SV-BC Meeting Date: Monday, December 6, 2010 Time: 9:00am-11:00am PST Toll Free Dial In Number in North America: 1-888-813-5316 Caller Paid Dial In Number: 1-650-584-6338 Meeting ID: 7839818 0202213101 Day 6285730629 1111000000 Month 2110998887 1111111111 Year 0000000000 aaaaaaaa-a Matt Maidment - Intel aaaaaa-aaa Brad Pierce - Synopsys aaaaaaaaaa Mark Hartoog - Synopsys aaaaaaa-aa Dave Rich - Mentor Graphics a-aaaaaaaa Gordon Vreugdenhil - Mentor Graphics aaaaa-aa-a Alex Gran - Mentor Graphics aaa--a--aa Heath Chambers - Consultant/Trainer aaaaaaaa-a Tom Alsop - Intel -----aaaaa Cliff Cummings - Sunburst Design aaaaaaaaaa Shalom Bresticker - Intel a-aa---aaa Don Mills - LCDM Engineering aa-aaaaaaa Arnab Saha - Mentor Graphics ---a-aa-aa Daniel Schostak - ARM aaaaaa--aa Kaiming Ho - Fraunhofer Institute a-a-aaaaa- Steven Sharp - Cadence aaaa-aaaaa Francoise Martinolle - Cadence a-aa-aa-aa Eric Coffin - Mentor Graphics a--------- David Gates - AMD a-a-aaa--a Peter Flake - Elda Technology ---------- Scott Little - Freescale ---------- John Havlicek - Freescale ---------- Rishiyur Nikhil - BlueSpec -----a---a Jonathan Bromley - Verilab --------a- Greg Jaxon - Synopsys -aaaaa---- Linc Jepson - 74ze Agenda + Review IEEE patent policy http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/pat-slideset.ppt Mark moved to consider reviewed due to audience familiarity. Dave Rich seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion passes. + Previous Meeting Minutes http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/minutes/sv-bc_10_11_22.txt Alex moved to approve minutes. Tom seconds. No opposed. Abstain: Peter, Steven, Gord, Dave Gates, Eric (did not attend) + Email Vote Review Passed: 1106, 2395, 2929 Mantis 2889 (http://www.eda.org/svdb/view.php?id=2889) Proposed voter friendly amendments: Kaiming: "The port kind and data type *of* such a port ..." seems more grammatically correct to me, since 'port kind' and 'data type' are attributes attached to 'port'. Don: "The port kind and data type for such a port shall be determined using the same rules as for the first port in the port list." Which sparked a long discussion about missing and inconsistent information about ANSI vs. non-ANSI, etc. Change: "The port kind and data type are determined by the port_expression." To: "The data type are determined by the port_expression." And deal with the port kind in a different Mantis item. AI: Matt open new Mantis item covering determination of port kind for .named_port connection (23.2.2.3). Feedback -Suggestion: describe inputs and outputs in terms of semantics of continuous assignment and inout like alias statement. -Example should include comment on nature of port 'B' -Answer Expression or Port_expression for named connections -Does the use of the identifier in a port expression imply something about its kind? -Are arbitrary expressions (e.g. hierarchical references) allowed? Mantis 210 Matt: Not seeing much motivation given configurations and lack of a significant problem. Shalom: Default port connections help address this Dave Gates: What about when modules differ by few of many ports? Matt: See it as an exception Dave Gates: What about using loops for creating ports? Shalom: Can use port declared as an array Dave Gates: Suggest talking to Freescale who filed it Shalom: Modules with huge number of ports that needed to be connected to 0's and 1's. Default values enable omission. Interface Discussion Continue interface discussion. Consensus to-date includes: Support for parameterized interfaces No support for run-time compatibility checking Prevailing opinion is to not unify classes and interfaces Does adding inheritance to interfaces address important issues? Peter: Does not believe so. Adds unnecessary complexity Matt: When portions of interfaces need to intermingle might be helpful Steven: Able to connect interfaces to other interfaces through ports Gord: Adding inheritance would add complexity and potentially pull them so close to classes as to merit folding them together Prevailing opinion would be to not pursue this capability. What about enabling interface and/or modport declaration in packages? Francoise: Not clear how to resolve virtual interface definition Mark: No one applies data type rules to virtual interfaces despite description of treating them like data types Gord: This is due to general treatment of design units that don't require declare before use Francoise: What about requiring interfaces to be declare before use for virtual interfaces? Gord: This is essentially like making them part of packages Kaiming: What about reclassifying interfaces as data types? Gord: Any user using interfaces with configurations would be unhappy as not consistently implemented. Likely not a big loss for them. How much user resistance to making signficant changes to flow requirements Gord: This issue is with virtual interfaces only. Mark: Rules could be either binding virtual interface at parse time or relying on library search order Gord: Any change will cause pain for users. Suggest building consensus among the committee and its users to enable broader discussion Option 1: At the time a virtual interface reference is compiled (step prior to elaboration), the interface must exist. A forward interface declaration of sorts can be used as long as the interface is resolved by the end of compilation. Process would work similarly to packages. Forward declaration like an "interface" to an interface. What are rules for resolving an interface "type"? What about treating modports separately from the interface? December 13 meeting not mandatory. Will continue developing strawman solution for virtual interfaces. 11:02 - Steven moves to adjourn. Progress/Discussion for Top 10 Looking for proposal sketches or discussion for any of these issues. 696 - Complete 2310(1084, 1201) - Participants: Eric, Tom, Shalom, Steven, Wilson Snyder 3053 - Participants: Francoise, Mark, Alex, Kaiming 3055 - Participants: Gord, Mark 2991 - Champion: Tom, Participants: Steven 1566 - For future discussion 2114 - Similar to 3053. Have same group look at it. 210 - Participants: Shalom, Matt 3056 - Champion: Shalom, Participants: Steven, Francoise Action Items Complete Outstanding 05/10/10 Matt create Master Issue for WG-approved SV-BC Top-25 07/19/10 Matt follow-up about voting rules for technical sub-committee. Is there a limit on the number of reps from 1 entity? 07/19/10 Dave to post request to reflectors for clarification of 2108 07/19/10 Jonathan post some items for discussion related to 2114 to reflector. 08/02/10 Brad give SV-BC feedback on Mantis 2992 to Mehdi 08/02/10 Eric start reflector thread on Mantis 2310 08/02/10 Gord meet F2F with Mark when in Bay Area 08/16/10 Matt to rethink 210 in terms of configuration and alias. 08/16/20 All send Shalom feedback about prioritizing the issues raised in port declaration issue summary: http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10498.html 09/13/10 Jonathan show simple examples of virtual interfaces, sub-interfaces and base classes in modules to demonstrate different methods for connecting design and testbenches. 09/27/10 Tom post updated proposal to 696. 09/27/10 Review Shalom's list of interface issues and suggest issues to tackle now. 05/10/10 Matt create Master Issue for WG-approved SV-BC Top-25 07/19/10 Matt follow-up about voting rules for technical sub-committee. Is there a limit on the number of reps from 1 entity? 07/19/10 Dave to post request to reflectors for clarification of 2108 07/19/10 Jonathan post some items for discussion related to 2114 to reflector. 08/02/10 Brad give SV-BC feedback on Mantis 2992 to Mehdi 08/02/10 Eric start reflector thread on Mantis 2310 08/02/10 Gord meet F2F with Mark when in Bay Area 08/16/10 Matt to rethink 210 in terms of configuration and alias. 08/16/20 All send Shalom feedback about prioritizing the issues raised in port declaration issue summary: http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10498.html 09/13/10 Jonathan show simple examples of virtual interfaces, sub-interfaces and base classes in modules to demonstrate different methods for connecting design and testbenches. 09/27/10 Tom post updated proposal to 696. 09/27/10 Review Shalom's list of interface issues and suggest issues to tackle now. 11/22/10 Brad to file Mantis item for upward passing of interfaces. 12/06/10 Matt open new Mantis item covering determination of port kind for .named_port connection (23.2.2.3).