marked141 wrote:
I guess "it depends" would be a better answer. If you're shipping a gaylord full of high Telco and one or two chips were removed accidentally then it's definitely not something to worry about. If you're shipping a smaller box and Boardsort is likely to look at every board, it's possible the one board with a single gold tab bga that got ripped off and doesn't have much else to keep the grade high, will be downgraded if you didn't keep the chip with the board.
Not knowing your exact situation I erred on the side of being cautious.
I think I just took the post about automatic downgrade to mid too literal. Makes sense that there's a little room for error, especially if the chip is still sent in with the board, rare occurrence of if it's a minor chip, etc.