Meeting 13 Minutes

Teleconference, June 6th, 2005
A quorum of 8 out of 13 voting members present.
Attendance is noted on the web site roster.

1. Call to order

Meeting was called to order at 09:00 PST/16:00 GMT.

2. Approval of minutes from meeting 12

Darren Galpin moves to approve the minutes as posted.
Matan seconds.
No objections/abstainers. The motion to approve the minutes was carried.

3. Review status of technical contribution

Yaron : Pleased to say that we have most of the contributions in a very advanced state. The review of the generation constraints chapter was sent over the weekend by Vit. It's in a shape where I think we can incorporate the comments and get the chapter out. The libraries chapters have all the inputs in. There are a couple of outstanding chapters - notably the Macros chapter (13) and the TCMs (11). These are being worked on, and are not delaying progress for now.

Any body want to discuss any specifics? With these technical contributions in most of the work is on Joes shoulders. WG members are asked to go through and review new chapters of revision 0.3 as they are being posted. It is hoped that at this stage only minor issues will arise. Please log these issues as usual.

4. Editors updates

Joe : Could you point out what is still in progress
Yaron: Chapter 1 - this is on my to do list and I've been delinquent, but I'll get back to it and we'll have it in time, as well as chapter 13 and 11, as discussed.

Joe: there will be two or three subsequent clauses that have to do with what concerns reference material, terms and acronyms. These will all show up next month. They will be inserted at the beginning, shifting the numbers for the rest of the clauses.

Yaron : chapter 2 e basics is in, as is data structs, structs, fields and subtypes, units, methods, generation constraints is ready for editing. Events and temporal expressions, chapters 8,9 and 10 David has provided the feedback. Chapter 11 & 27 Matthew has been working on. Chapter 12 is just about ready for editing chapter 13 Matan's been working on. Checking and error handling is in. No 15 methods is in - no 16 e variables is in , no 17 packing and unpacking is being edited. Chapter 18 control for actions is ready (needs posting) chapter 19 is ready for editing. Chapter 20 we have in 21, 22 encapsulation is ready, chapter 23 predefined methods library we have the comments, chapter 24 likewise, chapter 25 - simulation related constructs may need little work - no 26 still waiting on Matthew's input.

Joe: we have one appendix in and there will be a second one which is a bibliography. I now have many things which I'm happy about. I've delayed chapters that need restructuring - so I've been working on the more stable material. I will get around to it but I'll next be working on the library material, then the temporal material then the simulation/coverage which are relatively stable. I do need them to be in a more finalized form than previously as we'd like to get them out by next month ready for ballot in August.

Yaron : timeline is to have draft for 17th of August and commence the ballot as early as september.

Joe : appreciate people looking at the clauses as they get posted - I can see you've been very thorough we need it to be technically accurate. I need to know if its adequately covered - so thank you once again.

Matan : In what manner shall we answer your questions in the comments on the clauses.

Joe : via the issue database but also via e-mail - My preference is through the database. Does anybody have any issues with the process and the database etc.

Yaron : I think that we are ok following the database as we have the issues fully documented.

Eran: I have a question concerning Chapter 25, we decided to remove all the Verilog and VHDL declarations. We made the decision in the meeting but nothing was logged.

Yaron : is that sufficient for you Joe?

Joe : yes that's sufficient. I don't want to fully rely on the database but thanks for pointing things out.

Yaron : so one issue is needed

Eran: Ok I'll log it.

Joe : thanks you've all been very good about it.

Matan : chapter 21 importing e files - we had a document I wrote about how the load order of modules is determined by the import statements - what the exact semantics required is - what are we doing about this.

Joe : True - that might be worth talking about today. It might need incorporated over time. We do need to sort out where to put these things. As an example if we need to move the HDL statements and also where to put the load stuff and I ask for the working group to help me determine where to put these things. As I think it for the working Group to make the decision on if they want to have a stand alone clause - or whether to cut the information into various chapters.

Matan : This issue is on me as I haven't heard from my TF colleagues. I have one problem with chopping it down and putting it in side the import e statements. I think it's a general thing and many areas need to reference the load order to determine many semantic issues. For example on the macro chapter I must put a reference to the load order priority and I'd like to have something to reference here.

Joe : That makes sense - it didn't appear to be a standalone clause however maybe it is and then we can have references to it.

Yaron : Clause 21 importing e files was my idea of where they are meant to go and then reference it. In my mind its fine to just refer to it elsewhere. There's one caveat - there may be one place in the document prepared by Matan and it might need to find its way to an appendix rather than one of the standards as its more descriptive that factual. I don't think that we need to split it more than that.

Matan : there's another little bit that would need to go in the preprocessor directives chapter 20 that describes a quite different principle behind the order of preprocessor directive applications. In general I can live with that knowing that in places where I define semantics of method extension or macros I can put the reference to chapter 21 - not talking about import statements but talking about load order in general.

Yaron : Ok then part of it going to chapter 20 and import order goes into chapter 21, and if it can't all be included as art of the chapters then it will have to go into the appendix.

Joe : This is the rational that was behind probably not its own clause - it does make sense to putting it into the appendix as well as chapter 20 and 21.

Matan : Throughout the standard there should be references to the load order and other esoteric aspects.

Joe : I've not been able to look at the document all the way through for flow and because there's been so much shrinkage that I would appreciate anybody who could spare the time to help out with this.

Matan : looking at the whole thing would uncover inconsistencies between the distinctions between statements actions, struct members - I may file an issue on that. There were just some issues I ran into with regard to general things throughout the document.

Joe : I'd appreciate you putting in the issue. Methods and routines are similarly interchanged within the document.

Yaron : There's a question of how to distinguish them and if we should. We agreed methods are the general name for both.

5. Other Business

No other business to dispense of.

6. Patent policy

The chair has issued a call for essential patents, in compliance with current IEEE/SA PatCom guidelines. The WG members are advised to review the call for essential patents and the patent related slide presentation posted on the web site .

7. Next meeting

Please remember to send e-mail to rollcall@ieee1647.org so that your attendance on this call is recorded.

• Please DON'T send these e-mails to the reflector
• Use the e-mail address you registered with

Next meeting is set to Monday, July 11th at 9:00 AM pacific (same time as today's meeting).

8. Adjourn

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(Updated Wed Oct 11 16:18:57 PDT 2006)