Topic: ACTUAL Butterfly Labs PCB pics! - page 3. (Read 40283 times)

Reference: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/251-More-Jalapeno-Pictures-amp-Shipping-Update/page18

Eryngi (like Bogart) asks the right questions.

It seems to me like it is what eryngi points out (IMO), that there is possibly a different reason for leaving customers in the dark as to what is potentially being played out.

Indeed, it is very smart of eryngi to pull out. It would be dumb if he did stay despite strong indicators as to what the game may be behind the scenes. I think Sharky does not really understand (at all) what eryngi is going on about. If he did, he would be more concerned at the possibilities.

There are two kinds of customers in this case, those who are worried but their confidence is based on promises. Then there are those who understand what the subtle hints indicate and are worried enough to jump ship.

In this case, eryngi has decided that jumping ship was appropriate considering what all the indicators led him to believe. (Think of it like the Titanic just after it hits the iceberg) He has cashed out based on that information (and apparent confirmations/denials) of a situation. There are other people whom don't know what any of it means or don't know any better and will stay until it is very evident there are problems. (The Titanic begins to tilt and enters the waters length wise?)

The company has stated that refunds are currently a trickle, and they are honoring those whom wish to jump ship early. Though they said if it becomes an administration issue with too many refunds they will close that door. They also state that they have not used any pre-order funds. So that means every penny is safe. (Why accept pre-orders though if you can sell the product once it is ready for shipment if that is the case?Why not a standard pre-order down payment if you only wished to know how the market demand was for your product?)

Anyway, at the first signs of ice on deck, jump ship. Never believe that there are enough lifeboats or that this ship cannot sink. That is my personal opinion.

I just wonder if they will allow eryngi words to persist and sink in for others after eryngi's  refund? I am inclined to believe they will wipe it out.

Checkout this post from BFL which seems to support my position:
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showwiki.php?title=FAQ:Bitforce+SC+ASIC+Product+Line

"While our numbers are very good, we are being conservative with our announce power figures and the likely power consumption will be even less."

That's not the ASIC.

Where is the NEW custom heatsink?

Most likely the owner of the hand is fat.

http://semicon.njr.co.jp/eng/icpackage/doc03.html

That's because the bottom heat spreader has orders of magnitude better thermal conductivity than the top of the package and is used in most cases to dissipate the heat from a QFN package. I would expect that even with the heatsink on there the die temperature will get pretty high, we won't see anything like we have with the Spartan-6s where the die temp can be 35C. Still, even if the on die temperature is high it's not like that's a problem depending on design. People run GPUs at 60-70C 24/7 and they're more complex chips than thes.

Hmmmm. At a certain point you start to hit severely diminishing returns though. As I understand it what actually matters is the junction-to-air thermal resistance R_θJA, which is equal to the sum of the junction-to-case thermal resistance R_θJC and the case-to-air thermal resistance R_θCA. Now, R_θJC is a property of the chip package and can't be improved by using a better heatsink, so once you've got R_θCA significantly lower than that you don't get much benefit from better heatsinking. (That's partly why you don't see fancy heatpipe heatsinks on Spartan-6 mining boards; the package thermal resistance is high enough that it's not worth it.)

I can't actually find any information on the typical thermal resistance for the top of a QFN package, though, which is where BFL are attaching the heatsink; most datasheets only seem to quote R_θJC for the exposed pad on the bottom.

They're using thermal pads, so probably not much of a problem.

^^^ This.  It will be very tricky to get all 8 chips the same height and in the same plane.  We have had similar issues with heatsinks not making good contact w/ multiple chips.  This could be a big issue for BFL.  But at the (low) power levels BFL is predicting, it may be less of an issue.

Maybe they're "holding back" and will surprise us with better "real" numbers when the product ships.

Yep, so why do we only see the 2x "die shrink" advantage in these power estimates and nothing else? Where's the additional efficiency gain of going full custom? Shouldn't the BFL be 3x or 4x more efficient, not just 2x?

And I'm aware Inaba has already answered this by saying Tom's numbers are unrealistic. But I don't think either one has a working prototype, so we'll just have to wait and see.

fucccckkkk I really wish my investor listened to me when i said "PREORDER THEM NOW PLEASE?!" because now he just goes "theres not enough ROI in it for me at this point to invest"
I only got like a #11k preorder

They are custom designed by BFL.

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bfl-releases-renderings-of-new-bfl-single-waterblock-and-heat-sink-117403

If you think the 54 GH/s ASIC is going to pull only 100w, I have a bridge to sell in Brooklyn as well.  The 27 GH/s units might be around 100w, though.

An accurate estimate? Something like +0/-30% would be a conservative estimate.

A brave estimate.

How would you call it ?