Packaged Chip Size: 7 mm x 7 mm
Thanks for the transparency, but the
unpackaged die size is what you ought to be posting. Without that it's impossible to make performance comparisons (or at least those comparisons would have to assume it fills the whole package cavity, which portrays Avalon in the worst possible light). Please provide the unpackaged die size.
Also, I think you may have neglected to say how many of these chips are in the 60GH/s device… or perhaps I missed that. Anyways, without knowing how many chips are in the device, none of the information above is really useful. Did you post this somewhere that I didn't see?
Assuming a maximum die size of about 25mm^2 in a 7mm QFN, I would guess quite a lot of them if the unit is actually drawing 400W. Probably a few dozen. That's a lot of heat to move from a molded package.
That would be 200m$ worth of BFL hardware... Not going to happen, leaving quite a margin for less efficient device to cover their investments ... at some point.
That would be 200M $ worth of BFL hardware
at current prices. There's a substantial financial incentive for them to drop their prices once business slows down - the marginal cost of ASICs is fairly low and the up-front cost fairly high, and they probably want to make as much money on that upfront investment as possible. Of course, that doesn't leave much room for purchasers of BFL's devices to cover their investments either.
There's definitely a lot of room for BFL to come down, but I'm not sure just how much. I could see the Minirig SC come in at $15k, but it doesn't matter if the ASICs fall out of the sky, you're not going to see a Minirig SC at $1500 until there's a respin that brings down the power and size of a 1.5TH/s machine to close to the size of a Single. My speculation is that BFL could sell the Minirig SC quite profitably at the $15k price point of the current MR, but it would not be economical at $7500 (1/4 it's current price) unless they start to produce tens of thousands of them.
