1. Purpose of the gate
The discontinuance notice is the formal, public start of the node's end of life. It opens the Node End of Life stage. Once issued it is very hard to withdraw, and customers will use it to make their own decisions: whether to place last-time orders, redesign onto another node, or end their own products. The gate exists to make sure the notice is complete, fair, consistent across customers and compliant with every agreement before it goes out.
Published practice such as JEDEC JESD48 sets out what a product discontinuance notice should contain and the minimum notice and order windows customers can expect, and many customer agreements set their own terms that may be longer. For a process node the notice usually covers every customer product built on it, so the affected list is large and the review must be confident it is complete. The notice must state the last date for orders, the last date for wafer starts, any constraints on order quantities, and the support that will continue after the last shipment.
The criteria are: affected customers and products listed; notice issued to every affected customer; and last-time-buy plan agreed.
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