1. Purpose and scope
The production release is the kit customers tape out production chips with. It matches the production release in the process node lifecycle and it needs the process to be qualified first: its reliability rules come from that qualification, and its models must describe the silicon customers will actually receive. Its content is final: models and rules correlated to risk production silicon, sign-off decks validated, extraction correlated, and foundation IP recharacterised on final models and validated on silicon test vehicles.
Production tape-outs rely on this release, including SoC tape-out, IP released as validated, analog and mixed-signal tape-out, safety-critical automotive products, which usually wait for the production kit, and large AI accelerator dies, where late kit changes are especially costly. Because so much design work now depends on it, the kit goes under formal change control at this point: every change needs approval, regression and release notes, and ships as a new numbered release.
In scope: final model to silicon correlation, library silicon validation, the final regression, the Production PDK release with final release notes, distribution of the release, moving users from pre-production, and setting up change control and the update cadence. Out of scope: routine errata handling and update releases once the kit is stable, which belong to Customer Support, Errata & Updates.
12 more sections for registered members.