SV-BC Meeting Date: Monday, February 14, 2011 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 1310202213101 Day 4176285730629 0001111000000 Month 2112110998887 1111111111111 Year 1110000000000 aaaaaaaaaaa-a Matt Maidment - Intel aaaaaaaaa-aaa Brad Pierce - Synopsys aaaaaaaaaaaaa Mark Hartoog - Synopsys aaaaaaaaaa-aa Dave Rich - Mentor Graphics aaaa-aaaaaaaa Gordon Vreugdenhil - Mentor Graphics aa-aaaaa-aa-a Alex Gran - Mentor Graphics aa-aaa--a--aa Heath Chambers - Consultant/Trainer -aaaaaaaaaa-a Tom Alsop - Intel aa------aaaaa Cliff Cummings - Sunburst Design a-aaaaaaaaaaa Shalom Bresticker - Intel aaaa-aa---aaa Don Mills - LCDM Engineering aaaaa-aaaaaaa Arnab Saha - Mentor Graphics a-a---a-aa-aa Daniel Schostak - ARM aaaaaaaaa--aa Kaiming Ho - Fraunhofer Institute aa-a-a-aaaaa- Steven Sharp - Cadence a-aaaaa-aaaaa Francoise Martinolle - Cadence -aaa-aa-aa-aa Eric Coffin - Mentor Graphics aa-a--------- David Gates - AMD aaaa-a-aaa--a Peter Flake - Elda Technology -aa-aaaaa---- Linc Jepson - 74ze ------------- Scott Little - Freescale ------------- John Havlicek - Freescale ------------- Rishiyur Nikhil - BlueSpec --------a---a Jonathan Bromley - Verilab --a--------a- Greg Jaxon - Synopsys Agenda + Review IEEE patent policy http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/pat-slideset.ppt Gord moves to consider it reviewed. Cliff seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion passes. + Review previous meeting minutes http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/minutes/sv-bc_11_01_31.txt Cliff moves to accept the minutes. Peter seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion passes. + Interface Discussion Gord: Definition before use is a start. Could add some relationship to configurations. Steven: Could limit this restriction to interfaces used as a type. Mark agreed to write up a proposal for interface declaration before reference for virtual intefaces. Peter requested feedback on proposal for interface specialization from Jan 13: http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10788.html AI: Matt add Interface specialization to agenda of next meeting. + Feb 28 is DVCon Cliff moves to cancel the Feb 28 meeting. Don seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion passes. + Kick-Off discussion of other issues Enumerate extension (http://www.eda.org/svdb/view.php?id=2991) Gord: Concerned about namespace issues. If extend enumeration name, where is enumerate value visible? If everywhere that original type is visible, then imposes global compilation issues that are very challenging. Heath: Base enumerate type seeds development of new enumerated types as specializations arise. Does not require changes to original declaration. Dave: These enums are more like lists or associative arrays. Gord: It is a convenience issue, but concerned about complications. Heath: Need to consider how queue or associative array might solve the problem. Gord suggested any action on this should be coupled by AOP discussion in SV-EC. If AOP does not survive, can revisit enhancing enum extension as a matter of convenience. If enums are the way to facilitate AOP, then should let the AOP discussion in SV-EC evolve. Heath moves to table work on this area until SV-EC tackles AOP. Cliff seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion Passes. AI: Matt update 2991 on status and link to Mantis covering AOP and notify SV-EC Variable number of arguments (http://www.eda.org/svdb/view.php?id=1566 Steven suggests mailboxes are the best mechanism for addressing this. Suggests addition of syntax to create mail box like an assignment pattern to save user from having to explicitly declare and populate the mailbox. Cannot create mailbox with an expression right now because it is a class and requires construction. Matt asked if this excludes processing for design code? Gord and Steven believe the problem is the same regardless of implementation that processes them. It's simply a matter of static references to the container. Cliff reports that tasks and functions with default arguments help mitigate this issue. Peter points out that varargs preserves the consistency of the function call. Steven suggests that language can push these arguments into the mailbox. Gord noted that this means that statically defined arguments in assignment context and varargs would become self-determined. Varargs likely induce inconsistent handling of regular and vararg arguments. Gord asks whether that is desirable. Need to resolve how to handle named versus positional arguments. Also need to reconcile with default values. Design tools generally need some unambiguous pattern in order to support it. Applies to this feature, too. Discussion up until this point has pertained to tasks and functions. Any extension to macros looks to be very challenging. Would require adding features to support such a feature (looping). Gord suggests that if desire is for complex macros, use an external pre-processor like m4. A 'Let' might also want this, but how does one introduce processing of these args into what amounts to an expression. If checkers want such a feature, the SV-AC should raise it. The discontinuity of type handling (assignment vs. self-determined) can confuse. Refactoring from static argument definitions to varargs will cause previously working code to fail. Could use dynamic array of fixed type to allow some manner of type compatibility checking. AI: Users consider proposed restrictions and use-cases and revisit with user feedback. + Future Meeting Agenda Items Follow-up on Dave Gates's mails regarding 210 Interface Specialization All: Send feedback on any other issues that are worthy of attention and may achieve consensus more quickly. 10:57AM: Gord moves to adjourn. + AR Review Top 10 Mantis Items 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 01/31/11 Matt update Mantis 2889 as resolved. 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 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 08/16/20 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 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). 01/31/11 All check with users regarding viability of rule that virtual interface declarations require that the referenced interface be previously parsed. 01/31/11 Dave Gates will code some examples of use-models related to issue 210 using interfaces 02/14/11 Matt add Interface specialization to agenda of next meeting. 02/14/11 Matt update 2991 on status and link to Mantis covering AOP and notify SV-EC. 02/14/11 Users consider proposed restrictions and use-cases for varargs and provide feedback.