1. Purpose and scope
This stage is mostly carried out by the foundry and the mask shop, but the chip team still has work to do. It must approve mask data, make decisions about wafer starts and any process splits, monitor progress, and use the time to prepare everything needed when silicon arrives. The quality of that preparation decides how fast bring-up goes.
The stage starts when the foundry accepts the database and ends at first silicon, when the first wafers are out of the fab with their process control data, wafer-level test has started, and bring-up hardware is ready.
Scope includes mask data preparation and its review, the mask set, wafer starts, process monitoring data, the wafer start plan, and the readiness of test hardware, the first test program, validation boards, bring-up software and the qualification plan.
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