Term · Business & Market
Engineering sample
Pre-production silicon released for evaluation and software development, marked as not qualified and not guaranteed to meet the final datasheet. Supplier terms usually limit it to evaluation and bar resale or use in shipping product, though the exact conditions vary by supplier.
- Also known as
- ES, Engineering sample part
- Type
- Term
- Domain
- Business & Market, Product lifecycle
Notes
ES parts leaking onto the broker market is a recurring problem, particularly for CPUs and GPUs.
Overview
An engineering sample is a pre-production chip that a manufacturer releases before the product is fully qualified, so that customers and partners can evaluate it, design boards and develop software early. It is marked or numbered to show that it is not a production part, and its behaviour may still differ from the final datasheet. Engineering samples are meant for evaluation, not for products shipped to end users.
How it works
Samples typically follow first silicon. Once early parts work well enough, the supplier builds small quantities and sends them to lead customers and partners, often under nondisclosure or loan agreements. Later silicon revisions may fix bugs, change limits or alter features, so documentation at this stage is usually preliminary.
Suppliers label the stages in their own ways. Texas Instruments, for example, uses part number prefixes on its TMS320 microcontrollers: TMX for experimental devices that may not represent the final electrical specification, TMP for final silicon that meets the specification but has not completed quality and reliability checks, and TMS for fully qualified production devices. TI ships TMX and TMP parts for internal evaluation, notes that prototypes have a higher predicted failure rate and recommends that they not be used in production systems; where such parts can be ordered, they are sold without warranty.
Intel describes its engineering sample processors as pre-production parts loaned to equipment makers and software vendors. They remain Intel's property, are not for sale or resale, are not covered by warranty and may carry an 'Intel Confidential' marking. Intel also states that its engineering and qualification samples are the same thing. Samples sometimes leak into second-hand markets, where buyers can meet odd behaviour and no support.
Examples
- A TMX-prefixed microcontroller sent to a motor drive customer to start firmware development before qualification is complete.
- Engineering sample processors loaned to a system maker to design and validate new motherboards ahead of launch.
- A sample batch shipped with a preliminary datasheet and an errata list that is updated with the next silicon revision.
- An unmarked processor bought second-hand that turns out to be an engineering sample with no warranty support.
Why it matters
Sample coordinators, bring-up and applications engineers, product engineers and errata writers handle samples on the supplier side; on the customer side, hardware and software teams use them to prepare products before production parts exist. Early samples shorten time to market, but a design built around one may need changes when production silicon or the final datasheet arrives.
Related terms
Part of the Business & Market glossary, with every term in the topic and the lifecycles, tools and standards that use them.
Where it appears on the Hub
Used on 11 pages of the Hub. In each group, the pages that mention it most come first.
Lifecycle stages and gates
Skills
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Last reviewed . Written by The Semiconductor Hub editorial team. The full glossary