DC-WG: 2/29 meeting minutes


Subject: DC-WG: 2/29 meeting minutes
From: Mark Hahn (mhahn@cadence.com)
Date: Mon Mar 06 2000 - 10:19:32 PST


Meeting minutes from the 2/29/00 DC-WG teleconference
-----------------------------------------------------

Attendees:
  Mark Hahn, Cadence
  Tom Dewey, Mentor
  Bob Dilly, IBM
  John Paul, IBM
  Vikas Sharma, IBM

New action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Tom 3/7 Update the spec with changes

Open action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Bob 2/29 Test behavior of relative includes
                  -> 3/7 (source) in TCL, along with handling
                           of embedded spaces in the file name
                           for PC compatibility

Closed action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Tom 2/29 Update the spec with changes
 2. Mark 2/29 Talk with Lynn Horobin about OVI
                           booth space at DAC

Next Meeting:

  The next meeting will be a teleconference on 3/7/00
  from 9-11 am (PDT)

Details:
  1. Review status of golden parser

     Bob sent out an updated version of the parser. We talked about
     using cvs and patch to handle updates. We had some discussion
     about whether it makes sense for the parser to build up a complete
     TCL data structure representing all of the constraints in the
     DCDL file. Mark had some concerns about the efficiency of this
     as well as the complexity of keeping track of the design scope
     and the file scope parameters that were in effect at the time
     each constraint was interpreted.

  2. DAC planning

     Booth space is a problem. The joint EDA standards booth
     doesn't seem likely to happen this year, OVI won't have it's
     own booth, nor will VSI.

     Tom did further investigation on the PicoJava design, which
     has about 650K gates and a full set of constraint files.

  3. include command

     Mark proposed having a notion of file scope, which specifies
     the extent of certain commands (design_name_space and units,
     for now). These commands are independent of the design hierarchy
     and affect the interpretation of all subsequent commands within
     the same file. When the include command is used, the included
     file can either have its own file scope (the default) or be included
     in the parent file's scope, using a -inline option. This allows
     robust handling of constraints for independently designed IP blocks
     (which would have their own file scope), as well as sharing of a
     common include file to specify name space and units .

     We agreed
     - to use our own include command instead of replicating
       the TCL source command syntax and semantics
     - to have the file name be quoted using double quotes
     - to have relative file names be interpreted with respect
       to the directory containing the parent file
     - to have a -inline option

  3. Review design_name_space command

     We agreed to separate the escape options into
     -string_escape_start and -string_escape_end options, to
     avoid issues with separating a combined string into several
     components. We also agreed to use standard TCL escape conventions
     for special characters, such as "\\" and "\n", within the escape
     strings.

     We agreed that we don't need the -length option, since all of
     design object names in DCDL must by definition already be legal.

  4. Background document

     We talked about having a background document to keep track of
     the reasons behind significant design choices in DCDL.

Thanks,
Mark

-- 
Mark Hahn                                          phone: (408) 428-5399
Senior Architect                                   fax:   (408) 428-5959
Cadence Design Systems                             email: mhahn@cadence.com



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