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Topic: BFL 3-15-13 update...Testing to Shipping...in "days". - page 2. (Read 5652 times)

sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
So they have a board and a chip that they claim works, but they dont have a 100% working firmware, nor have they *actually tested* the chips with the firmware and drives, yet they claim the chips work. Its kind of hard to claim the board and chip work if your firmware is buggy and you haven't conducted a full test. They act as if testing will go quick and smooth, this is NEVER THE CASE.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I'm sure they are working on a product, and I'm sure they even have some good engineering samples, but from their updates, theres no way they can possibly ship anytime soon unless they cut a lot of corners and release a half-baked product.


And, for god's sake, let the LED's work or lolwut will lose his shit.


(lolwut likes to back out on thousands of dollar deals when flashing lights don't work.  I guess it's a 'oooo, shiny,' kind of response.)

sr. member
Activity: 315
Merit: 255
Has anyone told BFL that they aren't actually selling ASIC chips by themselves? That's what it sounds like they think they are doing Tongue "The chips work".. well, cool, but you have to like, ya know, actually place them on a board and then run software on it and package it etc. Minor details I guess.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1002
They either need to ship in the next week, or they need to ship in 3 weeks, after I've moved. It'll be my luck that I'll move, try to update shipping address, only to find out that the units have already shipped to the old address, then I'll spend weeks trying to recover my packages... More waiting I suppose. I should be pretty good at it considering I'm still here from a 2nd month preorder.

Tell the postal service to forward everything to your new address.
full member
Activity: 155
Merit: 100
They either need to ship in the next week, or they need to ship in 3 weeks, after I've moved. It'll be my luck that I'll move, try to update shipping address, only to find out that the units have already shipped to the old address, then I'll spend weeks trying to recover my packages... More waiting I suppose. I should be pretty good at it considering I'm still here from a 2nd month preorder.
hero member
Activity: 1484
Merit: 500
Across The Universe
All the technical details are wonderful but as a customer all I really need is a ship date for confirming product.....
hero member
Activity: 658
Merit: 500
"days" is like Soon™ right?
hero member
Activity: 617
Merit: 531
This update is not surprising. BFL has been way too optimistic every step of the way. I look forward to them shipping to see an end to the constant steam of conspiracy theories and scam accusations.
full member
Activity: 155
Merit: 100
... and release a half-baked product.

I wouldn't wanna be a batch #1 or batch #2 customer aka BFL beta tester.

It sounds like most of the issues are in the firmware, which means that even if the first units have to run at 30GH/s, when the firmware is fixed, we'll all be running at 60+. Software is a lot easier to fix than hardware.
hero member
Activity: 1162
Merit: 500
... and release a half-baked product.

I wouldn't wanna be a batch #1 or batch #2 customer aka BFL beta tester.
legendary
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1000
So they have a board and a chip that they claim works, but they dont have a 100% working firmware, nor have they *actually tested* the chips with the firmware and drives, yet they claim the chips work. Its kind of hard to claim the board and chip work if your firmware is buggy and you haven't conducted a full test. They act as if testing will go quick and smooth, this is NEVER THE CASE.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I'm sure they are working on a product, and I'm sure they even have some good engineering samples, but from their updates, theres no way they can possibly ship anytime soon unless they cut a lot of corners and release a half-baked product.
sr. member
Activity: 291
Merit: 250
Oh, they will ship.  Just to themselves...in...god knows where.
legendary
Activity: 2492
Merit: 1473
LEALANA Bitcoin Grim Reaper
https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-2.html

Quote
It's been a long couple days here at the labs! Trying to test the chip in the test rig has been exceptionally trying and it turns out it's due to a bad socket on the tester. Initially we were concerned there might be a problem with the bumping or substrate, but fortunately we had tested the chips prior with the wire bonding technique, so we knew they worked. Getting the test boards made proved to be fortuitous as well, since we were able to bypass the test rig completely and bring the chips up on the board. By doing so, we were able to finally identify that the problem was related directly to the test rig and not any intermediate process or step.

Bringing a chip to life in situ on a board is not the easiest thing, so it has been slow going. The chip was responding properly on the board late this afternoon and we will be picking up the process in the morning. We hope to have a more complete test by Saturday night or Sunday sometime. Meanwhile, we will also be hard soldering a chip into place for use in the test rig and replacing the socket to allow the bulk testing to finish. In some other positive news, we've not found a single bad chip yet, which could mean our yield rate will be exceptionally high... maybe we just got lucky out of the 50 chips we have available on boards so far, but it seems unlikely. So that may mean the vast majority of our chips will be usable.

So the good news is the boards work, the chips work, the bumping works, the substrate works. We just need to nail down a bit more with the firmware and we should be able to conduct a full test and start shipping.

I will be posting another update as soon as I have more information. Needless to say it's been a pretty busy and stressful last few days here, and some script kiddie deciding to DDoS our sites this morning didn't help matters. All connectivity problems should be resolved now and we will keep people updated as time allows.

I find it odd that BFL is going to go from testing to shipping in a matter of days (from the sound of it like a "few" days). This is where Josh keeps failing.

They dont even have a working prototype and it is MARCH......TWO THOUSAND AND THIRTEEN. Back in November they were leading on making it seem they had a prototype then but couldn't ship until 30 days or more. So how is it that all of a sudden that they FINALLY get a "working" prototype that they are going to go from TESTING to SHIPPING in a few days?

Expect more delays people. Everything BFL made themselves out to be has come out to be false. They outsourced pretty much every part of the ASIC development process to a third party. And that is just to get started...

BFL is and will continue to be full of crap as long as they DONT disclose what actually went on during the time frame of October, November, December...

So fail... Cheesy
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