Minutes of the 02/03/03 SV_BC Meeting

 

This is my list of attendees and voting status. Please submit corrections to johny.srouji@intel.com:

 

(aaaaaaaa________)                  Johny Srouji (Intel) *

(aaaaa__aaa_aaaaa)                  Cliff Cummings (Sunburst Design) *

(___a___aaaaaaaaa)                  David Smith (Synopsys)

(aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa)                  Karen Pieper (Synopsys) *

(aaaaaaaaaaaaaa_a)                  Kevin Cameron (NSC) *

(aa_a_aaaaaaaaa_a)                  Steven Sharp (Cadence)

(__a___aaaaa_aaa_)                  Dennis Brophy (Model Technology)

(_____a__a___aaaa)                  Tom Fitzpatrick (Co_Design)

(aaaa_aaaaaa____a)                  Gord Vreugdenhil (Synopsys) *

(aaaaaaaaaaa_____)                  Brad Pierce (Synopsys) *

(aaaaaaaa_a____aa)                  Francoise Martinolle (Cadence) *

(aaaaa_aa_______a)                  Don Mills (LCDM Engineering) *

(________aa__aa__)                  Mike McNamara (Verisity)

(__________aaaaaa)                  Stefen Boyd (Boyd Technology)

(_____a_____aa___)                  Medi Mohtashemi (Synopsys)

(___________aa___)                  Paul Graham (Cadence)

(_____a_____aaaaa)                  Peter Flake (Co_Design)

(___________aaaa_)                  Simon Davidmann (Co_Design)

(___________aa__a)                  Heath Chambers (HMC)

(____________aaa_)                  Dave Kelf (Co_Design)

(_a_a_a_______aaa)                  Vasisilios Gerousis (Seimens)

(aaaaa_a_________)                  Dan Jacobi (Intel) *

(_____a__________)                  Stuart Swan (Cadence)

(_____a__________)                  Adam Krolnick

(a_aaaa__________)                  David Rich (Synopsys) *

(_____a__________)                  Yong Xiao (Synopsys)

(aaaa_a__________)                  Jay Lawrence (Cadence) *

(aaa__a__________)                  Matt Maidment (Intel)

(_____a__________)                  Wolfgang Keil (Synopsys)

(____a___________)                  Alec F. Stanculescu (Fintronic)

 

* indicates eligible to vote on consensus issues

 

** SV-BC BNF meeting on 01/29/03 was not taken into account for attendance.

 

 

Minutes

 

·        Review of our F2F minutes for the 01/22/03: Johny moves that we accept meeting minutes. Karen seconds. No opposed. Meeting minutes passed.

·        Review of the BNF specific meeting for the 1/29/03: Johny moves that we accept meeting minutes. Dave Rich seconds. No opposed. Cliff Cummings and Steven Sharp abstain. Meeting minutes passed.

·        SV-BC F2F Meeting: Johny moves to have a joint meeting w/ sv-ec on the 27th (afternoon). Agree: Gord, Cliff, Dave, Steven, Karen, Kevin. Need to check w/ Dave Smith on relevant topics and need.

·        Discussion of open items which were passed from SV-EC:

 

1.      Slice with Unpacked Arrays

 

Issue Description & Background

 

This is regarding the use of slices with unpacked arrays. All of the examples in 3.0 were with packed data. Was it intended that unpacked data could be used as well?

 

It is not clear in Section 4.4 which is supported. The first paragraph refers to packed array or integer type. There are additional references to both packed and unpacked. The example we want to verify is:

 

string d[5:1] = { "a", "b", "c", "d", "e" };

string p[*];

p = { d[1:3], "hello", d[4:5] };

 

which would result in: "a" "b" "c" "hello" "d" "e"

 

Is the use of the slice legal?

 

 

Resolution/Discussion Outcome

 

We discussed Dave Rich proposal which was sent on Jan 13, and posted under: http://www.eda.org/vlog-pp/sv-bc/hm/0331.html.

 

It was noted that the issues are not with slices, rather than the definition of literals. Dave raised the concatenation versus a literal issue. When you have a packed array or structure then ops is the concatenation and when talking about unpacked objects. We’re talking about a literal.

As to the following example,

 

p = { d[1:3], "hello", d[4:5] };

 

What’s wrong is that there should be a cast. You can use a slice of unpacked array but not as an expression. “hello” is a packed object not an array of characters.

 

After further discussions, we came up w/ the following answers:

·        Is taking slices of packed arrays valid? The answer is YES, but there is a whole bunch of issues. We need to define what’s legal wrt spec 3.1. There is no way in 3.0 to concatenate unpacked arrays.

·        Can you use a slice of unpacked arrays? YES, but there is no way to concatenate unpacked arrays. This is inconsistent to the semantics of other “{“ in SV. This may cause confusion.

 

 

Conclusions

 

It was agreed that Dave Rich will come up w/ a modified proposal and others will comment on it, before we vote in our next tele-call.

 

 

Updates

 

Dave submitted a modified proposal on Feb 4th, and posted under: http://www.eda.org/vlog-pp/sv-bc/hm/0436.html.

 

 

2.      Issue with Enumerations

 

Issue Description & Background (as submitted by David Smith)

 

It appears that the SV-BC has recommended that all static casts perform run-time checking (costly) while the SV-EC has recommend that the static casts perform a fast coercion that always copies the value regardless of it being either a legal enumerated value or within the range. In order to provide type checking the dynamic cast is provided.

This conflict should be resolved.

 

Resolution/Discussion Outcome

 

The committee did not find anything that passed previously when interpreted in context (that all static casts perform run time checking)

Cliff pointed that user input and perspective is important. Matt pointed that if the tool does not create the assertion and check the nature of the cast a user will have to do it, so it is better for the tool to do that.

It was proposed to ”Do static checks only and not do any run time checking”. Dave Rich moves to accept it. Cliff seconds. Agree: Kevin, Dan, Brad, Dennis.

Oppose: Steven Sharp. Abstain: Jay, Karen, Francoise, Gordon, Matt, Johny

 

Conclusions

 

It was decided that Dave Rich will put a detailed proposal. The static checks are not clear. We are checking types not values.

 

 

Updates

 

Dave submitted a modified proposal on Feb 4th, and posted under:

http://www.eda.org/vlog-pp/sv-bc/hm/0434.html