[ibis-macro] Minutes from the 25 Sep 2012 ibis-atm meeting

  • From: Mike LaBonte <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: IBIS-ATM <ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:48:48 -0400

Minutes from the 25 Sep 2012 ibis-atm meeting are attached.

Mike
                                             
IBIS Macromodel Task Group

Meeting date: 25 Sep 2012

Members (asterisk for those attending):
Agilent:                      Fangyi Rao
                              Radek Biernacki
Altera:                       David Banas
                              Julia Liu
                              Hazlina Ramly
Andrew Joy Consulting:        Andy Joy
ANSYS:                        Samuel Mertens
                            * Dan Dvorscak
                            * Curtis Clark
                              Steve Pytel
                              Luis Armenta
Arrow Electronics:            Ian Dodd
Cadence Design Systems:       Terry Jernberg
                            * Ambrish Varma
                              Feras Al-Hawari
Cavium Networks:              Johann Nittmann
Celsionix:                    Kellee Crisafulli
Cisco Systems:                Ashwin Vasudevan
                              Syed Huq
Ericsson:                     Anders Ekholm
IBM:                        * Greg Edlund
Intel:                      * Michael Mirmak
Maxim Integrated Products:    Mahbubul Bari
Mentor Graphics:            * John Angulo
                              Zhen Mu
                            * Arpad Muranyi
                              Vladimir Dmitriev-Zdorov
Micron Technology:            Randy Wolff
                              Justin Butterfield
NetLogic Microsystems:        Ryan Couts
Nokia-Siemens Networks:       Eckhard Lenski
QLogic Corp.                * James Zhou
Sigrity:                      Brad Brim
                            * Kumar Keshavan
                              Ken Willis
SiSoft:                     * Walter Katz
                              Todd Westerhoff
                              Doug Burns
                            * Mike LaBonte
Snowbush IP:                  Marcus Van Ierssel
ST Micro:                     Syed Sadeghi
Teraspeed Consulting Group:   Scott McMorrow
                            * Bob Ross
TI:                           Casey Morrison
                              Alfred Chong
Vitesse Semiconductor:        Eric Sweetman
Xilinx:                       Mustansir Fanaswalla
                              Ray Anderson

The meeting was led by Arpad Muranyi

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opens:

- None

--------------------------
Call for patent disclosure:

- None

-------------
Review of ARs:

- Walter send updated BIRD 123.4 for posting
  - Done

- Walter send updated BIRD 150.1 for posting
  - Done

- Walter also sent a BIRD 121 update

-------------
New Discussion:

Michael M. reported on the last interconnect meeting:
- They discussed the overall structure of IBIS
- Deprecation vs. creating a new specification will be discussed next meeting

Walter showed BIRD 123.4 draft 3:
- Walter: David Banas asked me to add some text
  - This is about when Rx_Clock_Recovery_Dj could be used
  - It doesn't seem necessary, but I don't object
- Arpad asked all to comment on this
- Michael M.: Dj always breaks down to those two components?
- Walter: I don't think so
- Mike L.: It could be stated as an example, to not be construed as a 
limitation.
- Walter: David also wanted a line removed, not sure if it should be

Ambrish showed BIRD 147 draft 1:
- Ambrish: This is still in plain text format, not the new IBIS 5.1 format
  - The new Type "Bits" has been added
  - The new Format "Bit_Pattern" has been added
  - These begin with letter codes b,o,h,d for number format
- Walter: Why would we want to have decimal format?
  - Type Bits would not be able to wrap across multiple lines
  - An advantage of strings is being able to use multiple lines
- Ambrish: PRBS would also use Type Bits
  - Same for LFSR, except this one is a bit tricky
  - Commas are used to separate register taps
- Kumar: Does it have a starting seed?
- Ambrish: Yes
- Ambrish: Without these types we would have to provide a lot of string use 
definitions
- Kumar: Are any standards committees involved with this?
- Ambrish: We need to discuss that
- Walter: Do we really need both PRBS and LFSR?
- Kumar: IEEE discusses both, but LFSR is a way to do PRBS
  - LFSR can be used for other things
- Walter: LFSR guarantees consistent implementation
  - PRBS may not be consistent
- Ambrish: Even with a seed?
- Kumar: You have to be more specific
- Walter: We could eliminate PRBS and show how to use LFSR for PRBS7, etc.

Michael M.: Is BIRD 131 to be discussed soon?
- Arpad: It may not be for a while but it is on the list

Walter showed BIRD 150.1 draft 1:
- Walter: The text is the same but it uses the new IBIS 5.1 format
  - The template didn't work well for this
  - We should all review this against BIRD 150.1 to check for mistakes
- Arpad: The new definitions at the bottom might be better placed elsewhere
- Walter: Good idea
- Walter explained the need for the various definitions
- Arpad: These are AMI related reserved names
  - Maybe they should be in the AMI section
- Walter: Agree
  - I call these "predefined" but they could be Reserved

Walter showed BIRD 127.2 draft 3:
- Walter: This is also in IBIS 5.1 format
  - The format worked out better for this one
  - We have been discussing by email whether to use List or Table
  - I agreed with Arpad, and changed it to Table
  - My example has one column, lots of rows
- Walter: DLL_Path is needed because the DLL can't find out where it is
  - It can also be used to find things like Matlab runtime files
  - The EDA tool will have to handle various path types
  - The example needs to be cleaned up
- Walter: DLL_ID will help avoid name collisions
- Arpad: Does the DLL have to know the directory structure for it's files?
- Walter: Yes
  - For example some vendors supply files that the DLL knows how to find
- Arpad: We might need more parameters to handle all possible cases
  - For example regular files and executables might need to be separate
  - Users might want to have only one copy of shared libraries
- Walter: A Model_Specific parameter might be used for that
  - To keep library items elsewhere a symbolic link in the DLL directory might 
do
- Arpad: Users might end up editing AMI files
  - That would not be good
  - Greg might have input on this
- Greg: I haven't run into issues
- Walter: Environment variables can serve some purposes too
- James: You can't point to an executable through environment variables
  - Matlab DLLs have trouble finding the right runtime version
  - We need a clear designation of where supporting files can be
  - For example files might be in the same directory or sub-directories
- Arpad: The spec should say DLLs should not depend on CWD
- Mike L: DLL_Path and Supporting_Files should work together
  - The Supporting_Files table could indicate where the DLL wants to find the 
files
- Arpad: We might not need Supporting_Files
- Walter: A directory might contain multiple models
  - We need to know which ones to take
- Walter added a note to clarify this
- Greg: There are two locations:
  - Where the model is
  - Where the DLL is
- Walter: No the DLL has to be where the IBIS files is
  - But the DLL has no way on it's own to find out where that is

- Arpad: We should all continue comments on this online

-------------
Next meeting: 02 Oct 2012 12:00pm PT

Next agenda:
1) Task list item discussions

-------------
IBIS Interconnect SPICE Wish List:

1) Simulator directives

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  • » [ibis-macro] Minutes from the 25 Sep 2012 ibis-atm meeting - Mike LaBonte