[Galaxy S 4 General] RockRatt:
No. Increased QC "after" process engineers have worked over months and sometimes years perfecting NEW PROCESSES. Process engineers do SMALL scale lots a few at a time to work out any issues when making a NEW chip set. THEN after they have perfected a NEW Chip set then it goes to FULL PRODUCTION mode and still have 100% QC to check the processes out. For instance when they are running on my equipment we have multiple types of tool sets. So they get OPTIMIZED on a toolset. Once optimized and the processes are fully working does it go to FULL Production. The 100% QC is just to make sure that when 1000's of wafers are run that issues don't arise at all, compared to the process engineers that would run a few lots at a time and go through every area of the fab. Then start all over again with another few lots, each time fixing any issues. Basically they work out any issues while in Engineering Control BEFORE it hits production control. And why the 100% QC during production control is for things like a TOOL issue. Not the MAKING of a wafer, but the tool that is making wafers breaks down due to motor issues, electrical issues, anything that has to do with the tools that make the wafers.

Think about this, my company is open 365 days a year and NEVER closes. So the tool sets that make wafers are CONSTANTLY running the 365 days/24 hrs a day. So mechanical issues do happen. When they do it can scrap production wafers. Scrapped wafers are disposed of. That is what the QC is for catching, so any scrapped wafers do not make it into a finished product.

There are MANY MORE steps when making chip sets. I am a electronic technician and fix the actual tool sets that polish the wafers at angstrom levels http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angstrom and the tool set I work on the most is the Mirra Mesa from AMAT (THIS IS NOT ME OR MY FAB. JUST A PIC FROM A SEARCH FOR A MIRRA MESA)

So I really only know how and what my tool sets are doing in each step/layer if making wafers. I do NOT know the WHOLE process or the making a a die from conception to finished product. So if you wanted to know more about the making of a wafer and the steps taken you would have to research that as I don't even fathom knowing it all.

So again to make a long story short and to further expand a bit on my above post Early Batches are just checked out more frequently to insure the best quality wafers/chipsets are being sent to the customer. Make the customer happy and they keep doing business with you and expand business with you. Do crappy work and you lose customers. Then after 10's of thousands of wafers are made and each are STILL qc'd but randomly per lot of 25 to insure each run of 4 or 5 wafers inside the tool set at a time has no issues. There is LOTS to QC a wafer and alot of time is spent when you 100% every wafer after every step of each process. So once ALL is dialed in it is NOT necessary to check EVERY WAFER but randomly 1 wafers from each run (when 4-5 wafers run at the same time using the same process recipes. ) So first releases are NOT something to worry about and really no different that latter releases. Things DO NOT change when a wafer has hit full production. The only time things change is when Engineers are making TEST lots perfecting the recipes on tool sets and how to make the chipsets. These are NOT chipsets that ever make it into a Product. These are only used to give to the customer for testing. If the customers likes it after running their test on the engineering lots they give the OK to actually order the product. Then it moves into production mode and then into the actual products. Hope this makes some sense