Tapeout sign-off gate

Tapeout sign-off gate. The final go / no-go review, and it takes judgment: the status a check reports is not the same as whether it blocks tapeout. For each check, read the context and give it a disposition:

• Sign off - genuinely clean and run on the current database.
• Waive - it has violations, but a valid waiver applies: violations inside a licensed IP (Intellectual Property) macro with a signed vendor waiver, or on structures outside the die such as scribe-line process monitors.
• Fix - a real blocker. An open violation with no waiver; a functional mismatch that cannot be waived (an LVS - Layout Versus Schematic - mismatch is a real connectivity error, not a paperwork problem); or a result that reads clean but is stale (run before the last change), which must be re-run.

The traps are the ones that require thinking: a red violation pill can be a legitimate waiver, an LVS waiver request must be refused, and a green “clean” pill can still be stale. Disposition every check, then Submit sign-off. You clear the gate only when each call is correct.