Minutes of BTF Meeting July 28, 2003

From: Steven Sharp (sharp@cadence.com)
Date: Mon Jul 28 2003 - 12:20:33 PDT

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    Minutes of BTF Meeting July 28, 2003

    Meeting started at 10:45 Pacific Time

    In attendence:
            Karen Pieper
            Kurt Baty
            Tom Fitzpatrick
            Michael McNamara
            Brad Pierce
            Stu Sutherland
            Jay Lawrence
            Francoise Martinolle
            Stefen Boyd
            Dennis Brophy

    Passed minutes from July 14, 2003
      Kurt wanted to comment that less than half of the features added in
      AMS are specific to analog. Kurt had also e-mailed a question about
      the technical problems associated with operator overloading. Steven
      suggested that we wait until Gordon Vreugdenhil and other potential
      implementors had a chance to fully consider and describe the issues.

    Stefen raised issue of funding for Web page development. Dennis Brophy
    and Michael McNamara commented on the procedures for funding via IEEE
    or DASC. There was concern about the complexity of funding through
    those channels, and the possibility of funds not being used as the
    donator desired. Direct funding was discussed also. None of the
    participants knew of any legal, procedural or ethical concerns with
    direct funding to Stefen from corporations. There was further discussion
    of possible funding approaches, but in the short term, Stefen is asking
    for direct funding by any interested parties.

    Steven raised the question of how to organize efforts going forward.
    Members with historical experience with the process suggested that
    sub-task forces be formed to make proposals for specific enhancements.

    A question was raised as to whether we should proceed under the
    assumption that SystemVerilog would be donated early enough for
    this standardization effort or not. The question was also raised
    as to whether equivalent features could be donated without an
    Accellera donation. Jay expressed the opinion that features that
    were not new in SystemVerilog (e.g. features directly copied from
    other existing languages) could be donated without any problems, but
    that truly new features might require more caution.

    A concern was raised that independent sub-task forces might follow
    inconsistent philosophies for what mechanisms should be used in extending
    the language. This started discussion of the desirability of an
    overarching design guidelines or philosophy to guide the efforts of
    the various enhancement sub-task forces. Eventually, a proposal was
    made to form a sub-task force to develop such a set of design guidelines
    and propose it to the BTF. This was approved unanimously. Jay, Stu,
    Fitz and Steven volunteered for this group. Jay will lead the effort,
    and will make arrangements for starting discussions. It was noted that
    this effort is largely independent of the results of the user survey,
    and can go on while waiting for those results.

    Kurt proposed that we provide a template for enhancement sub-task forces
    to fill in to summarize design issues with their designs (e.g. any new
    keywords added). It was pointed out that this should be a follow-on to
    the design philosophy proposal, as the contents of that proposal would
    affect what kinds of issues should appear in the template.

    Steven relayed that Scott Cranston is working on getting clarifications
    of the AMS-related enhancement requests. Kurt asked whether we could get
    more participation from other vendors working on Verilog-AMS. There were
    no responses from other vendor representatives. Kurt always has the option
    of making specific enhancement requests himself.

    Nobody had any other issues to raise, and the meeting was adjourned.

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