Tape
Out refers to the manufacture of chips through a series of process steps like an assembly line. In the field of integrated circuit design, "Tape Out" refers to "trial production".
In the field of integrated circuit design, "tape-out" refers to "trial production", which means that after the circuit is designed, a few or dozens of pieces are produced for testing. If the test passes, mass production will start like this.
After watching the movie "Modern Times", we may often think of the scene of Chaplin's button screw. We all know that the assembly line-like production in the film is the production line. It's just that with the development of science and technology, Chaplin's role on the production line has been replaced by machines. We manufacture chips through a series of process steps like an assembly line, which is tape-out.
In the chip manufacturing process, there are generally two periods of time that can be called tape-out. When it comes to mass-producing chips, that assembly-line production is one of them. You may have known that this process is called tape-out for a long time, but the following situation cannot be described in detail. When we were working on the design, we found that some places could be modified to achieve better results, but we were afraid that such modifications would bring unexpected consequences to the chip. If chips are manufactured on a large scale based on such a problematic design, then The loss will be great. Therefore, in order to test whether the integrated circuit design is successful, it is necessary to carry out tape-out, that is, from a circuit diagram to a chip, to check whether each process step is feasible, and to check whether the circuit has the performance and functions we want. If the tape-out is successful, chips can be manufactured on a large scale; otherwise, we need to find out the reasons and optimize the design accordingly.
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