Topic: BFL ASIC mining board project - page 8. (Read 36538 times)
Incredible job, getting 3 GH out of a reject chip is better than I expected. imagine what you will get out of better grade.
Isn't that 2.4?
No, it's 2.9. The one showing 2.4GH/s bounces around all the time depending on when shares are discovered, but the average was 2.9GH/s. 
Feel free to ask any questions, and I will keep everyone updated as milestones are retired and the project goes along.
Was wondering where in the milestone list the pictures above are and nice setup
Project Status
Done:
June 1st - BFL announces chip sales, basic design ideas begin
June 16th - Group buy initiated
June 22nd - Group buy order placed
July 3rd - Sample chips shipped
July 12th - Samples received, final PCB review
July 14th - Test PCB sent for manufacture
July 18th - Estimated PCB ship date
Upcoming Estimates:
Week of July 22th to 28th - Begin building and testing of PCBs
Week of July 29th to August 4th - Continue testing, incorporate results into the production version
Week of August 5th to 11th - Begin taking orders for PCB sales, send out a small quantity of production boards for manufacture, finalize assembly information
Week of August 12th to 18th - Receive and build production test boards. Test, and if necessary, modify and respin board
Week of August 19th and beyond - Prepare for production, further testing and rework if needed, extra lead time. Final PCBs produced. Components ordered and stocked.
Mid September - Chips arrive and head to assembly
Was wondering where in the milestone list the pictures above are and nice setup
Project Status
Done:
June 1st - BFL announces chip sales, basic design ideas begin
June 16th - Group buy initiated
June 22nd - Group buy order placed
July 3rd - Sample chips shipped
July 12th - Samples received, final PCB review
July 14th - Test PCB sent for manufacture
July 18th - Estimated PCB ship date
Upcoming Estimates:
Week of July 22th to 28th - Begin building and testing of PCBs
Week of July 29th to August 4th - Continue testing, incorporate results into the production version
Week of August 5th to 11th - Begin taking orders for PCB sales, send out a small quantity of production boards for manufacture, finalize assembly information
Week of August 12th to 18th - Receive and build production test boards. Test, and if necessary, modify and respin board
Week of August 19th and beyond - Prepare for production, further testing and rework if needed, extra lead time. Final PCBs produced. Components ordered and stocked.
Mid September - Chips arrive and head to assembly
Putting out 2.9GH/s on 8 cores
Isn't that 2.4?Because some people wanted pictures. 
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
363MHz is incredible! Did ChipGeek manage to get similar clock speeds on his board with 14/15 engines running, or is this only possible because of the much lower TDP due to the low engine count?
Because some people wanted pictures.
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
363MHz is incredible! Did ChipGeek manage to get similar clock speeds on his board with 14/15 engines running, or is this only possible because of the much lower TDP due to the low engine count?
This sounds very exciting! I'll keep an eye on this thread too
Nice work MrTeal, congrats.
Very awesome! Keep up the work
Because some people wanted pictures.
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
Putting out 2.9GH/s on 8 cores
Test setup
Running at 363MHz (11.36MHz * 64 for the PLL clock, with 2 divisor)
Putting out 2.9GH/s on 8 cores
I thought it was mentioned that engine 0 was not working on the first run of chips and it would be remedied in subsequent runs
That is both interesting and plausible... I wonder how this fits in with the chip orders - has it been confirmed that they are being made in a separate run?
I think whether or not it is fixed depends on what layer the error is on. It is not unrealistic to expect that they would change the metallisation layer to enable the engine, as this gives a ~7% boost in speed, but there is no way they are going to have a full mask made up to fix the problem. Has anyone read anything about this? Is it known where the error lies?
I have seen Conman mention that if engine 0 is enabled all the other engines do not work. That was awhile back, and maybe things have changed but I am sure he knows
I thought it was mentioned that engine 0 was not working on the first run of chips and it would be remedied in subsequent runs
I'm curious too. Did you got engine 0 working. I'm pretty sure it is a hardware problem but still interested if I'm wrong...
Not yet. We might do some firmware fiddling to see if we can get it to work, but enabling E0 just causes it to spew errors.But since BFL given up on it I would guess it is hardware error...
I'm curious too. Did you got engine 0 working. I'm pretty sure it is a hardware problem but still interested if I'm wrong...
Not yet. We might do some firmware fiddling to see if we can get it to work, but enabling E0 just causes it to spew errors.
That's pretty much in line with what Lucko discovered. It seems the sample chips are likely those that didn't even make D grade and would have been discarded.
Unfortunately the chip I have mounted is terrible, 8 engines pass the test cases. It's pretty apparent that the samples shipped appear to be the rejects that didn't pass QA for the BFL products. Those that do run do so pretty well, running at 330MHz ~2.64GH/s. Testing continues...
Great news!
Let's face it, complaining about delayed BFL chip delivery won't be as much fun without having some cool boards sitting around!
Let's face it, complaining about delayed BFL chip delivery won't be as much fun without having some cool boards sitting around!
Evil, but quite right!
And we're hashing. There some interesting things that are coming out in hashing, I'm really excited to push the chips and see how they react even if they are the dregs of BFL's barrel.
In other notes, other features are looking like they should be working great. It appears that the on die thermal diode is functional, so we should have per-chip on-die temperature measurements, which will be much more accurate than a thermal sensor just placed on the PCB.
The latest board revision is almost done and should go off to fab this week. The major changes are dropping the onboard external clock generator which we aren't using, as well as moving to 8 chips. It will also feature a major revision to the power supply to solve some problems and ensure it's exceedingly stable.
In other notes, other features are looking like they should be working great. It appears that the on die thermal diode is functional, so we should have per-chip on-die temperature measurements, which will be much more accurate than a thermal sensor just placed on the PCB.
The latest board revision is almost done and should go off to fab this week. The major changes are dropping the onboard external clock generator which we aren't using, as well as moving to 8 chips. It will also feature a major revision to the power supply to solve some problems and ensure it's exceedingly stable.
That is extremely awesome! A big well-done and thank you!
I'm curious too. Did you got engine 0 working. I'm pretty sure it is a hardware problem but still interested if I'm wrong...
Mr Teal, How is everything progressing. Thanks!
Slowly, but going decently. We're talking to the chips, though we're still working through a few issues communicating with a vanilla build of cgminer using the BFL communication protocol so we can live hash on the network. Rewriting the mess of firmware BFL released is a bit slow going, but it will definitely be worth it once it's done.
I've moved on to now working on the design and layout of the 8 chip board so we can get it sent off to fab.
Must admit I am curious, will the rewritten firmware also work on BFL boards?
Fair enough, hopefully we'll see some of the innovation eventually merged back into the BFL firmware, if anyone has time to write the code!
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