IBIS Model: Model parameters and Spec.

Given one or more IBIS models, if all of them passed golden parser and meet my speed requirements, how do we know which one will be best fit for my channel? In this post, we are going to propose several IBIS performance parameters. It’s out hope that with these parameters, we can easily make comparison between different IBIS models and will pick the best candidate for our high speed design need.

IbisRttROn

 

The basic IBIS data structure is shown above, which we should have been familiar with by now. There is both pull-up (PU) and pull-down (PD) circuits which will decide the steady state output impedance. There are ESD circuits represented by power clamp (PC) and ground clamp (GC) which operates in reverse bias condition normally. How fast the PU turns from OFF to ON state and PD from ON to OFF state determines how the transient rising response of this buffer is, similar for the falling state. Due to the reverse bias condition of PC/GC, the leakage current is usually very small.

RttTerm

Another situation is like the figure above. In this case, there are on-die termination associated with buffer. Thus the current when buffer is in high-Z state will be significant…much larger than the leakage current of PC and GC.

From these two common usage scenarios, it seems reasonable that we can use both output impedance and timing response, represented by rise/fall time and slew rate as bases for our IBIS model performance parameters.

IBIS output impedance:

If the buffer’s output impedance does not match immediate connected output, usually the break out region of package represented by transmission lines. There will be significant reflection and cause damage the signal quality from the very beginning. The usual remedy is to add a series resistor such that the total output impedance will match 50 ohms, the usual characteristics impedance of a transmission line. The figure below show a typical ringing caused by impedance mismatch.

ZMismatch

Note that the PU and PD may have different impedance value around reference voltage, say 50% of Vcc, thus one common choice of series resistor to be added is the average of PU/PD impedance around that region.

IBIS timing parameters:

For better signal integrity, it is usually desired to have just fast enough signal with smooth transition edge, rather than fast signal like square wave. We have all seen the following decomposition of a square wave, as shown below. Starting with pure sin wave with same fundamental frequency, the more harmonics are added together, the more the resulting waveform will look like a square wave.

Harmonics

Signals of different frequencies will have different traveling speed along the propagation medium, thus cause the signal distortion. This phenomena has a special term called “dispersion”. So the slower the rising edge, meaning the closer it appears like fundamental sin wave, the less dispersion there will be. And thus our propagated signal will suffer less distortion.

Spec. Parameters:

With the simple discussions above, we propose the following parameters as a measure of a qualified IBIS model:

  • PVT: i.e. corner, voltage and temperature. These are information given already in an IBIS model. One needs to make sure first that the operation range is within these spec. to have desired performance presented in the IBIS model.
  • C_Comp: information given in the IBIS model for lumped capacitance at pad.
  • Z_PU: impedance of PU circuit at the reference voltage;
  • Z_PD: impedance of PD circuit at the reference voltage;
  • Z_PU_MM in %: impedance mismatch of PU circuit at some tolerance above and below the reference voltage. It’s like linearity measurement between VOH and VOL for PU circuit.
  • Z_PD_MM in %: impedance mismatch of PD circuit at some tolerance above and below the reference voltage. It’s like linearity measurement between VOH and VOL for PD circuit.
  • Z_RTT: This is the impedance representing aforementioned termination resistor(s);
  • RT: time duration between 20%~80% of voltage swing during rising transition;
  • FT: time duration between 20%~80% of voltage swing during falling transition;
  • FREQ: maximum operable frequency without buffer being overclocked.

Note that some people may use Tco, the propagation delay between buffer output and its digital input, as  parameters as well. It’s our believe that these Tco parameters are not too meaningful. We mentioned in earlier posts that a modeling engineer or circuit simulator may sacrifice the leading steady state portion of the VT curve in order to capture most portion of the transition behavior in high speed design. Tco is not kept in the model in these case. Also, SI engineers often look at the quality with eye plot, which is folded signal of different bits. There is no eye impact (eye height or eye width) by the Tco parameters as the full response to the input bit sequence has been shifted with the same amount of time, difference of true Tco and model presented Tco value.

With these parameters, one may generate a summarized table when given a library of IBIS models and will be able to find the best candidate for driving signal down the communication channel.

 

Generate spec. model:

Using these spec. parameters, we may further define and generate IBIS model for our early stage signal study. We can do the sweep on some of these parameters and generate artificial IBIS model accordingly. With this model for simulation and the analysis results, an SI engineer may provide this as a feedback to the circuit designer for desired performance. As a modern buffer is usually controlled by many “legs”, a circuit design should be able to find certain combinations of these “ON” lags to satisfy the system engineer’s need, or use the feedback as a guideline in fine tuning their buffer control circuit.

SPISim BPro's Spec. model generation

SPISim BPro’s Spec. model generation

With this concept, SPISim BPro takes one step further to support spec model generation, as shown in screenshot above. User can enter the appropriate settings and the corresponding IBIS model, with rising and falling waveform table included, will be generated instantaneously without any simulation. One then may use the manual waveform editor as needed to fine tune the transition waveform shape based on this spec. model.

BPro generated spec model will have smooth transitions.

BPro generated spec model will have smooth transitions.

 

IBIS model: Debug and performance tuning

In this post, we would like to talk about debugging IBIS model and performance tuning. As discussed in previous posts, one of the first and important steps to make sure IBIS model generated from simulation data is valid is to run with IBIS committee released golden parser. Often times, the parser will output the following errors or warning messages for models with suspicious qualities:

  • DC mismatch: mismatch between VT’s steady state and IV data;
  • Non-monotonic data points in I/V curve;
  • Extreme currents in IV data.

We are going to discuss these in more details below. For performance tuning, we are going to talk about buffer overclocking and the associated accuracy concerns. This is important because it will make sure your buffer will run at desired speed or lower without producing erroneous response. We also briefly talk about solution implemented in our SPIBPro modeling tool to meet the overclocking challenges.

DC mismatch:

One of the most troublesome messages output by golden parser is the DC mismatch warnings/errors:

DCMismatchMsg

When the mismatch percentage is small, what’s visible to modeling engineer is that their IBIS model will not produce exactly same dc steady state voltages comparing to those from original transistor buffer design. The usual remedy often is to go back  and check the IV simulation setup and biasing conditions then regenerate model and  check again. The last resort is to use editor like those in our BPro to manually adjust the data points mostly in IV table such that the DC mismatch will alleviate or even go away. To know how to fix this problem, we need to explain what this message means:

Steady state at the beginning and ending of the VT waveform

Steady state at the beginning and ending of the VT waveform

In the figure above, the beginning and ending points of each VT table, be it rising waveform or falling waveform, are assume to have reached steady state. These two steady states are taken by the IBIS parser to perform check for DC mismatch. During steady state, voltages are assumed to stay the same and the time point is irrelevant. Since each VT table comes with test fixture information, one may compute load line current with these two voltage points and the given fixture info.

DC mismatch is due to mismatched steady state and IV data point

DC mismatch is due to mismatched steady state and IV data point

In the figure above, we depict a buffer output to a test load setup, represented by variable R fixture to V fixture to ground in this case at the lower left. The load line current I is V / R. That is, when the nodal voltage at pad is V, the output current I can be computed as:

  • I_LoadLine = (V_Pad – V_Fixture) / R_Fixture

Now this current is contributed by those pull-up (PU, PC) and pull-down (PD, GC) circuits.  At logic high output state, we may assume PD are fully off (current contribution is 0.0), so current at this point is from PU mainly minus small reverse bias current from PC and GC. When looking at the PU’s IV table, we can find this V_Pad, minus Vcc (as PU’s voltage is “Vcc relative”), find out the I_PU for this voltage point. We can then find I_PC and I_GC similarly using PC and GC table if they are present (remember PC is also “Vcc relative”). Finally I_Out is I_PU – I_PC – I_GC. that is, based on these IV tables, this buffer will output current equivalent to I_Out. DC Mismatch means I_LoadLine is not equal to I_Out. That is, the output current computed from the VT’s ending points is not same as that computed based on the given IV tables.

What we just described is for logic high situation, i.e. ending point or rising waveform or starting point of falling waveform. For logic low output situation, the process is similar, only that in this case, PU is assumed to be fully “OFF” so most of the current drawn is from the PD branch.

Knowing the causes of this errors, then the approaches to fix become apparent. Either one may need to adjust (manually or check and re-simulate to generate) IV table, or need to check whether the VT wavform make sense or not. Our experience show that 90% of the case, IV simulation is not done correctly, either because bias condition was not setup properly, or the “pseudo-transient” methods change voltage too fast such that the current measured is not true “steady state” current.

 

Non-Monotonic Points in I/V data:

This messages means the table is non-monotonic, meaning the sign of its first derivative changes. Our experience shows that these types of warnings are usually OK to ignore. However, strong non-monotonicity may cause simulator trouble to find solutions around that region, thus cause non-convergence issue.

Often time these troubling points are in the non-active region of the device and can be “smooth” out easily by deleting offending or adding points. It should also be noted that some devices do exhibit non-monotonic behavior, so artificially removing them either to make it more appearing visually or to avoid parser warnings may cause concern of the model recipients about accuracy of this model, if they are also knowledgeable about this type of buffer design.

 

Extreme current in IV data:

ExtremeIError

This happens most common to power clamp (PC) and ground clamp (GC) data table. However, since PC/GC currents can’t be removed and must be subtracted from the PU/PD (pull-up/pull-down) current during modeling, it may also means that PC/GC currents are not captured properly in PU/PD such that after subtraction, PU/PD data table shows signs of “break down” current like those in the PC/GC.

PowerGndClamp

The picture above shown typical PC/GC curve. As one can see, most of the time (in normal buffer operating region), the curve is relative flat and value is small. This is in reverse bias region and leakage current is small. However, due to the -Vcc ~ 2Vcc requirement of the IBIS modeling to account for total reflection. the ESD circuit may well march into the “break down” region and have exponential like current output or drawn from the pad. It is in this area which may cause extreme current warning.

Since the buffer operate in ESD’s reverse bias region mostly, the approach to fix this can be simple, albeit a little artificial. One may find the data point at least 1 volt beyond points when ESD starts to breakdown and use these two points for extrapolation. This way the exponential like curves are converted to linear with still sufficient current output/drawn to allow ESD circuit, represented by PC/GC, to protect the circuits connecting to the buffer’s output.

 

Buffer Overclocking:

Each set of rising and falling waveform combined to form a complete period, T. The maximum frequency a circuit simulator can operate this buffer thus is FMax = 1 / T. That is, the longer the T is, the lower speed buffer can operate without letting simulator sacrificing some of model’s original data.

When a buffer is operated at a higher frequency than its models allows, FMax, this buffer is being overclocked. Overclocked buffer may produce inconsistency issue, as explained below.

Tolerance

The figure above shows a typical untrimmed VT simulation data or IBIS model VT waveform. One will find that the steady state portion occupies great portion of the data points. So if we set a tolerance range around these steady states and trim to remove those data points, we may end up with a much shorter duration of the data table which still captures the majority of the transition informatino, yet can be operated at a much higher frequency.

Normally this type of the “trimming” can be done by the circuit simulator automatically. However, being a modeling developer, you would not want to limit your user choice of simulators. Since IBIS spec does not give a clear messages how a circuit simulator should trim the data (e.g, trim from back or from the beginning, with how much tolerance?), one may often find simulation results inconsistent when different simulators are used on the same IBIS model, particular at a higher frequency.

MIN corner has much longer delay

MIN corner has much longer delay

Another example of source of overclocking is shown above. In this case, the min corner waveform, represented in blue, has much longer delay than the other two corners. Since the IBIS spec. requires that all TYP/MIN/MAX corner should share the same set of X-data (time), the MIN corner will then be easily overclocked or even won’t have enough transition information captured in the produced IBIS model.

To address this overclocking issue, SPISim propose letting user gain finer control of the trimming behavior. Also let tool take care of the tuning after trimming is done to avoid aforementioned DC mismatch issue. Another handy solution is to use editor provided by BPro to allow certain degrees of manual editing easily.

Tuning

SPISim BPro’s manual tuning capabilities

Note that besides the voltage portion we have discussed so far, power aware IBIS 5.0 model also present another challenge: The composite current, which contains crow-bar current as well, usually starts being active even when output voltage is still steady. As a result, simulator can’t trim out the leading steady state voltage because doing so, will sacrifice the current information presented in the model. We will discuss this problem and propose solution further in future post.

IBIS model: How to create an IBIS model

In previous post, we described the required data inside an IBIS model. These data are mostly various IV, VT and IT look-up tables under different test loading conditions. The IBIS modeling process thus is to create these tables from original buffer’s simulation results, then format and output as IBIS compatible syntax. Basically, the IBIS modeling process includes the following steps:

  • Collect: Collect design collateral, such as spice netlist and parameters;
  • Generate: Create schematic net list to excite the buffer into operations mode;
  • Simulate: Simulate the schematic net list using original buffer design;
  • Calculate: Check and post-process simulation waveform, compute data;
  • Model: Output the processed data into IBIS format;
  • Check: Use golden parse to check syntax, fix any errors and address warnings.
  • Validate: Create schematic net list to excite the generated IBIS model, obtain its performance parameters and simulation waveform under test load. Correlate the performance from original buffer design and that from created IBIS model;
  • Report: Document the IBIS model, annotate manufacturer information etc. and ready for release.
SPISim BPro's IBIS modeling flow

SPISim BPro’s IBIS modeling flow

Let’s talk about these steps in more details.

  • Collect:  Take this buffer design as an example. If we are going to create an IBIS model for this buffer, first we need to obtain the original spice net list which mostly contains many transistors. Besides, we also need to know under which condition this buffer is manufactured. That means we will need manufacturing process info. We also need to know its nominal operation condition, i.e. voltage supply. Lastly, we need to know at what temperature this buffer is expected to be operated at… as transistor’s performance is affected by the temperature quite a bit. Together, these are usually called P/V/T corners (Process, Voltage, Temperature). Lastly, we need to know what each of the buffer terminals should connect to (bias condition) in order to operate. Normally, a buffer will have many control “legs” which circuit designers can use to fine tune its performance such as slew rate and output impedance. Different settings for control legs will yield buffer with different performance. As an IBIS modeling engineer, you will need to obtains the settings, usually are series of bits flags, for these control legs. With all these information ready, you then can create schematic net list to excite the buffer for modeling.
Transistor and process info. for a buffer design

Transistor and process info. for a buffer design

 

  • Generate: In this step, one needs to excite buffer in order to extract simulation data for different IV/VT/IT tables. Different buffer model type requires different tables. The following give simple overview of how buffer needs to behave for different table’s extractions needs:
    • IV for PU: enable the buffer to output high state, sweep voltage at output pad from -Vcc to 2Vcc to get input current;
    • IV for PD: enable the buffer to output low state, sweep voltage at output pad  from -Vcc to 2Vcc to get input current;
    • IV for PC: put it in high Z state while provide input to like it will output high state, sweep voltage at output pad from -Vcc to 2Vcc to get input current;
    • IV for GC: put it in high Z state while provide input to like it will output low state, sweep voltage at output pad from -Vcc to 2Vcc to get input current;
    • ISSO PU: put a variable voltage source between ideal supply voltage and buffer’s pull-up terminals, then measure input current at output pad while the voltage sweep from -Vcc to Vcc. This mimics buffer operating under non-ideal voltage supply condition (i.e. voltage droop).
    • ISSO PD: put a variable voltage source between ideal ground and buffer’s pull-down terminals, then measure input current at output pad while the voltage sweep from -Vcc to Vcc. This mimics buffer operating under non-ideal grounding condition (i.e. ground bounce).
    • VT for rising/falling waveform: Connect buffer’s output to test loads and make buffer operate for low to high and high to low transition. Note that the input stimulus’s ramp rate should be practical (e.g. 100ps) as there is no instantaneous logic transition in real world. Do this again for different test loads. At least two VT simulation should be performed, with these two test loading conditions cover the actual usage range of the generated buffer.
    • IT for composite current: Put a zero-volt voltage source between ideal voltage source and buffer’s pull-up circuitry. Monitor its drawing current as buffer runs during operations for previous VT simulation. Typically IT and VT set-up can be combined in one simulation;

BPro_ISSO

IBISIT

  • Simulate:  The aforementioned net lists file can be generated either separately, i.e. one net list targeted for one IV/IT/VT table extractions, or be combined in one single deck and simulate sequentially using like HSpice’s “.alter” statement. The advantage of doing it separately is that these netlist can be simulated in parallel either using different threads on the same machine or using simulation farm/pool. One might need to perform “pseudo transient” simulation instead of true DC sweep as either some of the buffer design has clock signal or they tends to have convergence issue when doing pure DC sweep.

BPro generated netlist files

BPro generated netlist files


 

  • Calculate: In this step, the simulation results need to be visually inspected first to make sure the buffer outputs are desired. If not, one needs to go back to the first step and see whether there are missing bias condition needed to apply to buffer or the simulation setup is incorrect. Remember… garbage in, garbage out! If the simulation waveform is as expected, then the calculation step usually involve subtracting the always existed PC/GC reverse bias current portion from IV data for PU and PD, and switch the voltage for PC and PU such that they will be Vcc relative. If there is on die termination, the PC/GC current will be significant and may needs other special treatment. [Linked to Bob Ross’s paper]

 

  • Model: This step involves translating the calculated data table, along with its operation and loading conditions when the buffer is simulated, into IBIS syntax compatible format. To make data table compact and accurate, an optimization process is usually needed such that best 100 or 1000 points of data are selected from the sometime lengthy time-domain simulation results. Also, all Typ/Min/Max waveform columns have same time point at particular time. so the optimization process needs to take these into account. This optimization process is important for IBIS V3.2 model which only allows 100 data points in the table, and IBIS V5.0 model as well as the composite current is usually very “spiky” and best points need to be selected properly in order to capture most of the current behavior.
BPro's algorithm selects best 100/1000 points

BPro’s algorithm selects best 100/1000 points

 

  • Check: Once we have generated an IBIS model, the first step of sanity check is to invoke golden parser to check the syntax. Besides, it will also detect possible dc mismatch issue which implies the quality problem of the generated model. If the difference is beyond certain percentage, it will be flagged as error by the golden parser and most industry circuit simulator will refuse to run on these models. So it’s crucial to iron out and fix any errors and minimize the warning messages.
BPro uses golden parser to check syntax and detect errors

BPro uses golden parser to check syntax and detect errors

 

  • Validation: Once a syntax valid IBIS model is generated, one needs to further validate its performance and ensure it correlates to the original buffer design well. The validation net list contains instantiated IBIS instance alone with same test loading condition used for original buffer excitation. A good IBIS model is not only accurate, compact, but also run very fast without any convergence issue. So this step should run very fast. One can then visually check and correlate the simulation waveform produced by both original buffer in the “simulation” step and those produced by this just created buffer. Except for the leading delay which IBIS model is not intended to capture, the transition waveform shape and dc steady state should correlate very well.

 

  • Report: A quantitative report is usually expected to demonstrate the quality of the generated buffer. IBIS accuracy handbook and quality spec give spec. on these as industry standard. A “figure of merits” (FOM) is usually used to represent how well the generated IBIS model correlate to original buffer design.
BPro's visual inspection and FOM reporting

BPro’s visual inspection and FOM reporting

The above is a brief overview of the eight-step IBIS modeling process. There are many details which worth further discussion but are beyond the scope of this post. As one can see, there are many steps involved. While creating IBIS model manually is possible, yet it’s time consuming and error prone. That is why we SPISim developed the BPro module to address the needs for the streamlined modeling process.