Quote from: DutchBrat on December 11, 2012, 05:39:22 PM

If/when the foundry is done with BFL's chips in 30 days they need to be shipped to the USA, tested and by BFL, packaged, shipped and what not.

Actually the bare dies will first need to be packaged, which probably will not happen at the foundry.

Then the packaged chips will need to be shipped across an ocean, pass through Customs, and finally arrive at BFL HQ, where they will test them.

Then, *only if* they pass all of the tests, can BFL begin putting them onto boards, working out the firmware, and maybe packing and shipping a few of them out the door. That's assuming their inhouse pick-and-place machine and reflow oven work, and have competent operators. The bulk of the chips would get shipped right out the door again, along with the rest of the components, to the board production house, to be done up onto boards en masse.

Quote from: Roy Badami on December 11, 2012, 08:37:03 PM

Quote from: ChipGeek on December 11, 2012, 04:36:51 PM

"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.

I always thought the name came from the fact that in the earliest integrated circuits the masks were produced by hand using an opaque sticky tape on a transparent film. A process known as tape-out, which you obviously didn't start until you'd completed the design.

Tape-out refers to the final step in production immediately before the photomasks are made.

Your design can be at the foundry, but until they're ready to make the masks, it's not said to be at tape-out stage.