1. Purpose and scope
Photonic products depend on more suppliers than most chips: photonic and electronic wafers, lasers, fibres, connectors and assembly. When a product is withdrawn, every one of those must cover the last builds, and customers must have time to move to the next generation of optics.
This stage runs the last-time buy, makes the last builds, supports migration and archives the data needed to answer questions about shipped parts. It begins at the last-time buy and ends when final orders ship and the archive is complete.
Optical products are often withdrawn because a faster generation replaces them rather than because demand ends, so customers may need the old product for installed systems long after new designs move on. The notice period, the last-time-buy quantities and the spares policy should reflect that, as agreed with customers and in any supply commitments made at release.
Where the product is co-packaged with a host chip, its end of life is usually set by the host product's end of life, and the two plans are made together.
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