So there are two sources of &quot;tape&quot; in the word &quot;tape out&quot;. Back in the good &#x27;ol days (Pre 1980s), chip designs were done on paper by the engineers, and then transferred onto rubylith tape (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tingilinde.typepad.com&#x2F;.a&#x2F;6a00d83451b54669e2017ee846b452970d-400wi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;tingilinde.typepad.com&#x2F;.a&#x2F;6a00d83451b54669e2017ee846b...</a>) by mostly women. The rubylith was then moved to the fab, where it was used as the mask for photolithography (start of manufacturing of the chip).<p>The other source of the name was that starting in the 80s through 90s, when EDA tools started being used in the industry, designs were all done on computers, and then the final file containing the information for the fab (.GDS2) was put onto a storage media (tape) and sent to the fab.<p>In both of these cases, it is basically the final design step, before you wait however long for the silicon to get back from the fab. It is also a huge stressor as the fabrication runs are prepaid for, so when you are approaching tape out date, it is typically extreme overtime for everyone involved.<p>I should probably get back to work; 2 1&#x2F;2 months to tape out myself... hopefully will get some sleep between now and then.