Quote from: minerpumpkin on March 29, 2014, 03:03:43 PM

Quote from: szmarco on March 29, 2014, 02:58:46 PM

Can somebody explain what the functionality tests are?
And What's the next?

1. You design the chips on a computer.
2. You simulate whether they will work, make changes if necessary!
3. Optimize as much as possible, repeat step 1, 2
4. When you're sure the chips will work, you tape-out, i.e. print a physical "mold" that is used to produce the chips. This is incredibly expensive.
5. You produce the circuitry of the chips on silicon. This is somewhat expensive - again, and takes about a month.
6. You package the silicon to actual chips. This takes a week.
- Until now you spend about 6 months or more and 5-7 figure amounts of US$ while you don't know if the chips you produced are going to work at all.
Now we know they do. *popsChampagne*

wow....thanks. That sounds great!