Talk:Tape-out

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A plausibly looking myth ... preserved here for interest

  • this was not a myth -- see below MFago 00:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The process of creating the optical mask for a semiconductor device was originally done by laying pieces of tape representing the various parts of the chip on large tables. These layouts, or masks, would then be photographically reduced and used to selectively expose various layers of a chip to light in the manufacturing process. Long after the time of handmade masks, the creation of the datafiles for a chip's manufacture is still referred to as a "tapeout.

Indeed, the first masks were cut out manually. Even after the emergence industrial tooling for mask manufacture they were "edited" by cutting and pasting. I still have a chromium mask with some holes in it covered by a non-transparent tape. Mikkalai 19:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] taping out a chip

I agree with this history; one would first do a sketch and a schematic design, and then proceed to do a "tape out" with colored transparent adhesive tape onto clear plastic sheets. In this sense, the tapeout was the layout phase, while now it refers to the end generation of the tape (or more recently, transmitted datafile), after layout had been complete.

Steve P. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.141.253.203 (talk) 07:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] taping out: disputed/unreferenced

  • I'm not sure about IC's, but circuit boards used to be "taped out" by laying down adhesive tape onto clear plastic sheets. I've done it (sad but true).

So if this was also true for chips, isn't the article false?!

MFago 23:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

  • So I added a disputed tag. I suppose this is really related to the "unreferenced" tag. I'll try to find a reference either way.

MFago 23:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Stephen: was the taped layout photographed and then reduced for manufacture? That's what the procedure was for boards anyhow. If so, that's not all that different from today's usage.

MFago 23:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

  • So I found a reference. I've left the other verbage in there as well as they are both correct -- but the adhesive tape certainly came first -- assuming that the comments above and the reference that I found are correct. I know that it is correct for circuit boards.

MFago 00:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Mikkalai (the editor who added reference #1): Our two references are not contradictory. MFago 00:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)