1. Purpose of the gate
Qualification start commits parts, test time and months of stress testing to AEC-Q100 qualification. If the parts are not representative of production, or the plan does not match the temperature grade and customer requirements, the whole campaign may need repeating. The gate exists to stop that from happening.
Representative means more than the right silicon revision. The parts must come from the production wafer fab, assembly site, package and materials, from the number of lots the plan requires, and they must have passed the production test program with the outlier screening limits that will be used in volume. Part average testing and similar statistical screens remove parts that pass the specification but sit away from the population, in line with zero defects thinking. Testing qualification parts with a different program or without screens would qualify a different product.
Qualification start is also where the quality planning work becomes concrete. The Process flow diagram and the Process FMEA, built from the Design FMEA, must be final, and the Control plan must exist in initial form, because qualification is performed on parts made under that flow and those controls.
The gate criteria are an approved qualification plan with temperature grade and test conditions, qualification parts from the production flow and lots required by the plan, and the production test program and outlier screening limits released for qualification.
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