are specific to the model and > their meaning is not described by the AMI specification. > Therefore no EDA vendor has the knowledge on how to > interpret or post process these returned parameters > because there is simply no way of knowing what to do > with them. > > For this reason, I would suggest that we make a rule in > the IBIS AMI specification that Model Specific parameter > must be Usage In, and Usage Out or InOut should not be > allowed. > > Any Comments? > > Thanks, > > Arpad > ======================================================== > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > IBIS Macro website : http://www.eda.org/pub/ibis/macromodel_wip/ > IBIS Macro reflector: //www.freelists.org/list/ibis-macro > To unsubscribe send an email: > To: ibis-macro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: unsubscribe > --------------------------------------------------------------------- IBIS Macro website : http://www.eda.org/pub/ibis/macromodel_wip/ IBIS Macro reflector: //www.freelists.org/list/ibis-macro To unsubscribe send an email: To: ibis-macro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: unsubscribe --------------------------------------------------------------------- IBIS Macro website : http://www.eda.org/pub/ibis/macromodel_wip/ IBIS Macro reflector: //www.freelists.org/list/ibis-macro To unsubscribe send an email: To: ibis-macro-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: unsubscribe