Update
Development
The 28nm BE300 engineering batch tapeout was in September 16 with TSMC.
The power efficiency is 0.225W/G to 0.343W/G ranging from core voltage of 0.55V
to 0.70V. The two main mistakes made in BE200 were dedicatedly addressed and
avoided in the whole design stage so we do not expect surprise in frequency and
power consumption in real products.
14nm/16nm projects are at pre-evaluation and pre-design stage. It has to be done
in 2015 but the starting time of placing orders depends on overall gain vs (NRE/R&D/risks).
Led by Block Erupter Prisma, a series of efforts to reduce component-wise
cost and system-wise power efficiency were made.
Production
As known by OEM producers, several large batches of BE200 had problems with
popping chips affecting whole boards due to the misoperation from the packaging
company. It hindered afterwards chip sales and delayed the starting time of
Tube/Prisma sales. Later supply of BE200 has no such problem and filtering process
on old BE200 is also underway.
Because of the non-open-source status of Prisma and high cost of all other designs, BE200
sales were stopped. Rest BE200 chips will likely be consumed by Prisma and succeeding revises.
The mass production time of BE300 in terms of chip-out date is February to March, 2015.
Operation
As sales were seriously hindered by unexpected yield issue of BE200, we had missed many
dates with financing the big mining farm of our own. It is still hopeful that all good BE200
will be turned to hashrate before too late and we have liquid profits again before BE300, but
from the big picture, the missing of target on BE200, the mis-judgment on OEMs and later
yield/financing problem, limited our expansion and profit in this year. But luckily R&D on later
products is not much affected.
AM will continue to develop new products, expand its mining farms, deliver machines to miners,
as well as make money for shareholders.
There is no any foreseeable plan from AM side on force buy-back, dumping, or any
activities on the open stock market. There is no plan of privatization either. The management,
R&D, sales as well as marketing is being more and more separated and dedicated to professionals,
but the founders will continue to be heavily involved and drive AM in the more and more competitive
market. Scenarios of BE100 vs graphics card may never happen again, but we need catch
any opportunity on timing window of leads at either technology or deploying/financing resources
to win the last battle when mining is still an under-capitalized game.
Any way, thanks, FC. Although I lost a lot of money on AM shares, I'm glad to hear departments of AM is aiming to be more separated and professional. Packaging problem is obvious due to the absence of quality management system. If AM sent engineer to package factory, this failure would be avoided.