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Topic: 21e6, LLC - Secretive ASIC manufacturer that raised $5 million - page 3. (Read 41655 times)

member
Activity: 118
Merit: 10
Take my rumor for what it is. I take what I've heard in earnest, but you know, grain o' salt and that. The points I'd like to point out are...

1. 21^6 controls 12% of the bitcoin mining production. Sounds like a sizeable chunk to me. Evidently they were going for 20%. 
2. Belaji is a fucking evil genius, in the best kinda way. He's fucking great. And not evil. Nevermind.
3. The company intends to remain private, and distribute the bitcoin dividends to their shareowners, permanently. It's pretty cushy if you're a shareholder.

I figure this thread to be dead, but I happened upon a very unique bit of information y'all might be interested in. Figure what you will with it. It is recent information.

Any news? How to become a shareholder?
hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500

if i knew more i would've told more !

all i know is that the founder is a stanford professor with a good reputation - BALAJI SRINIVASAN... and that there's serious money involved.  we know they raised $5m.. but maybe more...

and that they've got a lot of bright people involved.

and that they've been working on it longer than several of the other guys.. so, one would assume that they're keeping it secret.  this is the only 'secret mine' that I've ever heard of.

the big question is... what does $5m buy them?   does it get them enough to design and build their own silicon?  and what silicon will it be?  is it state of the art 28nm, or is it a cheaper, older process node?

heck, with their connections, they could even be trying to go for 20 or 16nm...!?

we don't seem to see any of their miners hashing so presumably they don't have silicon back yet, or maybe it didn't work, or maybe its not good enough.. which is odd, as people who started later than them have already received their silicon or are expecting it within a month or so.

maybe it went wrong?  maybe they got delayed?  its a mystery that such an experienced and well funded team seems to have not (yet) achieved their goals.




I think 20 or 16nm is way out of discussion. $5m should be enough for a 28nm mask(design included). Where or when did you heard about them and how? Do you know for how long are they working on this project?

$5 million should be enough for them to develop a chip and product.   

theres a rumour they raised a lot more recently.  anyone know for sure?
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1026
Mining since 2010 & Hosting since 2012

if i knew more i would've told more !

all i know is that the founder is a stanford professor with a good reputation - BALAJI SRINIVASAN... and that there's serious money involved.  we know they raised $5m.. but maybe more...

and that they've got a lot of bright people involved.

and that they've been working on it longer than several of the other guys.. so, one would assume that they're keeping it secret.  this is the only 'secret mine' that I've ever heard of.

the big question is... what does $5m buy them?   does it get them enough to design and build their own silicon?  and what silicon will it be?  is it state of the art 28nm, or is it a cheaper, older process node?

heck, with their connections, they could even be trying to go for 20 or 16nm...!?

we don't seem to see any of their miners hashing so presumably they don't have silicon back yet, or maybe it didn't work, or maybe its not good enough.. which is odd, as people who started later than them have already received their silicon or are expecting it within a month or so.

maybe it went wrong?  maybe they got delayed?  its a mystery that such an experienced and well funded team seems to have not (yet) achieved their goals.




I think 20 or 16nm is way out of discussion. $5m should be enough for a 28nm mask(design included). Where or when did you heard about them and how? Do you know for how long are they working on this project?

$5 million should be enough for them to develop a chip and product.   
full member
Activity: 195
Merit: 100
doesn't mean all bright people come together can produce anything useful. There is still the EQ aspect that people don't see. They will face the same stiff competition like other companies. It is a mountain to climb.
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
If the money came in last March or April, and they had a design already mostly RTL'ed, I would expect their engineering samples would start to trickle in this Feb or March.  Perhaps products in May or June.  They're still someone I want to watch out for, but they're doing a good job at running a tight ship, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Except they're said to be all in-house, no consumer products. Although it could just be a load of marketing hype for future salesof consumer products, I guess ("We now offer you the chance to buy the most closely guarded mining technology the world has ever known..." etc)
A good point.  I was just thinking in terms of ASIC delivery schedules based on the reported 4.7M capital.  If they stay private, I doubt we'll notice, since we've got HashFast, Cointerra, BitMine, and Bitmain all dumping piles of power on the network over the next few months.  An interesting mystery, but I'm still not certain what to do with any information we find about them.
legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3080
If the money came in last March or April, and they had a design already mostly RTL'ed, I would expect their engineering samples would start to trickle in this Feb or March.  Perhaps products in May or June.  They're still someone I want to watch out for, but they're doing a good job at running a tight ship, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Except they're said to be all in-house, no consumer products. Although it could just be a load of marketing hype for future salesof consumer products, I guess ("We now offer you the chance to buy the most closely guarded mining technology the world has ever known..." etc)
sr. member
Activity: 272
Merit: 250
There was a post inside this thread saying about 4.7 mil NRE. Also, there was a link to .doc file explaining all that.
It disappeared this morning. Can anybody point me to that?
full member
Activity: 168
Merit: 100
If the money came in last March or April, and they had a design already mostly RTL'ed, I would expect their engineering samples would start to trickle in this Feb or March.  Perhaps products in May or June.  They're still someone I want to watch out for, but they're doing a good job at running a tight ship, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Big spike here early January.
http://bitcoin.sipa.be/speed-lin-10k.png

Maybe from them, who knows so far
hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500
Quote
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

thats incorrect.  tsmc has said they've done tens of customer tapeouts in 20 and 16nm already!

in several articles, tsmc has said more than 25 customer tape-outs so far and more planned for 2014...

http://wccftech.com/tsmc-begins-volume-production-20nm-chips-q1-2014-16nm-finfet-chips-q1-2015/

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131022230815_TSMC_Shares_More_Details_Regarding_16nm_FinFET_and_20nm_Progress.html


Hearing rumours they're about to go live and that their setup looks very similar to (but not the same as) asicminer in chips and cooling tech.

legendary
Activity: 3430
Merit: 3080
Quote
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

thats incorrect.  tsmc has said they've done tens of customer tapeouts in 20 and 16nm already!

in several articles, tsmc has said more than 25 customer tape-outs so far and more planned for 2014...

http://wccftech.com/tsmc-begins-volume-production-20nm-chips-q1-2014-16nm-finfet-chips-q1-2015/

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131022230815_TSMC_Shares_More_Details_Regarding_16nm_FinFET_and_20nm_Progress.html


I've also seen that Global Foundries are talking up their snatching the debut of 16nm process node out from under Intel, which could just be a bit of marketing gamesmanship, but could also be a genuine possibility.

It's getting to the point where the leading edge silicon feature shrinkages are converging with new SHA-256 ASIC chips, after all, the newest node process is usually tested out with known simple chip designs with plenty of recurring features (flash chips are a good example for those that look at the new consumer SSD products, 20nm has been available for some time now, and 25nm has been available for several years already). So 20nm is arguably tried and tested, and 28 nm is arguably getting a little long in the tooth. 16nm is the new frontier, bleeding edge process.

And all the comparisons with the process used by latest GPU's aren't really valid, the new GPU may well use new chip designs also, and the chip design itself just does not include as many redundant features as an ASIC or a flash memory chip.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Still think that, Gator?


It's already a fact

http://www.coindesk.com/kncminer-pre-orders-next-asic/



I got my quotes out of sequence. Gator was the one who said it wouldn't happen. I said it would.

Ah makes more sense, gator has been spewing armchair engineer nonsense for a while now.
hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Still think that, Gator?


It's already a fact

http://www.coindesk.com/kncminer-pre-orders-next-asic/



I got my quotes out of sequence. Gator was the one who said it wouldn't happen. I said it would.
hero member
Activity: 518
Merit: 500
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Still think that, Gator?


It's already a fact

http://www.coindesk.com/kncminer-pre-orders-next-asic/

hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014!



Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Still think that, Gator?
hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500
Quote
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

thats incorrect.  tsmc has said they've done tens of customer tapeouts in 20 and 16nm already!

in several articles, tsmc has said more than 25 customer tape-outs so far and more planned for 2014...

http://wccftech.com/tsmc-begins-volume-production-20nm-chips-q1-2014-16nm-finfet-chips-q1-2015/

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131022230815_TSMC_Shares_More_Details_Regarding_16nm_FinFET_and_20nm_Progress.html
hero member
Activity: 490
Merit: 500
Quote
i am still betting someone, somewhere will release in 20 or 16nm during 2014 !

Not unless you have enough money to build their own fabrication plant  Tongue

Any new node will be booked solid for years by the likes of IBM, Intel, AMD, nVidia, Samsung etc. for their own products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants
hero member
Activity: 702
Merit: 500
We need more info.

IMO, they should've raised these funds 3 months ago (then again, with all the new money I'm seeing come in to our industry, many of the principals may have never even heard of BTC 3 months ago).

May be too little/too late.

seems like somethings happening... they appointed a new ceo days ago... so maybe they're about to pounce !

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/matthew-pauker

http://valleywag.gawker.com/phase-ii-of-silicon-valleys-secession-plan-suck-up-al-1465367092

I think we should expect to see them mining soon...  they must be coming out of stealth mode if they're giving interviews in business week etc...

Does anyone know anything about their asics?  what spec are they?  What process node are they?  28nm or 40nm or 65nm?

Are they just going to mine themselves (like we think) or are they going to sell anything?

presumably, since they've not engaged with anyone at all that we know of, they're still pursuing the 'secret mine' biz model...!

sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
We need more info.

IMO, they should've raised these funds 3 months ago (then again, with all the new money I'm seeing come in to our industry, many of the principals may have never even heard of BTC 3 months ago).

May be too little/too late.
legendary
Activity: 1764
Merit: 1756
Verified Bernie Bro - Feel The Bern!
it's hitting the saturation point since bitcoins is a "zero sum" game.
meaning that another company takes away from a limited amount of coins.
price of bitcoins has to be much higher to sustain all these companies long term.

there's already 10+ companies maybe 15 involved with asics. the pie is 100% - how much can they each control?


Coins are limited, but customers are not.  Manufactures are not mining coins, they're selling machines.  Their customer base can increase as long as there is enough newbs willing to mine at a BTC loss.  With the increase in BTC price and popularity it seems the pie is increasing quite nicely for the manufacture's.

Moral of the story, hoard, hoarding is the new mining for Joe six pack!

Edit:  Sorry re-read and it looks like you meant self mining manufacture's so in that case ya they can all enjoy the race to the bottom.
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