1. Purpose and scope
This stage sits between the business decision to fund a chip and the detailed specification work that follows. It starts at concept approval, when the business case is accepted and a team is funded to define the product, and ends at the technology feasibility review, the first technical readiness review of the lifecycle. In between, the team turns the market requirements into the main chip requirements, compares candidate architectures on models, sets first performance and power targets, and chooses the process node, the critical IP and the package options the chip will depend on.
The point of the stage is to find out early whether the chip can be built as the business case assumes. A concept that relies on a process, an IP block or a package that is not ready is cheap to change here and expensive to change after the specification is frozen. The stage therefore ends with evidence rather than promises: each critical technology is shown feasible, or each gap is recorded with an owner and a plan, before the program commits to writing the full specification.
The guide covers the chip track of the stage. The business case, the market and the portfolio fit belong to the product lifecycle and are referenced where they feed the chip. The detailed specification, the micro-architecture and the first discipline plans belong to the SoC Specification & Architecture stage that follows.
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