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What is "risk production"? I can't help but reading it as something like, "we even risk producing some chips at some point!", which I presume isn't quite it.

• unstuckdev 8y ago
  https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/risk-production https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/risk-production >> "Risk Production means that a particular silicon wafer fabrication process has established baseline in terms of process recipes, device models, and design kits, and has passed standard wafer level reliability tests." It sounds like a batch produced to certify the process for insurance and contract purposes.
• pkaye 8y ago
  Its industry terminology I think. I've seen it used at some companies I worked at with IC development.
• ip26 8y ago
  That's sort of right, basically it's the first real production runs, when you think everything is ready & will work, but you haven't actually made a real product yet. At the start of risk production, by definition there have been no customer designs put through the fab. Actually this is not quite true, Sun explained. Before the start of risk production the company has already run a number of shuttles with test chips from customers, so foundry and clients are already starting to wring out the more critical structures in the first customer designs. But these test shuttles are not full chips either. -- https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/practical-chip-design/4309335/TSMC-risk-production-what-does-it-mean-for-28nm- https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/practical-chip-design/... So, it's a point in the process where the foundry is taking a chance, and the customer is also taking a chance. I've also heard it applied to a customer design, e.g. the customer starts to volume ramp production before they finish fully testing the design.
  • Taniwha 8y ago
    As a customer I've always heard it used as the latter when we tape out (or spin from a bug) and think we're ready to go so we start some wafers down the line behind the first ones to reduce time to market
• Tuna-Fish 8y ago
  From starting a batch to where products are actually testable takes >3 months. "Risk production" means that the foundry says, "okay, we think everything is fine now, but we make no guarantees that it will work". Customers then have the option of purchasing super expensive wafer starts that might or might not work. You might luck out and have lots of great next-gen chips months before your competitors, or alternatively you might get the GF100 thing happen to you where you get five working chips out of each $10k wafer.
• tfha 8y ago
  It's basically pre-calibration production. As wafers come off the line you learn that there are miscalibrations, parts that don't work perfectly, places where things are misaligned or maybe other minor issues that impact performance and yields. You don't need to do anymore R&D or major NRE, but you may need to do a lot of tweaking and tuning. Risk production is generally low volume because stuff doesn't work so well yet.
• Treblemaker 8y ago
  When chips are manufactured there are process tests using test structures embedded in the pad ring and scribe area between the die images, as well as functional tests that are specific to the design. Risk production just means the "customer" will accept the parts from the fab without the parts being fully tested. In other words, the customer is accepting the "risk" of parts not working. When the fab settings and test flow are mature then the fab assumes responsibility for parts that do not pass the testing.