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Topic: [Announcement] Avalon ASIC Batch #1 Ships - page 84. (Read 238910 times)

sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 251
Avalon ASIC Team
January 20, 2013, 06:31:48 PM


For those like myself doing difficulty estimates for calculating future BTC price changes, can we assume this might have been an order of 75 Avalon discounted? What was original purchase price?

If 75, it's 4.5 TH/s.

Since this "joke" by PuertoLibre isn't dying, I'll confirm here that it is in fact been photoshop'd.
donator
Activity: 1419
Merit: 1015
January 20, 2013, 06:26:05 PM


For those like myself doing difficulty estimates for calculating future BTC price changes, can we assume this might have been an order of 75 Avalon discounted? What was original purchase price?

If 75, it's 4.5 TH/s.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
January 20, 2013, 06:23:45 PM
400W and only termal pads? That means a lot of chips on board, I guess.. Did they say how much MHs per chip they got?

I think the final specs are part of the "surprise" they're talking about.  I know that in their situation I'd be kind of tempted to say nothing and let the first people to start using their product make "holy shit, they over-delivered" posts - as they're not taking any new orders right now, they can afford to do that.

I kind of regard everyone's first batch as proof of concept.  In a way, the first units shipped by each vendor are going to be prototypes.  Those who ordered first took the biggest risk, so I hope that all of the vendors will be willing to replace/upgrade those first units if necessary as problems are ironed out.

Those who want a given vendor to fail are forgetting that competition drives innovation.
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
January 20, 2013, 06:18:20 PM
400W and only termal pads?

Perhaps I used the wrong term.  I meant the large solder point in the center of the QFN packages.

sr. member
Activity: 295
Merit: 250
January 20, 2013, 06:13:20 PM
Where did these pictures of their ASICs come from?
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003
January 20, 2013, 06:12:56 PM
I wonder how much testing has gone into this.  Surely quite a bit.  But wouldn't it be a great upset if Avalon was first to ship and all of the units failed after a week or two?  
A prediction for BFL in March 2013?
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
LTC
January 20, 2013, 06:10:39 PM
400W and only termal pads? That means a lot of chips on board, I guess.. Did they say how much MHs per chip they got?
420
hero member
Activity: 756
Merit: 500
January 20, 2013, 06:08:37 PM
just a theory. maybe everyone's waiting till after chinese new year.

it will help all of bitcoin if all these companies remain in business
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
January 20, 2013, 06:04:56 PM
Quote from: Specifications
Number of Pads: 48
    8 Data
    40+1 Power

40 of the pads are GND and 1 is VCC only have 8 tracks of Data
What? That makes no sense.
There's 48 pins and the one thermal slug under the chip. Of the 48 pins, 40 are power (GND and Vcc), and the +1 refers to the thermal pad which is also ground.

Good, that really is not important, the story is that there are only 8 pads data, the remaining 40 are split between GND and VCC.

my 2cents would be that its better form-factor or for cooling if the chip can be fed power from multiple lines where it is needed, rather then piping in through 2 lines and being forked within the chip to where power is consumed.

(Im not a hardware professional/manufacturer, thats just my logic for explaining the number of connections)

my other 2 conspiracy theories are:
1) more contacts simply help keep the chip sealed to the board better to prevent seperation in the case of thermal expansion/contraction or other physical abuse
2) some power connects are redundant in case errors or heat problems cause some pins to burn out or short. (though i dont think this is a very likely practise for mitigation of such an issue)

Suppose the underside of the board contains the ground plane, which is connected to the top layer with a bunch of vias to the solder pads that connect to the thermal pads on the bottoms of the QFN chips.  Then the top side of the board has the Vcc plane, which connects to the chips on all the pins that are not otherwise used for data.

That way they have the metal in place to support moving a lot of amps through the chips.  If they wanted to get more extreme they could even apply a DC bias to the data pins and use them for power too.
hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
January 20, 2013, 06:03:58 PM
another tip for the shipping speed debate: The faster they ship out 300 pre-paid units, the sooner they can start taking payments for more units.

it would seem silly for them to twiddle thier thumbs when the speed of delivering these units will determine how soon they can make more money/customers. (on the other side of the spectrum, BFL is still taking pre-orders)

ps: PLEASE dont turn my comment into a trollish BFL debate, this is an avalon thread for avalon devices and thats why im reading it.

Not really.  Their production capacity is affected by CNY.  If they shipped all 300 units today, they're not really going to be able to deliver a second batch sooner than if they wait a couple of weeks.

There's also the issue of how the first 300 perform in the wild.  If they start the production process for a second batch now, they don't have information on how the first batch has performed and risk having to scrap that run and start again if there are major issues which need addressing.  
legendary
Activity: 1274
Merit: 1004
January 20, 2013, 05:54:00 PM
How many units did you actually ship?

There are lots of posts on BFL forums where users write something like: "The shipping thread names two recipients. Therefore there are only two units shipping, QED."

Meh, I don't think it matters all that much if they did only ship two units last night.  The more relevant question for me would be about continuity of shipping and whether they are going to be keeping a steady supply of units going out the door daily now until all 300 units have shipped.  It would be annoying if there's now a break of a week before any more units ship, for instance, even though they've explicitly stated since October that they would ship over a two week period.

I guess it's also worth remembering that with some people ordering multiple units, the number of units shipped isn't going to match the number of orders fulfilled.  One order could be 5 or 10 units.

I think people overlook the fact that there are pros and cons for the way each vendor has planned launching their product and that initial shipping is only the beginning, not the end game.

+1
Shipping two in the first day really doesn't mean much. It's only if they can only ship a few every day that they'll be in serious trouble.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1003
January 20, 2013, 05:39:42 PM
I'll post photos and a review when my unit arrives.

I was surprised that I was the only core developer who paid for a unit.  Followed the shotgun approach:  ordered units from all the people working on ASICs.


Good for you!

Most developers seem to be waiting for freebies simply because they are coders.

In most industries people pay for expensive Developer Kits (including a computer system).
member
Activity: 60
Merit: 10
January 20, 2013, 05:37:41 PM
Hi,

I believe that connecting such many pins to ground is just "good engineering practice". If you need one power pin, one ground pin and 8 data pins, what do you do with the rest? I usually ground them if it is possible (if they are for example IO pins set for input). You never want to have floating pins for many reasons (in this case mechanical, but may be they'll act as an antenna and will introduce some noise into the circuit if not connected somewhere).

(Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just an amateur engineer :-))
legendary
Activity: 2128
Merit: 1005
ASIC Wannabe
January 20, 2013, 05:35:53 PM
another tip for the shipping speed debate: The faster they ship out 300 pre-paid units, the sooner they can start taking payments for more units.

it would seem silly for them to twiddle thier thumbs when the speed of delivering these units will determine how soon they can make more money/customers. (on the other side of the spectrum, BFL is still taking pre-orders)

ps: PLEASE dont turn my comment into a trollish BFL debate, this is an avalon thread for avalon devices and thats why im reading it.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1099
January 20, 2013, 05:32:27 PM
There are lots of posts on BFL forums where users write something like: "The shipping thread names two recipients. Therefore there are only two units shipping, QED."

Although I'm obviously biased...  BFL really should do that, too.  Most major manufacturers ship out demo and review units of hardware before the mass production units are shipped to vendors/stores/customers.

Even if BFL only shipped out two units, it would prove they have working hardware and start everyone salivating Smiley

hero member
Activity: 868
Merit: 1000
January 20, 2013, 05:31:07 PM
How many units did you actually ship?

There are lots of posts on BFL forums where users write something like: "The shipping thread names two recipients. Therefore there are only two units shipping, QED."

Meh, I don't think it matters all that much if they did only ship two units last night.  The more relevant question for me would be about continuity of shipping and whether they are going to be keeping a steady supply of units going out the door daily now until all 300 units have shipped.  It would be annoying if there's now a break of a week before any more units ship, for instance, even though they've explicitly stated since October that they would ship over a two week period.

I guess it's also worth remembering that with some people ordering multiple units, the number of units shipped isn't going to match the number of orders fulfilled.  One order could be 5 or 10 units.

I think people overlook the fact that there are pros and cons for the way each vendor has planned launching their product and that initial shipping is only the beginning, not the end game.  I also expect that every single ASIC vendor which does deliver (and I believe that BFL will) will be doing a lot of post-delivery tweaking and that tweaking is what's going to determine who has the best product at the end of the day.


hero member
Activity: 784
Merit: 500
January 20, 2013, 05:28:35 PM
How many units did you actually ship?

There are lots of posts on BFL forums where users write something like: "The shipping thread names two recipients. Therefore there are only two units shipping, QED."

Better than the leading Manufacturer in ASIC design Smiley
legendary
Activity: 2128
Merit: 1005
ASIC Wannabe
January 20, 2013, 05:26:53 PM
Quote from: Specifications
Number of Pads: 48
    8 Data
    40+1 Power

40 of the pads are GND and 1 is VCC only have 8 tracks of Data
What? That makes no sense.
There's 48 pins and the one thermal slug under the chip. Of the 48 pins, 40 are power (GND and Vcc), and the +1 refers to the thermal pad which is also ground.

Good, that really is not important, the story is that there are only 8 pads data, the remaining 40 are split between GND and VCC.

my 2cents would be that its better form-factor or for cooling if the chip can be fed power from multiple lines where it is needed, rather then piping in through 2 lines and being forked within the chip to where power is consumed.

(Im not a hardware professional/manufacturer, thats just my logic for explaining the number of connections)

my other 2 conspiracy theories are:
1) more contacts simply help keep the chip sealed to the board better to prevent seperation in the case of thermal expansion/contraction or other physical abuse
2) some power connects are redundant in case errors or heat problems cause some pins to burn out or short. (though i dont think this is a very likely practise for mitigation of such an issue)
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
January 20, 2013, 05:19:36 PM
I guess BFL needs to start preordering through AVALON! LOL!!!!
hero member
Activity: 1162
Merit: 500
January 20, 2013, 05:12:10 PM
How many units did you actually ship?

There are lots of posts on BFL forums where users write something like: "The shipping thread names two recipients. Therefore there are only two units shipping, QED."
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