1. Purpose of the gate
Pathfinding approval is the first commitment of people, wafers and simulation capacity to a future node. It is not a decision to build the node. It is a decision that the questions about how it could be built are worth answering now, by a named team, within a stated scope, and that the answers will be brought back at Technology concept selected.
A node is a long, expensive and shared undertaking. Every later product built on it depends on choices made in pathfinding, and the work itself consumes scarce development fab time and research staff. The gate therefore tests three things: that the node has a sensible place on the technology roadmap relative to the nodes already offered and those planned, that the pathfinding charter asks the right questions and says when exploration will stop, and that the funding and core team match the charter.
The gate criteria are the technology roadmap position agreed with business and engineering leadership, a pathfinding charter whose scope, questions and exit criteria are approved, and agreed funding and core team. A good review spends most of its time on the charter, because a charter with open-ended questions is the most common cause of pathfinding that never converges.
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