Subject: August 99 working group meeting minutes
From: Alain Vachoux (alain.vachoux@xemics.ch)
Date: Sat Nov 20 1999 - 13:21:05 PST
Please apologize for this very late posting.
Alain Vachoux
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Minutes of the 1076.1 Working Group Meeting
August 31, 1999 at FDL, Lyon, France
Notes taken by Alain Vachoux
Meeting attendees:
Peter Ashenden petera@cs.adelaide.edu.au
Véronique Aubert veronique_aubert@mentorg.com
Pete Bakowski pbakowsk@ireste.fr
David Barton dlb@wash.averstar.com
Gökhan Cosgül cosgul@boun.edu.tr
Christophe Hui Bon Hoa c.hui-bon-hoa@computer.org
Tom Kazmierski tjk@ecs.soton.ac.uk
François Lemery francois.lemery@st.com
Natividad Martinez Madrid martinez@fzi.de
Eduard Moser moser@fli.sh.bosch.de
Bart Romanowicz bfr@memcad.com
Alain Vachoux alain.vachoux@xemics.ch
Agenda:
1. Standardization process (Alain Vachoux)
Report on 1076.1 LRM editorial work
2. Working group organization (Alain Vachoux)
2.1. WG chair election
2.2. WG policies
2.3. New e-mail distribution list
2.4. Web site update
3. Update on new study topics
3.1. Modeling infrastructure packages (Christophe Hui Bon Hoa)
3.2. Update on mixed netlists (Alain Vachoux)
3.3. Requirements for real-time applications with VHDL-AMS
(Eduard Moser)
3.4. VHDL RF extensions (John Willis)
3.5. Modeling guidelines for SPICE models (John Willis)
3.6. 1076.1 language compatibility (John Willis)
4. A.O.B.
5. Next meeting.
Alain Vachoux, WG chair, opened the meeting at 6:30pm.
1. IEEE standardization process update
--------------------------------------
Alain Vachoux reported on the status of the standardization process. An IEEE
editor is currently working on the final 1076.1 LRM document. The document
will be an integrated document that includes the VHDL 1076 language
definitions plus the changes and the additions made for 1076.1. Change bars
will indicate where are the additions or changes. A first version of the
edited 1076.1 LRM has been made available to Alain and the document is
currently under review by him, Ernst Christen and Dave Barton. The result of
the review will then be send to the IEEE editor. There also has been a change
of the IEEE editor who is assigned to the project. No date of publication is
known so far.
2. Working group organization
-----------------------------
2.1. WG chair election
Alain announced that there has been a single candidate for the working group
Chair position. The candidate is Prof. Tom Kazmierski from the University of
Southampton in the UK. There should not be any opposition to have Tom as Chair
so the DASC steering committee should officially announce the change soon
after the steering committee of Sept. 3. The change should occur on January 1,
2000.
2.2 WG policies
Alain reported on the updated working group policies that will be available
soon. A draft version is currently under review in the executive committee.
The new version has been streamlined and have simplified rules for the
membership and the voting process. The updated policies will be submitted to
the DASC Chair for review and then to the working group for approval.
2.3. E-mail distribution list
Alain announced that a new mailing list has been set up on the eda.org
machine. The new mailing list is majordomo-based and should be more robust
regarding spamming (the eda.org site already provide mechanisms again this
kind of noise). Alain will communicate the new e-mail address soon and will
propose each member of the current mailing list to subscribe individually to
the new mailing list. Alain will make the old e-mail address to point to the
new one, at least for some time to allow a smooth transition.
2.4. Web site
Alain concluded the organizational topics with the 1076.1 web site. He
mentioned that new pages are currently under construction to update the
existing pages and add new information. Eduard Moser suggested to ask the
working group for information on VHDL-AMS model examples, tools, etc. that
could be added to the web site or merely linked from the web site. Alain
agreed to post the request to the reflector.
3. Update on new study topics
-----------------------------
3.1. Modeling infrastructure packages
[Related files at
http://www.eda-twiki.org/vhdl-ams/ftp_files/wg_meetings/DASC_aug99/
packages-fdl99.pdf draft packages for multi-discipline modeling
dac99tutorial_112-120.pdf proposed mechanism to handle SPICE models
]
Christophe Hui Bon Hoa presented two proposals for additional standardization
on the IEEE Std 1076.1-1999. One proposal deals with the definition of a set
of packages that declare physical constants and standard natures. There would
be one package per energy domain plus one package for common definitions (e.g.
physical constants). The other proposal deals with the mechanisms to support
the description of SPICE primitives in VHDL-AMS. The goal is to have
accompanying standard packages to 1076.1, not to include the new declarations
in the language itself.
Several questions/issues were raised at the meeting. First, about the
multi-discipline packages:
- There are still typos in the text of the packages.
- Strings associated to attributes that denote symbols (units) are too long.
What is the rationale?
- Are there new declarations still to be added?
- The values of physical constants are taken from SPICE tools and sometimes
differ from their equivalent NIST values.
- Peter Ashenden suggested to have real-valued literals with enough digits to
support double precision floating point numbers.
Second, about the SPICE primitives:
- How far do we have to support existing SPICE mechanisms (e.g. model
parameters also acting as flags)?
- How to handle temperature: as a static or a dynamic parameter?
- Is it possible to standardize a subset of MOS models from the large existing
set?
- Wouldn't it be more appropriate to standardize modeling guidelines rather
than design entities?
To answer the questions and to clear the issues, the packages will be posted
for review by the working group. Christophe agreed to provide Alain with the
text of the packages. The question to form a separate study group will be
discussed during the DASC steering committee of Sept. 3.
3.2. Update on mixed netlists
[Related file at
http://www.eda-twiki.org/vhdl-ams/ftp_files/wg_meetings/DASC_aug99/
mixed_netlists.pdf status report from Ernst Christen
]
No specific report has been made at the meeting since the slides were not
available at that time. A status report is however attached to these minutes.
3.3. Requirements for real-time applications with VHDL-AMS
[Related files at
http://www.eda-twiki.org/vhdl-ams/ftp_files/wg_meetings/DASC_aug99/
ams-rtsubset_p1.pdf rationale text
ams-rtsubset_p2.pdf supported syntactic rules
]
Eduard Moser presented a proposal definition of a subset of VHDL-AMS for the
modeling and the simulation of real-time applications. The work comes from
European projects involving automotive suppliers and manufacturers. Eduard
presented a number of requirements that a VHDL-AMS language subset should
meet. One requirement is for example to be able to control the number of delta
cycles. Another requirement is to have a total order in the provided
equations. It should be noted that only signal-flow models are supported.
Eduard suggested that the subset should be submitted to the control systems
community as a way to raise the interest to VHDL-AMS. Alain mentioned that a
comparison between VHDL-AMS and the Modelica language is almost completed by
Ernst Christen. The Modelica language is an object-oriented modeling and
simulation language that is developed in the control systems community.
The subset proposal will be submitted to the working group for further
comments.
3.4. VHDL RF extensions
John Willis could not make to attend the WG meeting. John however sent a
couple of slides that Alain presented briefly. The following is taken from
John's slides.
A VHDL-Microwave (VHDL-MW) Study Group is existing with the charter to extend
VHDL to address system design from 500MHz to 20GHz. The objectives are to
leverage VHDL-related standards wherever possible in order to minimize
extension size and complexity, and to achieve fast-track implementations to
validate the approach. VHDL-MW requirements include: component modeling in the
frequency domain (such as transfer function), component and interconnect
modeling witf distributed (vs. lumped or point) parameters, and coupling
(parasitic) interactions. Current involvement in the study group include
industry (FTL Systems, HP EESof), research centers (Mayo Foundation, DoD), and
universities (University of Cincinnati, University of Missoury). For further
information, contact vhdl-mw@vhdl.org or jwillis@ftlsys.com (Chair).
It appeared that the connections to the RF/microwave community that addresses
RF/microwave extensions to VHDL are nearly impossible. John is the liaison and
a first step is to get a list of requirements to figure out the possible
implications to VHDL-AMS. Alain will ask John for requirements.
3.5. Modeling guidelines for SPICE models
Alain presented the slides on John's behalf. Here is the text of the slides.
SPICE library.
Common package define specific constants and components. Standardized entities
define generics and ports corresponding to "SPICE". Architectures are
implementation-dependent (due to IEEE's copyright policies, any provision of
reference implementations seems impractical).
SPICE library: Entities.
Passives (R, L, C), coupling elements, independent sources (voltage, current),
controlled sources (voltage, current), simple semiconductor devices (diodes,
bipolar, ...), MOS transistor models (level N).
SPICE library: Open Issues.
Commercially viable SPICE models can have hundred of parameters: which ones
are to be included and what are their initial values?
How should couoling elements be handled?
How should device behavior be defined (within architecture)?
The work here addresses the same requirements as for the part of the modeling
infrastructure packages that deal with SPICE primitives (3.1).
3.6. 1076.1 language compatibility
Alain presented the slides on John's behalf. Here is the text of the slides.
Small (100-200 test cases), "free" VHDL-AMS validation suite under development
by FTL Systems as VIVA-Lite (please see http://www.ftlsystems.com). Much
larger commercially sold and supported validation suite (20K plus test cases)
under development by FTL Systems as VIVA-Lite (please see
http://www.ftlsystems.com). Tool comparing between two VHDL-AMS analog solvers
under development by Hal Carter at the University of Cincinnati (under
USAF/FTL contract).
The goal is to develop a number of test cases in a VHDL-AMS validation suite.
The actual objectives are however not completely clear as it is important to
make a distinction between tool validation and language validation.
4. A.O.B.
---------
Peter Ashenden asked about the status of the ISAC-AMS subcommittee. Alain
answered that the subcommittee is not really functionning so far. A single IR
(issue request) has been issued for VHDL-AMS and it has been solved in VHDL
1076-1999. The IR should be placed soon on the web site.
5. Next meeting
---------------
Fall VIUF seemed too close to this meeting. Next meeting should be in March
2000 at Spring VIUF. Location and date will be announced when available.
The meeting adjourned at 9pm.
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