ALF meeting March 27, 2001

Attendees
	Tim Ehrler		Philips
	Joe Daniels		Accellera
	Greg Dufour		Mentor		by phone
	Frank Weiler		Magma		by phone
	Cynthia Parrish		Aristo
	Sergei Sokolov		Sequence	by phone
	Wolfgang Roethig	NEC

Update from previous meetings
-----------------------------
- DATE 2001
	ALF was mentioned in Accellera panel
	Audience: 80 People
	OLA WG meeting: good attendance
	OLA panel: poor attendance due to re-scheduling late in the evening
	(also Magma party was held at the same time)

- DASC meeting
	see minutes on ftp://dasc.org/pub/dasc/minutes/2001-03/
	and download .ppt file on alf homepage

Next meetings
-------------
	April 16: afternoon 1PM-5PM @ Magma Cupertino CA
	May 8: @ CICC San Diego (evening, 2H max) with dinner
	June: @ DAC in Las Vegas
	July: around 25, 26 @ IBM Fishkill NY (co-located w OLA) or west coast ??
	August: skip or do just phone conference(s)
	September 3: @ FDL conference in Lyon France ?
	October 1: @ Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville OR ?
	November 5: @ Monterey in Sunnyvale CA ?
	December 3: @ Philips in Phoenix AZ ?
	2002, February: @ ASP-DAC in Bangalore India ?
AI: find meeting opportunity @ DAC - Wolfgang
AI: discuss all proposed meeting dates after DAC with OLA WG in April - Wolfgang
AI: find host for meeting during ASP-DAC (candidate: TI?), talk to Steve Schultz - Wolfgang

Chair election
--------------
Mike Andrews can no longer assume role as ALF co-chair
Motion by Joe: Wolfgang Chairperson - unanimously approved
Motion by Joe: Cynthia Co-chairperson - unanimously approved

PAR
---
Filled out form (preliminary)
AI: send form to WG and Paul Menchini for sanity check and correctness - Wolfgang
Idea: Mention ALF proliferation in industry as additional explanatory note in PAR
AI: list Sequence ALF customers - Sergei

Informal technical discussion
-----------------------------

Objective: gather material for next meeting

* Incremental definition (as opposed to overwrite) - Sergei, Tim
Practical usage: convenience for library update, "liquid" library on the fly,
limitations of characterization tools
Need to be re-visited item by item (which objects are suitable for incremental
definition, which are not)
Sergei's preference: restricted use of incremental redefinitions
Tim's preference: extended use of incremental redefinitions

* table of contents - Joe
chapter = clause
need overview, references, definitions, acronyms and abbreviations
need to clean up overview: page 2 says "not support physical", later paragraphs says
"support physical"
Chapter 2, 3, 4 should be revisited
More code fragments for syntax
Header files? e.g. Default and predefined items in ALF language
drop appendix A, C
migrate some of A into normative chapters as application sniplets

* non-scan-cell - Wolfgang
get rid of LHS constants (ugly syntax), already covered by signaltype, polarity etc.

* current - Wolfgang
need better definition of current path, node-to-node not sufficient, need component
e.g. current through resitor R1 etc.

* noise - Wolfgang
currently use voltage, new keyword "noise" as normalized voltage would be handy

* manufacturability - Wolfgang
need metal density rules

* vector expression language - Sergei, Wolfgang
Currently no visible issues, however, Sequence supports only a subset.
Idea: write the LRM in a way that makes it easy to distinguish between subset and full set
AI: explain supported and non-supported features of vector language - Sergei

Rough idea for vector expression language extension:
allow overlap (partly simultaneous events), repetitions ...

Informal discussion for ALF promotion
-------------------------------------
Idea in context of CICC: ALF promotion for IP modeling
AI: contact Larry Rosenberg - Wolfgang
AI: get contact info for Chris Lennard and others - Joe
AI: request Dennis Brophy to contact VSIA formally - Wolfgang, Greg
AI: publicity for CICC tutorial and panel - all
AI: find possible attendees for ALF meeting during CICC - all

Joe: IEEE 1481 is now an IEC standard
AI: find out what IEC is - Joe

AI: get Magma person for official ALF strategy statement - Frank

Request from users: Open source for ALF sample libraries, lib2alf, alf2lib converters, ALF API etc.
AI: find out whether Accellera would be interested in creating a legal distribution channel - Frank