Topic: [BitCentury] Metabank 120Gh 65nm Pre-Order Proxy [CLOSED] - page 9. (Read 79044 times)

We had plans for various tests including dead bugging, but as we are receiving the chips later than originally anticipated, we are going straight to testing with a prototype PCB.  We are submitting our prototype PCB design for manufacturing today, lead time for that is approx 5-7 days.

Tacotime, what a pleasure to see you in our thread! This reminds me, I need to catch up on your MC2 Alt-coin thread (URL: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/mc2-a-cryptocurrency-based-on-a-hybrid-powpos-system-169204). My initial impression was that it looked like a promising start to a real and improved alternative to bitcoin, as compared to all the other "clone-coins" out there (to use the polite terminology).

@fpgaminer: I'll let Nigel comment on that, since he's the one that will be handling the alpha chip testing.

The reported efficiency numbers from the Russian subforum posts are almost unreal, it appears at low voltages he's hitting 0.40 W per GH/s.

Very cool!  Do you have a prototype PCB ready for them, or are you dead bugging it?

Greetings,
Just another quick update. We can confirm that our Alpha chips are officially en route! ETA = Mon or Tues (depending on time zone).  In case you are wondering, the Bitfury alpha chips will allow us to:
a) Peer review and confirm the chip's functionality, hashing speed potential and power usage
b) Allow us to start thinking about possible PCB designs in the event Bitfury ever decides to sell chips like Avalon or BFL.

Have a great weekend everyone!
Luis

Hi guys,
We recently spoke with  Metabank and here's some information we'd like to pass on:

Q1: When will the machines be ready for delivery?
A1: In Autumn, around October.

Q2: We heard of at least 1 individual on Bitcoin forum that was selling Metabank devices after you announced Batch 1 was closed, can you explain this? Do you have any more units you can sell us?
A2:The batch is closed, we have not sold more equipment since we announce the closure.

Q3: Will your product be a bare circuitboard or will it ship in a case like avalon and BFL have.
A3: Most likely it will be in a case

Q4: Do you know if it will be dual voltage power supply? (110/220V). How many watts will the unit draw at the wall?
A4: Sorry, I don't know answers to either of those questions. We are not at that stage yet.

Q5: Can you explain if the interface from the computer will be USB or Ethernet?
A5: It most likely won't be connected to the computer, just the power plug. It's independent from the computer .

Q6: Yes, but how'd the computer intercommunicate with it? What's the interface?
A6: There'll be software for that

Q7: So it'll require special software to run from the computer? Which mining software? cgminer? something else?
A7: Yes. I can't answer questions like this yet. If I make a mistake, I'll leave you misinformed.

Q8: What is your estimate for when there might be a Batch 2? When is Bitfury getting Batch 2 chips from factory?
A8: I can't tell the exact dates at this point. Around the release of the Batch 1, we'll have understanding when the Batch 2 will be pre-ordered.

As we get more details over time, we'll do our best to pass them along. Right now, i'd say they're in very early stages of designing the PCBs, so obviously not all the details are worked out yet. PCB design can take a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on complexity, access to all the necessary equipment, engineering skill level, design flaws/re-starts, etc. Likewise for the chip assembly process on the PCBs, although that part can be done in about 5-10 days, depending on volume and availability of all the tiny components (aside from the ASICs).
Cheers,
Luis


PS. I'm a little behind on waitlist requests, but will try to get to those in the next couple of days. Thanks for your patience.

Hi guys,
It's been a few days since we've provided some updates. This is mostly because we've been busy dealing with some administrative work in the background. FYI, we have not yet received our alpha chips. It looks like the first ones went to individuals primarily involved in producing PCBs for Metabank and similar parties that were investors in Bitfury's chip manufacturing, so this is not a bad thing. There is apparently a larger set of chips already in Europe that will be shipped out to all the remaining selected testers such as our organization; however whilst we have no exact ETA we were told 2 weeks, about 1 week ago. So let's see what happens there. In the mean time, one of the Bitfury chips was sent to zeptobars.ru, which is a site that apparently analyzes chips under high zoom optical microscopes.

Here's the relevant eyecandy:

QFN packaging - execellent for thermal performance and low inductance connection to leads:


Chip without the packaging - tiny! This plus low voltage operations, should make for some awesome USB hashers one day.


If we correctly understood some of the Russian postings, bitfury's chip will have over 700 cores (crazy). This is a good thing in the sense that for example, with BFL chips there's 16 cores (avalon I think has 1? Correct me if I'm wrong). If during the manufacturing process dust or other particles get in the die's surface, it could cause a core malfunction. This is why on some BFL chips, some people are saying that one BFL device performs slightly slower than another, because 1 or 2 cores may have been damaged. When you have 700+ cores, the hashing rate differential will be less noticeable. To be clear, this picture does not show identifiable cores.


Nano art on the chip. Apparently Bitfury had some spare time on his hands ;-) Surprised it wasn't a bitcoin symbol or the logo from his FPGA website: http://bitfury.org.


Etching materialization


Repetitive pattern of hash calculation blocks:


55nm is at least 5 times smaller than what we can see in optical microscope, so not all details are visible

yeah, also saw that, really a nice guy!

How's this for more Bitfury news...

Bitfury started an open bet here: http://bitbet.us/bet/450/bitfurys-asic-will-work-with-power-1/

...and placed 99 BTC of his own money on the YES side. The Yes side meaning that he if he didn't deliver less than 1 W per GH/s per chip by June 15th, 2013, he'd lose his coins to the opposing betters.

Well June 15th came and went, and he missed the deadline by a few days, so he lost the bet from a time perspective. Now a few days later his chip is proven to be working and supposedly exceeding the power/Gh numbers, and so he is actually paying out everyone else who bet on the YES side who believed in him - something he never had to do.

More details here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2516092

Genius + high integrity = Awesome! 

Great news. Thanks for the update. Keep it coming.

Thx you for the update, Luis.

This is really great news! Cant wait to get more infos.

regards

Hi guys,
I should have added this yesterday, but have been crazy busy recently. Bitfury claims his chip is fully working! That means actually hashing too, not just passing necessary voltage tests and what not.  If you have been following any of the ASIC developments in the past year or so, this is extremely impressive in the sense Bitfury is only self-taught, and learned and designed a 65nm ASIC pretty much all on his own in a very very short time frame. When I met Yifu at Bitcoin2013, even he mentioned that Bitfury was a crazy genius guy (paraphrase), but now we may very well have proof of this.

But it gets even better. According to him, his chip may even outperform his own pre-testing estimates for speed/power consumption. Before we all break out champaign bottles and do a little dance, it's better to get peer confirmations of this, or even better, wait until we get our alpha chips (ETA aprox 2 weeks from now) and verify all the claims for ourselves, but if true.... WOW!

Here's the relevant post from Bitfury in Russian. Use Google Chrome to translate.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2515577

Cheers,
Luis

PS. For those that purchased pre-orders, if you haven't yet sent me your service agreements, it would be great to get them by end of day Friday, as I should have time this weekend to process them all on my end.

Hi gateway,
The Batch 1 of orders from Metabank is officially closed. Anyone can keep an eye on any possibility of more orders/batches opening up from Metabank in two main ways:
I encourage anyone interested to bookmark the 2 links below and check daily, and flag us if you see anything opening up. We are also checking daily, but it doesn't hurt to have more eyeballs scoping upcoming opportunities:
(use google Chrome for translation from Russian->English)


1) Their website: https://metabank.ru/asic
2) Metabank.ru's posts here on bitcointalk.org: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/bitlish-14120

Since there is currently no way to accept new orders, we are simply setting up a wait list, which costs nothing to sign up for. See details here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2467253

Cheers,
Luis

sorry guys late to the post, can one still order the devices, what is the current price, is their a site that list all this info (one must hate to read all the threads all the time).

has estimated shipping changed from aug-oct or pushed back?

Hi Kev7112001,
No, I don't believe it is. We are referring to: http://metabank.ru, a Russian company.
Cheers,
Luis

is this metabank the same metabank that also is the bank for PRE-PAID credit cards from Ace Cash Express such as NETSPEND

http://www.metabank.com/

https://aceelite.acecashexpress.com/prepaid-debit-card/applyNow.m scroll to bottom
 "ACE Elite™ Visa Prepaid Cards are issued by MetaBank™, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. NetSpend is an authorized Independent Sales Organization of MetaBank. Use of card subject to funds availability. Transaction fees, terms, and conditions apply. See Agreement for complete details. "

I can now, they were all emailed this evening. Thanks for your patience everyone. I thought I was going to be able to get them out earlier but 'life' happened.
Kind regards,
Luis

Digitalmagus, can you confirm whether the contracts have been emailed yet?

Foofighter, you're welcome.

So the latest update is that 'punin' (the guy who flew from Europe to Taiwan to get Bitfury's chips from the factory), was not able to adequately test the chips in Taiwan. In short, he experienced some problems with the testing process, but not necessarily the chips.  There are many different ways to test ASIC chips from basic to advanced functionality. Some are very fast and crude methods that may in fact fry the chips being tested, to a wide range of ever more elaborate and safer methods that simply take longer because they require very specialized tools and may require test boards or even purpose designed PCBs... all the way to end to end testing which would actually require all software at all levels to be completed, and thus allow for a demonstration of bitcoin hashing.

Lacking the necessary tools in Taiwan, and possibly skill level, punin has already flown back to Eastern Europe and has handed the alpha chips to Bitfury late yesterday. Bitfury is thus in the process of doing some tests himself, and it looks like he may already have a PCB available by 'intron':



Since the June 15th bet is now off the table, individual testing/proof (by people, other than Bitfury), is now less of a concern and so we await Bitfury's test results.

Cheers,
Luis

Thank you Luis for the frequent news here!

Also waiting eagerly for the final test results of Bitfury.

regards
Foofighter