Minutes of BTF Meeting October 20, 2003

From: Steven Sharp (sharp@cadence.com)
Date: Mon Oct 20 2003 - 12:09:01 PDT

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    Minutes of BTF Meeting October 20, 2003

    Meeting started at 10:40 Pacific Time

    In attendance:
            Alec Stanculescu
            Steven Sharp
            Cliff Cummings
            Stefen Boyd
            Karen Pieper
            Mehdi Mohtashemi
            Tom Fitzpatrick
            Brad Pierce
            Ennis Hawk
            Atsushi Kasuya
            Michael McNamara
            Francoise Martinolle
            Dennis Brophy (joined late)

    Cliff moves to accept minutes from October 6. Fitz seconds. No opposed,
    no abstain, passes.

    Many people had not received email report from Alec yet, on prioritization
    work.

    There was discussion of the lack of progress in the EGG. Chair will
    check whether we can get more action from Jay. If not, then we may
    need to do something at the next meeting to make progress.

    Alec suggests around 9 subgroups made up of 2-3 people to work on
    specific issues:

            IP encryption
            Datatypes
            Classes and predefine classes
            Verification/testbench
            Aspect-oriented programming
            Generic interconnect
            Separate compilation/packages
            Randomization
            Transaction recording
            VPI for everything

    The subgroups would not be voting bodies, but would be writing up
    proposals for LRM wording.

    Alec discussed the issues around eventual Accellera donation, expected
    by June. There are some portions that are more stable than others, and
    work could start earlier on those.

    Alec suggested that encryption, randomization, transaction recording,
    and separate compilation have the least conflict with Accellera work.

    Fitz feels that we should defer subgroups. One of his issues is that
    the results might conflict with SystemVerilog. He wants to work on
    a policy for dealing with this, essentially part of what the EGG was
    supposed to be doing, before the subgroups start.

    There was some discussion of whether compatibility with SystemVerilog
    and any code base that might exist for it should be a requirement for
    proposals. Fitz pointed out that we were getting too deep into a
    discussion of specific potential guidelines, rather than how we were
    going to get a full set of guidelines. Kurt mentioned possible
    shortcomings of SystemVerilog for synthesis. Dennis suggested this
    might fall under 1364.1 instead. Discussion was stopped so that we
    could try to take action on the overall guideline issue before adjourning.

    It was agreed that the guideline issue should be the major agenda item
    for the next BTF meeting. The EGG should be prepared to report at that
    time. If they have not taken action by then, the BTF will discuss other
    methods of setting up guidelines and policies.

    Meeting was adjourned at 11:45.

    Next meeting will be Nov 3.

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