1. Purpose of the gate
Tape-out releases the die to the foundry. Once masks are made, a design change costs a new mask set and months of schedule, so the gate checks the sign-off evidence one last time: clean final checks on the merged database, approved waivers, and results produced with the locked kit, deck and model versions.
In RF products the gate also checks that measurement is ready to follow. The de-embedding method must be chosen and its standards placed on the wafer before the database is frozen, test access for production test must be in the design, and evaluation boards and fixtures must be designed and ordered so they arrive before the wafers. A tape-out without these loses the first weeks of silicon.
The gate sits at the end of the stage Sign-off & Tape-out and belongs to the RF engineering track. In one line: The layout database and its hand-off package are released to the foundry and accepted, and the evaluation hardware and characterisation plans are ready to order.
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