When pressed for a reason why, I have been told that because this is a very dense, hand routed design they are afraid of making a mistake and have required extra checking and sign offs which has slowed down the whole process considerably. They don't want to be on the hook financially for having to redo the whole order.
Am I misreading this, or does this sound like they won't be at tape-out until 30 days from now? (What careful checking of hand routed design will you be doing once the masks are being printed?).
"Tape out" is the term for sending the design to the fab. (Name has stuck from back in the days when a computer tape was sent by FedEx. Now it's done with ftp over the interwebs.) Then the fab checks the files for errors then makes the masks and begins making the wafers. My interpretation is that BFL sent the design to the fab days / weeks / months ago. What is not clear to me is if the fab has started masks or wafers yet.
My best
guess is that masks are done and wafers are (just) started. Also a guess: extra delays came from questions or problems with the design that caused problems in making the masks.