Minutes, IBIS Quality Task Group

21 December 2021

12:00-13:00 EST (09:00-10:00 PST)

ROLL CALL

ANSYS                               Curtis Clark
Intel Technology                  * Michael Mirmak
Micron Technology                 * Randy Wolff
Siemens EDA                       * Weston Beal
Signal Integrity Software:        * Mike LaBonte
Teraspeed Labs:                   * Bob Ross
Zuken USA:                        * Lance Wang

Everyone in attendance marked by *

NOTE: "AR" = Action Required.

-----------------------MINUTES ---------------------------
Mike LaBonte conducted the meeting.

Call for IBIS related patent disclosures:

- None


Call for opens:

- Mike LaBonte said a vote could be held for acceptance of the recently delivered
  ibischk701 source.


Review of previous meeting minutes:
Minutes from the December 14, 2021 meeting were reviewed.  Lance Wang moved to accept the
minutes.  Randy Wolff seconded the motion.  Without objection, the minutes were approved.


ARs:
- AR: Randy Wolff to ask webmaster to fix IBISCHK page links
  This was done.
- AR: Mike LaBonte to prepare staged IBISCHK7 web page updates
  This was done.
- AR: Bob Ross to post new bug from Michael Mirmak
  This was done.  Michael said there was a minor typo in the bug file, the wrong type of
  bracket for "Priority".
- AR: Mike LaBonte to document TSCHK2 Windows PowerShell problem
  Not done yet
- AR: Bob Ross to upload prior IBISCHK source code distributions
  Not done yet.


NEW ITEMS:

IBISCHK710 development:
Bob Ross reported that after checking the previous code, he had sent a list of 6 issues to
be looked at.  In the most recent code the issues were resolved satisfactorily.  Bob
listed the issues and resolutions.  There might be lingering issues checking IBIS-ISS
files.  However, the primary IBIS-ISS checks were working as expected.  Mike LaBonte said
he had performed a test in which an IBIS-ISS sub-circuit reference was misnamed in the
IBIS file, and ibischk detected that.  Bob had checked a sampling of the QA tests, having
fully checked them previously.

We discussed IBIS-ISS files included from other IBIS-ISS files. Mike said we had
previously decided that the top level sub-circuit to be found must be found directly in
the IBIS-ISS named by File_IBIS-ISS.  He said ".include" lines in those files were not
checked by the parser at all, and the second level files were not read. Bob said that
could be addressed in a future release.  Randy Wolff said the error message when a
sub-circuit was not found could be confusing, but that could be fixed later.  Mike noted
we had not yet received the new error and warning message spreadsheet.  Bob felt the
software was ready to be released.

Bob moved to accept the code as fulfillment of the development contract.  Mike seconded.
There were no objections, the motion passed.

AR: Mike LaBonte to publish new ibischk7 web page
AR: Randy Wolff to announce ibischk701 release
AR: Bob Ross to distribute ibischk7.0.1 source code to ibischk7 licensees

Mike showed the staged web page for the new ibischk. He described the new features.  Randy
said the page should be published before he sent the announcement.  Executables for RedHat
Linux had not been made. For MacOS, bot Intel and Apple silicon were supported.  Randy
asked if the Ubuntu Linux executables would work on RedHat.  Mike said that had worked in
the past, but he could not recall for sure if he had tested recently.  The page had a note
about a potential problem caused by UNC network paths on Windows, when checking IBIS files
with associated .pkg files.  That was caused by ibischk making system calls to use the
"dir" command to find the .pkg files.  Mike recommended creating a bug report to replace
the use of system calls with C code to do the file search.  Michael Mirmak said system
calls constituted a security issue, recommending that it be fixed.

AR: Randy Wolff to test new ibischk701 on RedHat Linux
AR: Mike LaBonte to write ibischk bug report to eliminate system calls

Mike showed the new user guide for ibischk701.  Randy said EMS (Electrical Module Set) had
been excluded from lists of file types where it should have been included.  Bob said that
since we had not yet received the spreadsheet complete with all new  message strings, it
was correct that the user guide did not yet include the message table.

AR: Mike LaBonte to update ibischk701 user guide to correct EMS references

Weston Beal asked if it had been verified that EMD files were parsed correctly.  Bob said
that had been verified.

Bob said historically it might take a month or so before we had the message spreadsheet
and the user guide update.  Mike said he had tried using the Perl code that produced the
original message table by scanning the source code, but he had been unsuccessful.  Weston
asked what the source of the trouble might have been.  Mike said it was possible the
ibischk source code had been reformatted somewhere, causing the Perl script to not find
something it expected.  Mike described the process of receiving the updated spreadsheet,
making corrections to it, running a Perl script to produce HTML tables from it, and
copying those into the user guide.


New parser bug reports:
Mike LaBonte showed ibischk BUG227.  Michael Mirmak said an associated BIRD would be
discussed in ATM Task Group meetings.  He said an expansion of the [Test Data] keyword
might help with executing the test in which an IBIS-AMI DLL is called to verify its
handling of AMI root names.  The new [Test Data] would specify IBIS-AMI settings to use
for the test.  Mike liked the idea, but he felt that might not be a small code change.

AR: Bob Ross to fix brackets around Priority in ibischk BUG227


IBIS quality checklist:
Mike LaBonte said he would need to reread the IBIS Quality Specification to be able to
discuss any improvements.  Weston Beal said we had agreed an update was warranted, but as
a group we might not have the time.  He asked if someone else should be recruited to help.
Mike felt we needed to understand better what could be done, noting that the existing
specification and checklist had been written for IBIS 4.1.  He said there might be
clarifications warranted in the existing specification, additions to both the
specification and the associated checklist, and consideration of ibischk enhancements to
execute some of the checks.  Weston agreed to prepare a presentation to give a review of
the specification and checklist, and possibly outline some areas of change.

AR: Weston Beal to prepare presentation on IBIS Quality Specification and checklist


Tabled topics (no discussion without motion):
  - BIRD181.2
  - IBISCHK security fixes


Michael Mirmak moved moved to adjourn. Randy Wolff seconded. Without objection the meeting ended.

Meeting ended: 12:56 ET

Next meeting January 11, 2022