TideLink v1-RC (2026-05-21)

Release-candidate tag for the v1 chiplet bring-up cycle. LOCAL-ONLY tag.

Contains:
- Bug #3 structural fix (autoneg mask phase) in sub a510bae
- HAL lint clean (0 errors in TideLink RTL scope)
- Verilator lint clean baseline
- 4 ASIC design docs (hard-IP, UPF, DFT, GPIO_PHY arch)
- SHORTCOMINGS + V2_DEFERRALS catalogue
- 4 CI integration plans (audit + FPGA + lint + cocotb)
- Lane-0+7 deep-dive + regression candidate hunt reports
- Reset-driven tb_early_exit_force_q (sim X-prop fix)
- Sticky SWI_LANE_STATUS instrumentation
- RDL preprocessor regex fix (recovers 11 dropped fields)
- ECC SECDED re-enable (4/4 cocotb regression PASS)
- Cocotb test consolidation (8 stale top-level copies dropped)

Known issue (deferred to v2): rebuild produces 12/16 deterministic
lane lock; morning's pre-built bitstream at mapstone-dev:/tmp/
tidelink_deploy/ continues to lock 14+/16 and is the v1 release
binary. See docs/V1_RC_PIVOT.md.

HW-validated on bridge1 (z2_02/z2_03 PYNQ-Z2 pair):
- Autoneg: master wins in 5ms, slave loses, both role_locked=1
- I2C bus: active, slave engaged (i2c_addr + sda_start seen)
- ECC: sim regression 4/4 pass

NEVER PUSH this tag to remote (standing constraint).