1. Purpose of the gate
Product silicon validated is the engineering judgement that comes before the commercial one. Product first silicon confirmed that the parts are traceable, power up and respond; Engineering samples decides whether parts leave the company. Between them sits the question this gate answers: does the chip do what the product specification says, across the checks in the silicon validation plan, and where it does not, does the company know exactly how and why?
In a startup the same few engineers bring up the chip, answer the board and prepare the samples, and the pressure to ship is strong. Holding a separate validation review stops the sample decision from being taken on enthusiasm. It makes the validation lead state, check by check, what passed, what failed and what was waived, and it gives the architecture and design leads a formal point at which to accept the silicon issue analyses and the errata that follow from them.
The gate criteria are the silicon validation plan executed with each check passed, failed or waived with a reason, measured results compared with the product specification with every gap dispositioned, the errata list documenting known issues with workarounds and a fix plan, firmware running the checks in the plan on product silicon, and a silicon validation report written and accepted by the architecture, design and validation leads.
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