SV-BC Meeting Date: Monday, March 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 11310202213101 Day 44176285730629 00001111000000 Month 32112110998887 11111111111111 Year 11110000000000 -aa-a-a-aaaaa- Steven Sharp - Cadence aa-aaaaa-aaaaa Francoise Martinolle - Cadence aaaaaaaaaaaa-a Matt Maidment - Intel a-aaaaaaaaaa-a Tom Alsop - Intel aa-aaaaaaaaaaa Shalom Bresticker - Intel aaaaaaaaaaa-aa Dave Rich - Mentor Graphics aaaaa-aaaaaaaa Gordon Vreugdenhil - Mentor Graphics -aa-aaaaa-aa-a Alex Gran - Mentor Graphics aaaaaa-aaaaaaa Arnab Saha - Mentor Graphics a-aaa-aa-aa-aa Eric Coffin - Mentor Graphics aaaaaaaaaa-aaa Brad Pierce - Synopsys aaaaaaaaaaaaaa Mark Hartoog - Synopsys ---a--------a- Greg Jaxon - Synopsys -------------- Scott Little - Freescale -------------- John Havlicek - Freescale -aa------aaaaa Cliff Cummings - Sunburst Design -aa-aaa--a--aa Heath Chambers - Consultant/Trainer -aaaa-aa---aaa Don Mills - LCDM Engineering -a-a---a-aa-aa Daniel Schostak - ARM -aaaaaaaaa--aa Kaiming Ho - Fraunhofer Institute -aa-a--------- David Gates - AMD -aaaa-a-aaa--a Peter Flake - Elda Technology --aa-aaaaa---- Linc Jepson - 74ze -------------- Rishiyur Nikhil - BlueSpec ---------a---a Jonathan Bromley - Verilab Agenda + Review IEEE patent policy http://standards.ieee.org/board/pat/pat-slideset.ppt Tom moves that the policy be considered read. Mark seconds. No opposed. No abstain. Motion Passes. + Review previous meeting minutes http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/minutes/sv-bc_11_02_14.txt Gord moves to accept the minutes. Dave seconds. No opposed. Abstain: Tom, Eric (did not attend Feb 14 meeting) Motion passes. + Operation going forward AI: Matt talk to Karen about Accellera plans for participation. Questions about how to get user input, especially for bugs. + Interface Specialization Provide feedback on proposal for interface specialization posted Jan 13: http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10788.html Feeling among members is that this does not addresses largest design or verification issues with interfaces. Gord would like to address other issues besides this proposal to address what amounts to: http://www.eda.org/svdb/view.php?id=905 Gord still gathering feedback of requiring interface declaration before reference. Brad asked how Gord described advantages of declaration before reference. Gord stated that it helps prevent vendors making different assumptions about difficult language issues and complicating implementations. Gord still interested in pursuing other options beyond virtual interfaces to connect testbench and design. Brad asked when the feedback might arrive. Gord thought it would be a couple of months before a direction would solidify. Mark believes this is difficult to explain to customers and will not result in any substantive change in implementations. He cited generate as an example of a major feature that continues to be supported in both 1364-2001 and 1364-2005 definitions. Mark does believe that by addressing this, customers will have a chance for their designs to be compiled by multiple vendors. AI: Matt check back with Gord and Mark in April about feedback regarding interface issues. + Issue 210 Discuss Dave Gates's response regarding use of interfaces http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10873.html Mark states that there are a lot of ambiguities about the use of generate in modports, for example declaring a modport in a generate. Generic interfaces can used to a pass a bundle of wires. Consensus is that with either generic interfaces or v2kconfigs this can be addressed. AI: Matt to code examples for 210 and make proposal to resolve. Shalom hopes to get to port issues soon. Eric still chipping away at macros. Varargs Gord not seeing enough feedback about this to pursue. Neither Brad nor Mark has heard significant feedback about this. Parameterized Functions Tom mentioned that he received feedback regarding parameterized interfaces. Gord asked if this is because feedback wants untyped arguments. Tom responded affirmatively. Gord responded that the lack of typing leaves everything self-determined and complicates the language and implementation. Tom getting feedback that class-based approach is overly complex. Gord ok with syntactic sugar to save users from doing all of the transfer of types to the parameters, provided the syntax is not too gratuitous. Dave points out that even using a macro to address this issue will likely incur the same sort of problems as the syntactic sugar. Gord agrees. Tom will come back with a proposal if he can come up with something that might gain consensus. Constant Expressions Mark and Gord met to discuss issues around constant expressions and hierarchical names. Their discussion found some level of agreement regarding the nature of constant expressions. Some constant expressions involved in determination of other parameters and generates that affect design construction (modules/interfaces). There are other expressions that do not affect design construction (width of variable or wire). They feel the LRM is not clear about what is a hierarchical reference versus struct references. One example that demonstrates the insufficient definition of constant expressions is data query system functions. Questions were asked about the permissibility of using hierarchical references in $bits. Gord and Mark believe that perhaps by clearly separating design construction or topology issues and other uses of such expressions it may be possible to relax rules for non-construction uses. These exist under Mantis 3055. Mark would like to see parameter overrides for modules intances to forbid the use of hierarchical references. Gord believe tightening up data type query functions would also be beneficial. Group would like to see 2856 addressed. AI: Everyone drill down on 3055 and identify issues that would be straightforward to clarify regarding constant expressions, type operations and what is a hierarchical name. 10:58AM Gord moves to adjourn. 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 02/14/11 Matt add Interface specialization to agenda of next meeting. 01/31/11 Dave Gates will code some examples of use-models related to issue 210 using interfaces See: http://www.eda.org/sv-bc/hm/10873.html 08/02/10 Gord meet F2F with Mark when in Bay Area 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 08/16/20 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. 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. 03/14/11 Matt talk to Karen about Accellera plans for participation. Questions about how to get user input, especially for bugs. 03/14/11 Matt check back with Gord and Mark in April about feedback regarding interface issues. 03/14/11 All drill down on 3055 and identify issues that would be straightforward to clarify regarding constant expressions, type operations and what is a hierarchical name. 03/14/11 Matt code examples for 210 and make proposal to resolve.