As we have more conversations with people about their experience going through tapeout, we continue to collect different analogies that we want to share so when you go through tapeout, you can describe to your family why you’re working ridiculous hours, your eyes are bloodshot, and you can’t get ready for bed just yet, even when you’re “home from work.”

Here they are:

1. Tapeout is like finals week at college except it lasts months instead of a week.
2. Tapeout is like having more to do than is possible to do, and you knowing will be judged by and large on how you deal with that.
3. Tapeout is like putting together a 7,000,000 piece jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the front of the box, while people come by invoking the power of ECO to rip out parts of the puzzle you just finished assembling, or load you up with piles of new pieces.
4. Tapeout is like reading a three hundred page book [of timing reports] that has no plot, every day, for a month.
5. Tapeout is like watching your “family” spend all your money on necessities and emergencies, knowing it’s your job to pay the mortgage at the end of the month, knowing the money won’t be there, knowing you’ll be on the street when it isn’t, and knowing everyone knows it’s your problem, not theirs.

This is important to us because we are trying to make it easier for teams to get to tapeout without the current number of headaches that keep them away from their family. Let us know how you describe tapeout and we’ll add it to the list.