[ibis-macro] key backchannel proposal points

  • From: Ken Willis <kenw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "IBIS-ATM (ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)" <ibis-macro@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:48:28 -0700

Hi all,

After several rounds of discussion on the back-channel BIRD, there are clearly 
some different views. The proposal we have has a couple of key ideas in it, 
which I want to state here for clarity:


-          AMI models should be seen as a black box. The spec should just 
define the API into/out of them, and give model developers the freedom to put 
whatever innovative behavior their SerDes has in there. It isn't up to this 
committee to legislate or hard-code what can be inside the black box. That goes 
against the basic spirit of the IBIS-AMI approach, and we view it as a 
dangerous path. Inside the algorithmic model is the modelers' domain.

-          Let's put the protocol-specific parameters into a separate .bci file 
that both Tx and Rx access. Protocol_Specific back-channel parameters are 
analogous to Model_Specific parameters in an AMI file. They can be defined 
without having to drive a multitude of new Reserved_Parameters into the IBIS 
spec for a new standard, and have to go through a long spec release and golden 
parser development cycle to get into the industry.

-          The job of the EDA tool is to simply pass the communication back and 
forth between the Tx and Rx, and let the models do their thing from an 
equalization standpoint.

These basic ideas form the basis for our proposal. We will cover some more 
details on this in the next meeting. There are other ideas on backchannel that 
certainly have technical merit, but they do take us in a different direction. I 
encourage other members besides Cadence and SISoft to chime in with their views 
to help us get to closure on backchannel.

Thanks,

Ken


[cid:image002.jpg@01CF648A.568A6A90]



Ken Willis   |   Product Engineering Director - High Speed Analysis Products

P: 980-245-7595     www.cadence.com<http://www.cadence.com>







GIF image

JPEG image

Other related posts:

  • » [ibis-macro] key backchannel proposal points - Ken Willis