Connected to Luis via LinkedIn, this mean nothing, but it's still something.
I think the problem will be in Metabank & Bitfury, they have the chip only on paper. First test chips will be ready in August. By the words of its developer he will be surprised if it works from first time, and gives at least 2.5-3 months for testing&fixing. After that they have to create, test and fix boards, firmware, assembly everything, etc. I don't see this to be ready before January.
I can't speak to the complexity of building the ASIC, because as we've seen, nobody so far has met their intial timelines, avalon included.
Roughly speaking, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but it's roughly like this based on what I've read/deduced online
ASIC Design: ~6 months to 1 year
ASIC fab printing chips: 2 or 3 days for large quantities, but there may be a multi-week or more delay between batches, as they have to schedule fab time in competition with other companies also wanting to print chips.
ASIC chip testing: no idea... and if it fails, you go back to design phase, but for a much shorter time in theory.
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Once you have fully tested ASICs, the remaining time is much less (this part I've researched fairly extensively)
Board design: aprox 3-8 weeks, depending on complexity, and experience of individual/design company.
PCB printing: 5 days max
PCB Assembly: 5 days max
Full end to end prototype test/burn-in: 2 days
If it all works, then you go back to PCB printing phase, but do everything in large quantities, then sell.
