AFox: Just noticed how close your estimate is to this one, reached from an entirely different perspective:
I doubt that KnC or OrSOC is seen as a big customer for this project, because they probably will not order more than 50 wafers in the first year (which would be already about 3 PH).
3 PetaHash/s ? That's a very interesting number. Could you expand the calculation for us? If I am seeing correctly that would be 10 times the present total network hashing power.
Is 50 wafers some sort of bulk discount number or some sort of standard order? Maybe there;s some minimum amount of wafers?
Thanks!
KnC ASIC will have about 100 GH/s realised with 192 engine IPs (see KnC R&D news from 7/19/2013).
I assume that an engine IP is equivalent to a pipelined hash core. To realise 100 GH/s they must run at a little bit more than 500 MHz, what is feasible in 28nm.
Based on technology scaling (2x more logic on same area form technology node to next technology node) we get based on BFL hash core size (estimated based on BFL die including 16 cores removing spare area and pad frame overhead) from 65(55)nm -> 45(40)nm -> 32(28)nm an estimated area per hash core of 0.6 mm2 in 28nm.
This results in an overall KnC die area of about 115 mm2 (0.6mm2 x 192).
Adding some area for supporting logic, I would say max 120 mm2 would be a good target.
An 28nm 300mm wafer has an area of about 70000 mm2. So we get 583 dies per wafer (assuming 100% yield, not realistic I know, but you can scale it yourself to your yield assumptions).
For 50 wafer:
583 dies/wafer -> 58.3 TH/wafer
50 wafer -> 2915 TH
Minimum ordering at foundries is normally one lot (25 wafer). Maybe also half lots are possible. But keep in mind, additional wafers costs nothing compared to the initial mask costs.
Thanks again to HyperMega!
His numbers don't seem to have hit criticism so far. Posting this here because of course it interests me greatly and trying to not contribute with speculative numbers on the original thread.
I do agree that the rule of 3 in this case should lead to a too high estimate but taking the current orders and the 25 multiples, the 50 wafer count does sound very much like a possible order for this year's KNC needs if they want to cover both the existing orders and the ones to come up to October or so.
Well, I wish all the best to KNC despite my reduced prospect for long term ROI
If they deliver this ambitious hardware on time, I will definitely consider them again next year for the next gen.