Subject: EIA IBIS Open Forum Meeting Minutes (10/1/99)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 10:27:24 -0700

DATE: 10/5/99

SUBJECT: 10/1/99 EIA IBIS Open Forum Meeting Minutes

VOTING MEMBERS AND 1999 PARTICIPANTS LIST:
Applied Simulation Technology  Raj Raghuram*, Norio Matsui, Neven Orhanovic,
                               Fred Ballesteri
Avanti                         Nikolai Bannov
Cadence Design                 Mike LaBonte*
Cisco Systems                  Syed Huq
Compaq                         Bob Haller, Steve Coe, Shafir Rahman,
                               Maher Elasad
Cypress                        (Rajesh Manapat)
EMC Corporation                Fabrizio Zanella
Fairchild Semiconductor        [Peter LaFlamme], Craig Klem
H.A.S. Electronics             (Haruny Said)
Hewlett Packard (EEsof, etc.)  Paul Gregory, Henry Wu
HyperLynx (& Pads Software)    Matthew Flora*, Kellee Crisafulli, Lynne Green,
                               John Angulo*
IBM                            Greg Edlund, Michael Cohen*, Praven Patel
Incases                        Olaf Rethmeier, Werner Rissiek, David Eagles,
                               Wilhelm Arnoldi, Ulrich Losch
Intel Corporation              Stephen Peters*, Arpad Muranyi*, Frank Kern,
                               Martin Chang, Dave Moxley, Kerry Nelson*,
                               Jeff Day, Richard Mellitz, Peter Liou,
                               Will Hobbs*, Henri Maramis
LSI Logic (Symbios Logic)      Scott King
Mentor Graphics                Bob Ross*, Mohamed Mahmoud, Sherif Hammad,
                               Jean Oudinot, Markku Kukkanen, Martin Groeber,
                               Karine Loudet, Hisham Gamal, Evgeny Wasserman  
Mitsubishi                     (Tam Cao)
Motorola                       (Ron Werner)
National Semiconductor         Milt Schwartz
North East Systems Associates  Edward Sayre, Michael Baxter, Kathy Breda
NEC                            (Hiroshi Matsumoto)
Philips Semiconductor          Todd Andersen, Peter Christiaans
Quantic EMC                    (Mike Ventham)
Siemens                        Bernhard Unger, Christian Mitschke, 
                               Manfred Maurer, Peter Kaiser, Wolfram Meyer,
                               Gerald Bannert, Harmut Ibowski, Katja Zuleeg,
                               Hans Pichlmaier, Eckhard Lenski, Kortheuer Udo,
                               Christian Sporrer
SiQual                         Scott McMorrow
Texas Instruments              Jean-Claude Perrin, Shankar Balasubramaniah,
                               Ramzi Ammar, Thomas Fisher
Time Domain Analysis Systems   Dima Smolyansky
Viewlogic Systems              Chris Rokusek, Guy de Burgh*, Cary Mandel,
                               (Jon Powell)
VeriBest                       Ian Dodd
Via Technologies               (Weber Chuang)
VLSI Technology                D.C. Sessions

OTHER PARTICIPANTS IN 1999:
3Dfx Interactive               Ken Wu
Actel Corporation              Silvia Montoya
Alcatel                        Steven Criel
Analytical Edge                Robert Easson
Applied Microelectronics       Brian Sanderson
BMW                            Friedrich Haslinger
Bogatin Enterprise             Eric Bogatin
Bosch Telecom                  Detlef Wolf
Celestica                      Danny Da Silva
ECI Telecom                    Daniel Adar
EIA                            [Patti Rusher], Cecilia Fleming*,
                               Dan Heinemeier 
Electronique                   Catherine Gross
EFM Consulting                 Ekkehard Miersch
FCI                            John Ellis
High Design Technology         Razvan Ene
Hitachi ULSI                   Hideki Fukuda
Infineon                       Thomas Latzel
Intracon Design                Mike Osmond
Litton Systems                 Robert Bremer
Matsushita                     Atsuji Itoh
Molex Incorporated             Gus Panella
Nortel Networks                Martin Hall (& at Viewlogic), Calvin Trowell
Oce Printing Systems           Ernst Deiringer
Praegitzer Design              Rick Newell
Rockwell Collins               Susan Tweeton, Ron Hau
Samsung                        Jung-Gun Byun, Cheol-Seung Choi
Shindengen                     Tsuyoshi Horigome
Signals & Systems Engineering  Tom Hawkins
STMicroelectronics             Fabrice Boissieres, Philippe LeFevre
StorageTek                     Nick Krull
Sun Microsystems               Victor Chang, Kevin Ko
Tektronix                      Tom Brinkoetter
Teradyne                       Mikhail Khusid
VDOL                           Robert Novosel
Xilinx                         Susan Wu
(Unaffiliated, Retired)        Bruce Wenniger

In the list above, attendees at the meeting are indicated by *. Principal
members or other active members who have not attended are in parentheses.
Participants who no longer are in the organization are in square brackets.

Upcoming Meetings:  The bridge numbers for future IBIS teleconferences are as
follows:
  
  Date                Bridge Number    Reservation #    Passcode
  October 14, 1999 IBIS Summit Meeting, No Teleconference
  October 29, 1999    (916) 356-9200   2-356762         1385866
  November 19, 1999   (916) 356-9200   2-356763         7473493

All meetings are 8:00 AM to 9:55 AM Pacific Time.  We try to have agendas out 
7 days before each Open Forum and meeting minutes out within 7 days after.  
When you call into the meeting, ask for the IBIS Open Forum hosted by Will 
Hobbs and give the reservation number and passcode.

NOTE: "AR" = Action Required.

-------------------------------- MINUTES -------------------------------------

INTRODUCTIONS AND MEETING QUORUM
No new participants.

MEMBERSHIP UPDATE AND TREASURER'S REPORT
Bob Ross announced that Via Technologies in Taiwan is now an official EIA IBIS
Open Forum Member and is so listed above.

Guy de Burgh noted that he added Via Technologies to the membership list.  He
still is validating the addresses of four member companies.

REVIEW OF MINUTES AND AR'S
The September 10, 1999 Minutes were approved without change.

Bob Ross opened the discussion, per the AR's for Cecilia Fleming and Bob,
regarding alignment of the IBIS bylaws with EIA EP-20, and also with respect 
to new officer positions approved at the June 18, 1999 meeting.

The AR's are as follows:

AR - Bob Ross and Cecilia Fleming research what is needed to align the IBIS
bylaws with EP-20.

AR - Bob Ross and Cecilia Fleming write position definitions for the new 
positions of Webmaster and Postmaster.

Bob presented his opinion that the EP-20 bylaws do not relate well to 
organizations that conduct business on a frequent basis via teleconference 
calls and that use public e-mail reflectors for discussions.  The IBIS Open 
Forum has effectively conducted business in a professional manner for years 
with wide-spread public visibility and support.  There is no compelling 
reason for the IBIS Open Forum to change its mode of operation.

Bob noted that EP-20 has an "escape clause" in the Notice Page: "This
publication is not intended to preclude or discourage other approaches that
similarly represent good engineering practice, or that may be acceptable to, or
have been accepted by the appropriate bodies."  Bob proposed exercising this
clause to provide the rationale for dealing with the meeting quorum issue.

Bob proposed that the meeting quorum remain at 5 member companies for normal
teleconference business.  We typically have had about 8 to 10 participating 
at each meeting out of 31 companies.  Of this number, about 15 companies have
been calling in.  Many other companies have joined to be either supportive of
IBIS or to participate in other ways besides attending the teleconference
meetings.  

Formal letter ballot votes usually related to the official ratification of
documents.  Bob proposed that we will require a majority of official members
to vote on such issues.  This actually exceeds the EP-20 rules.  Currently
this means we would require 16 members to vote.

Bob also copied the officer positions from the original charter, but changed
to add draft descriptions of the new Postmaster and Webmaster positions.  We
will vote on adopting these new positions at a later meeting.

Position          Responsibilities
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairperson       Oversee all forum activities, preside at all general 
                  meetings.  Finance authority.  This person must be an 
                  employee of a Membership Company.

Vice Chair        Cover for chair and secretary in their absence, coordinate 
                  all public relations (press releases, media contacts).  This 
                  person must be an employee of a Membership Company.

Secretary         Coordinate logistics of all meetings, take and publish 
                  meeting minutes within 10 days of meeting.  [Delete this
                  task since it is  transferred to the Postmaster: Work with 
                  or act as file server sysop to maintain the reflector and 
                  on-line files.]  This person does not need to be an employee 
                  of a Membership Company.

Librarian         Maintain the library of public IBIS models, including 
                  verifying authenticity and compliance before posting.  This 
                  person does not need to be an employee of Membership 
                  Company.

Webmaster         Maintains the contents of the official EIA IBIS Open Forum
                  Web site and Roster files under www.eia.org either directly
                  or through contact with EIA staff.  This person does not
                  need to be an employee of a Membership Company.

Postmaster        Maintains the e-mail distribution lists and performs file
                  server sysop activities for the on-line files on the IBIS
                  site: www.eda.org/pub/ibis/.  This person does not need to
                  be an employee of a Membership Company.
                 
Other AR's will be discussed during the meeting.

MISCELLANY/ANNOUNCEMENTS
None.

PRESS AND WEB PAGE UPDATES
Bob Ross reported that Syed Huq uploaded an updated Roster.  Please review and 
send corrections to Syed.  We are listing primary and secondary member for the 
official EIA members, where possible.

Bob Ross noted that Michael Mirmak of Intel updated the tree3_0a.txt to
the Version 3.2 level and also expanded the content to note the IBIS Version
number when a feature was introduced.  Some enumerated items were added.  It
is now uploaded in

  http://pub/ibis/ver3.2/tree3_2.txt

Comments are welcome.  This may be enhanced further since some additional
modes are not documented.

The older trees formerly in the work in progress (wip) subdirectory have been
moved to the ver3.0 subdirectories.

Bob reported that Roy Leventhal of 3Com has prepared some IBIS tutorial
material and expanded descriptions.  Bob plans to upload the material in the
training subdirectory after the write-ups are reviewed and purged of some 
information that applies only to 3Com. 

Bob reported on a paper: "The Development of Analog SPICE Behavioral Model
Based on IBIS Model" in the Proceedings of the Ninth Great Lakes Symposium on
VLSI, March, 1999, by Ying Wang and Han Ngee Tan of Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, on pp. 101-104.  It presents some of the algorithms
that have been reported at IBIS Summit Meetings.  A link to this paper is:

  http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/ehntan/glsvlsi.zip

Bob noted that there was some discussion on the Signal Integrity Reflector on
IBIS algorithms with an older reference to:   

"Extraction of Transient Behavioral Model of Digital I/O Buffers from IBIS" by
Peivand Tehrani, Yuzhe Chen and Jiayuan Fang from the 46th IEEE Electronic
Components & Technology Conference,  May 28-31, 1996, pp. 1009-1015.  A link
exits under:

  http://www.sigrity.com/papers/ectc96/DOectc96ibis.htm

Bob also noted that "IBIS Models Accept the High Speed Challenge", by Dan 
Lake, Mentor Graphics, in Design Wave Magazine, August, 1999 in Japan.  The 
English translation is on the site:

  http://www.mentor.com/icx/articles/ibis_models_aug99.html

NEW MODELS AVAILABLE, LIBRARY UPDATE
Bob Ross stated that the Infineon IBIS model link previously published has 
been dropped.

OPENS FOR NEW ISSUES
None.

INTERNATIONAL/EXTERNAL PROGRESS
- IEC 62014-1 (IBIS Version 2.1) - Cecilia Fleming reported on the IEC TC93
meeting held in Arlington, Virginia on September 22-23, 1999.  She sent some
draft minutes and presentations to Bob Ross.  Cecilia noted that IEC 62014-1
vote (IEC 93/91/CDV) has been approved and is at FDIS due December 1, 1999.
Cecilia needs to make the changes necessary for it to be published.  The 
maintenance cycle will be three years, and Bob is designated the Project 
Leader.  Bob noted that other related business will be discussed later.

- pr EIAJ ED-5302 Standard for I/O Interface Model for Integrated Circuits
(IMIC) - Cecilia Fleming did not have any report on any possible discussions 
of IMIC at the IEC TC93 meeting.

- IEC PWI 93-1 Models of Integratd Circuits for EMI Behavioral Simulation
(formerly designated as IEC 93/67/NP IBIS and EMC Simulation) - Bob Ross
stated that the draft minutes of the IEC TC93 meeting above showed that
several national bodies were interested in IBIS and EMC.  The project is
still remaining at "zero stage".  Bob noted that the WG6 Action Plan has
these items to be done by December 2000 by Jean-Claude Perrin:

  Complete IBIS EMC Model Validation
  Work with IEC TC47 and IEC TC77 to define ways to measure and incorporate
    EMC characteristics into systems descriptions
  Encourage adoption of IBIS EMC extensions by software vendors

- JC-16.2 Subcommittee: Modeling and Test - Bob Ross noted that D.C. Sessions
reported provide a presentation at the JEDEC meeting in Vancouver, British
Columbia.  His slides (which are available directly from him) showed that he
reported on the progress of BIRD61, BIRD62, and BIRD63.  These BIRDs relate
to technologies of interest to JEDEC.

ANSI/EIA-656-A UPDATE
Bob Ross stated that he sent out the note to the IBIS reflectors after 
receiving notification from Cecilia Fleming that IBIS Version 3.2 is now 
officially ANSI/EIA-656-A as of September 21, 1999. 

Cecilia reported that she sent out a press release to 140 publications.

Bob asked that we formally vote on the release of ANSI/EIA-656-A to IEC for
international ratification.  

This was approved by unanimous vote.

Cecilia indicated that IBIS Version 3.2 would probably follow as IEC 62014-2 
and replace IEC 62014-1.  In the mean time, we are continuing with IEC 62014-1 
document preparations.

IBIS (EAST) USERS GROUP MEETINGS
Bob Ross noted that a meeting was held on Wednesday, September 15, 1999 to
work on IBIS Summit Meeting plans.  The ideas have been incorporated in the
agenda.

IBIS SUMMIT OCTOBER 14, 1999
Bob Ross reported on the IBIS Summit meeting scheduled on Thursday, October
14, 1999 at Marlborough, Massachusetts during the week of the PCB Conference
East.  Kathy Breda sent out another announcement notice on Friday, September
14, 1999.  Current Sponsors are NESA, Cadence, HyperLynx, and Praegitzer
Design.  Kathy had reported that about 18 people are officially signed up. 
We know of several others who are attending, and Bob expects about 30 to 40.

Along with a few presentations, we are focusing more on interactive 
roundtable discussions on some topics of current interest.  Everyone is
welcome to bring a few backup slides (versus a formal presentations) on points 
that you might want to raise.  (Blank overheads will also be available for
interactive discussions.)

Bob reviewed the agenda to date.  Lynne Green's presentation on "Model Design:
Tables and Equations" previously announced needs to postponed to the next IBIS
Summit due to an unexpected family situation preventing her from attending.
Also, the Connector Specification discussion will be part of a broader
discussion on IBIS Version 4.0 features.  (Work is continuing on the Connector
Specification, but it is not ready for full discussion yet.)

After reviewing the contents and rearranging some times, the draft agenda
will be sent out by Kathy on Friday, October 1, 1999 and the final meeting
agenda on Thursday, October 7, 1999.  The draft agenda that was sent out is
is given below:

8:30 AM   MORNING REFRESHMENTS (from the Sponsors)

9:00 AM   Introductions and Business
          Bob Ross, Mentor Graphics
          Ed Sayre North East Systems Associates (NESA)

9:30 AM   "Making the IBIS Specification More Readable"
          Roy Leventhal, 3Com

10:00 AM  "Model Extraction Based on Differential TDR"
          Steven Corey, Time Domain Analysis Systems

10:30 AM  BREAK (Refreshments from Sponsors)

10:45 AM  Roundtable - Accuracy Specification
          Bob Haller, Compaq (Leader)

12:00 PM  LUNCH (Provided to Attendees by the Sponsors)

1:00 PM   Roundtable - Input Modeling Discussion 
          Stephen Peters, Intel (Leader)

2:00 PM   Roundtable - IBIS Version 4.0 Features Discussion
          Bob Ross, Mentor Graphics (Leader)

2:30 PM   BREAK (Refreshments from Praegitzer Design)

2:45 PM   "Proposed Improvements to the SPICE to IBIS Tool"
          Mohamed Nasef, Mentor Graphics

3:15 PM   Roundtable - Spice to IBIS Discussion
          Mike LaBonte, Cadence

4:00 PM   Roundtable - Future of User Group Discussion
          Ed Sayre, NESA (Leader)

5:00 PM   FINAL BUSINESS AND ADJOURN

Raj Rahuram commented that this meeting overlaps with PCB East and causes
some people who need to be at the show to miss the meeting.  Bob thought
that the meeting spanned five days, but also noted that perhaps another day
that avoids the trade show portion might have been better.

S2IBIS3 COMMITTEE REPORT
Michael Cohen reported on the meeting held on September 30, 1999.  The main
item of business was to work through items of a draft requirements document
initially prepared by Syed Huq.  

The next subcommittee meeting is scheduled on October 7, 1999.  Michael 
hopes the requirements document will be finished by the end of October 1999.

IBIS DUES AND FUNDING
At the September 10, 1999 meeting the subject of IBIS dues and funding was
initially introduced.  Bob Ross opened the discussion by noting that the
main problem is that the IBIS Open Forum brings in about $15,000 per year,
but the EIA Budget for the IBIS Committee is about $22,000.  Bob commented
that our dues structure is very low compared to other organizations, and
we need provide reasonable support to EIA for staffing and expenses for the
services that we receive.  This support is shared by all member committees.

However, the actual budget numbers for 1999 (which were never discussed with 
the Committee) contain some false assumptions and misunderstandings.  Also,
Cecilia Fleming noted that one of the expense items for EIA booths will no 
longer be allocated to committees.  Furthermore, Bob noted that the Committee 
only controls several thousand dollars out of the total amount, mostly for 
the expenses associated with June IBIS Summit Meeting held during the Design 
Automation Conference.

Bob sent out some adjusted raw data from Cecilia to the IBIS reflector of the 
known budget items:

-------

EIA          Electronic Industries Alliance
  EIG        Electrical Information Group
     DAD     Design Automation Division
       IBIS  EIA IBIS Open Forum

INCOME

IBIS Membership Dues          $15,000
Fees & Assessments                          Used only for Direct Expenses

EXPENSES
                                                       Basis:
                                            ------------------------------

                               IBIS         EIG     DAD     EIA    Direct 
                               Budget       Budget  Budget  Alloc. Expense

Salaries and Benefits          $9,000       5%
Interest Expense                            Not Allocated
Occupancy                         610       5%
Bad debts                                   Not Allocated
Depreciation                      250       5%
Printing                          200               20%
Postage                           300               20%
Freight & Delivery                100               20%
Travel & Entertainment          1,400               20%
Telephone                         200               20%
Meetings and Conference Exp.    2,400               20%
Professional Services                                              X
Memberships & Subscriptions                 Not Allocated
Web Site Services                           Not Allocated
Advertising & Promotions        1,000               20%
Show Expenses                                                      (Deleted)
Office Supplies & Misc.           100               20%

-------

Total Exp. Before Corp. Alloc. 15,560
  
Corporate EIA                   6,200                       X

-------

Total Expenses                 21,760

-------

More recent data raised the Corporate EIA expense to about 7,700.

Stephen Peters raised concern that some of the items seemed to be keyed off
of income.  If dues are raised, then the allocation expenses would also be
raised.  So the IBIS Committee will always be in the red.

Cecilia stated that the year 2000 budget is being worked on and will be
discussed at an EIA Board meeting on October 24, 1999.  Fewer items will be
allocated directly to the committees.  The committees should have direct
control over more expenses.  Bob plans to meet with EIA staff on October 15,
1999.

Bob noted that while the dues are low, many members do contribute much more
in a number of ways.  For example, most of the IBIS Summit Meetings are
funded by sponsorship companies, and the teleconference bridges are donated.

The current dues levels allows the IBIS Open Forum to gain participation of
to provide a broad base of support.  Bob asked what people thought their 
companies would be willing to pay.  Several people reported that dues up to 
around $1000 would be tolerable.  Michael Cohen and others commented that some 
of the larger companies are more limited since the funding is actually not 
from the overall corporation, but usually from a smaller group within (with 
tighter budget controls).  Matthew Flora suggested that a lower dues number 
such as $500 be retained for very small companies (for example with five or 
less people).

Currently, there is no meaningful reporting by EIA that relates to any
direct expenses or additional income sources.  If dues were raised, Bob would
want meaningful reporting of actual income and expenses so that we can
carry over our accumulated funds from year to year.

Bob asked Guy de Burgh to assist in keeping track of the IBIS direct income
and expenses as an added role to the Secretary function.  

COOKBOOK STATUS
Stephen Peters had no report.

IBIS MODEL REVIEW COMMITTEE DISCUSSION
Matthew Flora reported that he sent out for review an IBIS model from Intel.

IBISCHK3 BUG REPORT STATUS
Bob Ross reported that Atul Agarwal agreed to provide the fixes for BUG36 and
BUG37.  We will hold the code until more bugs are fixed since the above bugs
were minor.

Matthew stated that he will now work on BUG34 suggestions with respect to the
existing AR:

AR - Matthew Flora issue a revised BUG34 to document the conditions where
Warning messages are issued.

BIRD62 - ENHANCED CHARACTERIZATION OF RECEIVER THRESHOLDS (discussed First)
Stephen peters commented BIRD62, first discussed at the September 10, 1999
meeting, introduced the separate keyword [Receiver Thresholds],  The team
felt that [Model Spec] did not apply for this situation.  The new keyword is
sensitive only to voltage, but not to process and temperature.

Bob Ross stated that he did have concerns about the new syntax, but also
recognized that some of specifications of the new keyword regarding keeping
a constant voltage difference over the threshold region would be difficult
to specify with the [Model Spec] keyword.  Furthermore, the new approach is
more consistent with data sheet specifications for some of the newer
technologies.

Stephen still plans to respond to some of the comments and provide an updated
BIRD62.1.  Bob still had some concerns over syntax details.

BIRD63 - DOCUMENTATION OF RECEIVER SETUP AND HOLD TIMING CONDITIONS
Bob Ross noted that the resolution of the syntax issues of BIRD62 would
apply to BIRD63 for receiver setup and hold timing conditions.  Thus, he did
not provide any comments on BIRD63.

BIRD61 - ENHANCED CHARACTERIZATION OF RECEIVERS
Stephen Peters commented that we still plans to update BIRD61 in respond to
IBIS reflector discussions.  He is still seeking EDA vendor ideas on
algorithms or working models to process the tables for receiver delay changes
versus some input parameters.

Matthew Flora stated that D.C. Sessions presented a "chalk talk" at the
February 1, 1999 IBIS Summit Meeting showing that delay adjustments fit very
well a two-thirds power function of input overdrive.

Bob Ross stated that there still remain four general alternatives to process
the data:

  1) Characterize the input into parameters and
     a) find the delay from the table by interpolation, or
     b) find the delay from an estimation formula (such as the 2/3rds power
        relationship),
    
  2) Develop in input model which will process actual receiver inputs and  
     a) have the model output a delay adjustment value, or
     b) have the model output a waveform from which the delay adjustment
        can be measured.  An example of such a processor would be the
        Spice model itself or some reduction of it.

We still need to have an idea on how the data is to be processed so that we
know that we are specifying the appropriate type of data and have provided
a sufficient amount of data.  Discussion will continue until we reach some
kind of resolution.

APPLICATION PROGRAM INTERFACE (API) DISCUSSION
The meeting was extended by fifteen minutes.  Will Hobbs introduced the "food
for thought" need for an Application Program Interface (API) by noted that
IBIS Versions 1.1, 2.1 and 3.2 all have successfully addressed emerging 
requirements.  However, the process is slow, and newer requirements for
timing analysis with picosecond resolution and simultaneous switching outputs
make IBIS challenges even more difficult.  Adoption of IBIS keywords for
leading edge technologies such as behavioral receivers will take time.  

One solution is to provide the existing functionality in a manner that 
protects intellectual property.  Will proposed the possibility of C set of 
procedures that might pass information on initial conditions, pin lists, pin 
definition, time steps, and voltage and currents at each pin.  The simulation 
kernel could be a proprietary Spice or a public-domain Spice.  The executable 
would include the simulation engine or else reference the public domain
simulation engine (this could be more efficient since the simulation engine
would not be copied in each executable).  Models with advanced features could
then be provided in a more timely manner.  These would be vendor neutral
models.

A discussion followed and some of the comments are noted here.

Arpad Muranyi questioned why this was different than encrypted models that
could be provided.  Will stated that the simulation engine was provided or
else a public domain simulator could be used.

Raj Raghuram stated that C and C++ interfaces were easy to do, and Berkeley
Spice supported user defined functions.  Will stated that the intent was
to use existing Spice constructs.  Arpad commented that since many companies
use features of internal proprietary Spices, translation to public domain
Spices might be difficult.

Mike LaBonte stated that interprocess communication between an IBIS simulator
and a such a model was possible.  He noted several difficulties:

  1) time step concerns related to convergence
  2) platform support for the compiled executables
  3) how to generate the model
  
Will also added size and speed concerns.  Will and Mike thought the number
of platforms to support was not that large (Windows, and several flavors of
UNIX.)  Convergence would be made easier by passing initial conditions.

Mike also stated that the model was easy to validate by the provider since
it was based on the original source model.  A C based model would just mimic
the functionality and would need to be validated.

Raj noted that binaries with function calls could be constructed.  Mike 
stated that with executables, no encryption was needed.  Encrypted models
are difficult to use.

Matthew Flora commented that perhaps a script interface could be used.  Mike
stated that this is essentially how Spice is handled.

Will added that an API may make it possible to interface with IMIC.  The
current problem is that IMIC still requires revealing structural details.
Mike added that IMIC would not be handled any differently than structural
based Spice Models, although IMIC does contain an IBIS like wrapper
statements for connections.  Raj added that Berkeley Spice is still a good 
starting point at providing interfaces.  Arpad commented that convergence
issues might still be a general concern. 

Bob Ross stated that this discussion could be continued as an agenda item
and eventually could evolve into a BIRD for more detailed discussion.

CONNECTOR PROPOSAL STATUS
Not Discussed

NEXT MEETING:
The next meeting will be the IBIS Summit Meeting at Marlboro, Massachusetts
on Thursday, October 14, 1999 from 8:30 AM to 5 PM.  Teleconference lines
will NOT be available. 

The next teleconference meeting will be on Friday, October 29, 1999 from 8:00
AM to 10:00 AM.
==============================================================================
                                      NOTES

IBIS CHAIR: Bob Ross (503) 685-0732, Fax (503) 685-4897
            [email-masked]
            Modeling Engineer, Mentor Graphics
            8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, OR 97070

VICE CHAIR: Stephen Peters (503) 264-4108, Fax: (503) 264-4515
            [email-masked]
            Senior Hardware Engineer, Intel Corporation
            M/S JF1-209
            2111 NE 25th Ave. 
            Hillsboro, OR 97124-5961

SECRETARY:  Guy de Burgh (805) 988-8250, Fax: (805) 988-8259
            [email-masked]
            Senior Manager, Viewlogic Systems
            1369 Del Norte Rd.
            Camarillo, CA 93010-8437

LIBRARIAN:  Jon Powell (805) 988-8250, Fax: (805) 988-8259
            [email-masked]
            Senior Scientist, Viewlogic Systems
            1369 Del Norte Rd.
            Camarillo, CA 93010

WEBMASTER:  Syed Huq (408) 525-3399, Fax: (408) 526-5504
            [email-masked]
            Signal Integrity Engineer, Cisco Systems
            170 West Tasman Drive
            San Jose, CA 95134-1706

POSTMASTER: Matthew Flora (425) 869-2320, Fax: (425) 881-1008
            [email-masked]
            Senior Engineer, HyperLynx, Inc.
            114715 N.E. 95th Street
            Redmond, WA 98052
 
This meeting was conducted in accordance with the EIA Legal Guides and EIA
Manual of Organization and Procedure.

The following e-mail addresses are used:

  [email-masked]
      To join, change, or drop from either the IBIS Open Forum Reflector
      ([email-masked]), the IBIS Users' Group Reflector ([email-masked])
      or both.  State your request.

  [email-masked]
      To obtain general information about IBIS, to ask specific questions
      for individual response, and to inquire about joining the EIA-IBIS
      Open Forum as a full Member.

  [email-masked]
      To send a message to the general IBIS Open Forum Reflector.  This
      is used mostly for IBIS Standardization business and future IBIS
      technical enhancements.  Job posting information is not permitted.

  [email-masked]
      To send a message to the IBIS Users' Group Reflector.  This is 
      used mostly for IBIS clarification, current modeling issues, and
      general user concerns.  Job posting information is not permitted.

  [email-masked]
      To report ibischk2/3 parser bugs.  The Bug Report Form Resides on
      eda.org in /pub/ibis/bugs/ibischk/bugform.txt along with reported bugs.

      To report s2ibis, s2ibis2 and s2iplt bugs, use the Bug Report Forms
      which reside under eda.org in /pub/ibis/bugs/s2ibis/bugs2i.txt, 
      /pub/ibis/bugs/s2ibis2/bugs2i2.txt, & /pub/ibis/bugs/s2iplt/bugsplt.txt
      respectively.

Information on IBIS technical contents, IBIS participants, and actual
IBIS models are available on the IBIS Home page found by selecting the
Electronic Information Group under:

  http://www.eia.org

Check the pub/ibis directory on eda.org for more information on previous 
discussions and results.  You can get on via FTP anonymous.
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