DC-WG: 3/28 meeting minutes


Subject: DC-WG: 3/28 meeting minutes
From: Mark Hahn (mhahn@cadence.com)
Date: Tue Apr 04 2000 - 08:17:47 PDT


Meeting minutes from the 3/28/00 DC-WG teleconference
-----------------------------------------------------

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

New action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Tom 4/4 Update the spec with changes
 2. Tom 4/4 Find out who else will be using the
                           standards booth
 3. Bob 4/4 Investigate whether a pure EDIF name
                           space in DCDL would be sufficient for
                           IBM's needs

Open action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Bob 3/28 Create a block diagram that shows the
                  -> 4/4 relationship between the TCL interpreter,
                           DCDL TCL cmds, and the reference parser

Closed action items:

      Who When What
      ---------- ------ --------
 1. Tom 3/28 Update the spec with changes

Next Meeting:

  The next meeting will be a teleconference on 4/11/00
  from 10-12 am (PDT)

Details:

  1. DAC planning

     Tom will follow up with Dennis Brophy to find out what other
     groups will be doing in the standards booth. Our concern is
     that, given the time constraints, we don't want to set the
     expectation that the DCDL demo will be the centerpiece (or only
     piece) of the booth. We particularly don't want to be the
     only exhibit in a fairly large booth.

  2. Discuss EDIF option for design_name_space

     The first question was whether EDIF is used frequently
     enough in design flows today to justify the inclusion;
     IBM uses it fairly widely in their flow.

     We were concerned that most tools have complicated
     options for reading and writing EDIF, because the native
     EDIF name space is fairly primitive. When mapping between
     EDIF and other languages, escaped names etc. lead to "misuse"
     of the EDIF name space, and the extra options control how
     to interpret names that don't conform properly.

  3. Timing commands

     Vikas is working on extending the reference parser to cover
     additional commands, and had a number of questions. We agreed
     to accelerate discussion on these commands, and that based
     on the discussion, Vikas would submit proposals for updating
     the spec, which Tom will incorporate, assuming that the proposals
     are ok pending later review.

     The false_path command should have -from_waveform and
     -to_waveform options.

     There was some discussion about clock roots versus waveforms.
     The advantage of separating the concepts lies in defining virtual
     clocks that are used as a reference for arrival and required times
     but aren't actually provided to the module currently being described.

     There should be -pin_load and -wire_load options to the external_load
     command.

     Waveform edge times may be negative numbers.

  3. Discuss current_scope command, scoping theory

     We discussed relative path names and agreed that DCDL should
     require a leading hierarchical delimiter at the start of fully
     qualified path names. If a leading hierarchical delimiter is
     specified, then the name is interpreted with respect to the top
     level cell in the design regardless of what the current scope
     is. If a leading hierarchical delimiter isn't specified, then
     the name is interpreted as relative to the current scope.

     The hierarchical delimiter is defined by the design_name_space,
     but the rule about having a leading hierarchical delimiter in
     fully qualified names is specific to 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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