Topic: Already delays in BFL shipment plans? - page 40. (Read 49568 times)

Same!  I had several very early pre-orders for BFL SCs.  I was able to sell those preorders for a nice profit and put my eggs in a different basket 

Oh god... if you are right, I will be in heaven 

 

I wonder if we'll see some cancellations of orders from people that were hoping to get a quick benefit before the reward drop.

I am starting to believe this as well, I was hoping in starting the ASICs before the end of block reward cut.

I don't believe any of the ASIC vendors will shop before the block reward and not because they couldn't.

When there is money involved, no one can be trusted. Especially shady bitcoin vendors.

Bitcoin is too easily hidden as income which makes the opportunity even more tempting.

He states they are still in the PCB design/layout phase. Which means if all goes well and all the parts are on hand they should be ready hopefully by mid Dec/Jan.

Look back up at the quote I used 3 posts ago.

The ASIC's are "in fabrication" which means they have taped out and are somewhere in the mask/wafer/die making process.

Honestly I think he announced it within a week or 2 of the bASIC announcement. He held off opening things up until he had finished his prep work, and it sounded like he even had an ugly hack of a prototype at that time.

Anyone who have not taped out yet is unlikely to deliver before the end of the year, and I'm pretty sure even Avalon has already passed the tape-out mark, now that I think back.

The PCB Design and layout is independent, and much easier than the tape-out process, so it generally comes after the parts specifics are final to prevent rework (like another manufacturer is likely doing)

I think that's all conjecture at this time, since there has been no official taping out etc from Tom regarding the bASIC either.  It's still up in the air who will ship first right now.

The data tape has been put into a Fedex/DHL overnight envelope and already out the door in the hands of the courier and on the way to the fab?

I guess nowadays people just SFTP the files to the fab.

Here, current status from the enemy thread m'lord!


I believe that the mask set has been created and they are waiting on the wafer run, but I have not seen detail on those stages recently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape-out Tape-out simply means that they have sent the files to the manufacturer to make the masks.

Maybe you could tell us just what you think "taped out" means.

You mean wafers are diced, and devices ready for packaging? I wasn't following bASIC recently, that's quite impressive pace if true.

The bASIC ASICs are already taped out from the wafer...

all those fancy photos, but none are working.


heh, crazy stuff.

Actually they have inhouse assembly capability to some extent, so they are ahead of the pack as far as diversification of sources. All the other manufacturers have the same issue, but since they have gone from 0-60 in about 6 months (assuming full preorder shipments by EoY) the risk of having to respin and delay an extra 6-8 weeks would be considered minor compared with a whole second set of masks and batches half the size.


At the volumes we are talking about here is does not make any sense to negotiate and maintain multiple contracts for each part, maybe down the road if mining is a multi-billion dollar industry someday ($1000 bitcoins?) We are already talking about what the fabs would call "marginal quantities" at the quantities we are asking for. It's not like BFL put in for 100,000 7.5GH/s chips/month or something, they did a lot run of ~25,000 by current mining estimates, and will do another in a month or 2, or maybe they invested in 100k and are planning on selling them well into the new year (which would explain some of the longevity statements we have seen)

In any event they are not producing millions of these things like they are iPhones, it's just low thousands (or dozens for MiniRigs)

Don't worry. I'm sure everything will turn out just fine. Bang those things together and BAM: Überminer.

I mean their prototype works pret.....




..... oh....


oh dear.

Actually, it's not just them, everyone who ordered from BFL is SOL if that happens.

I remembered the threads from about a month ago where BFL were avoiding to commit to not "test" on the mainnet. Before posting this response, I checked the BFL website (found nothing), and their forums, where I found their statement that they won't be testing on mainnet:   https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/52-ASIC-Pre-Shipment-Testing-Policy
I apologize for posting based on old information. I was not trying to troll.

That issue is pretty much dead and buried. There have been statements from all the manufacturers (except ASICMINER who have a different model) that they will be using either Testnet in a box (bASIC, BFL) or custom testing software (ngzhang)

I agree, there will always be some chance that some mainnet mining could happen and we would never know, but that would be a direct contradiction of public statements that would serve as grounds for a lawsuit IRL. There are always people that are going to call them on it, but the statements are out there, and until any evidence to the contrary comes up I believe that they have passed the bar (by having a significant number of current satisfied customers and massive buy-in in the form of preorders, as well as communicating and updating their plans in a fairly coherent, if not optimal, way) to have their statements believed, but verified. BFL is doing a tour, Tom is taking on volunteer workers, and tons of folks are glued to their market and mining monitors like they are Oracles, hoping to a spike that might be ASIC testing.

Given the scrutiny they are under, risks to personal liberty and livelihood, likelihood of being caught (we know who they are), as well as the limited rewards (mining hawks see 1% deltas and freak out, what happens if they see 3TH come online at once? and that only has a return of $100k over 2 weeks) the idea of them changing their policies, or tolerating their employees sneaking units out the back door, is simply absurd.

FYI, if someone does violate the policy we have a nice class action lawsuit on our end, employee prosecution on their end, and BFL in the middle. Ain't no way they want to be in that pickle.

Edit: I understand about old info, no trolling intended, sorry about the knee-jerk assumption.