Topic: [CLOSED] Bitmine CoinCraft A1 28nm chip distribution / DIY support - page 27. (Read 81287 times)

For the sample chips, do you already have them in hand?

I didn't see a direct answer, what is the exact specification of the packaging? Number of pins and package type?

Sample Chips
The chips offered here are from the pilot-run and are exactly meant to be sample-chips, i.e. they are the first available ones. Obviously ordering a full lot of 50 chips only to test board designs is a barrier for DIY hobbyists. Therefore the following special conditions to support the DIY scene are added:

1) chips for design verification can be ordered in smaller quantities (1-31 chips, 0.85 BTC / chip)
2) an additional low-quantity fee of 1 BTC per order is charged to make up for S&H expenses
3) down-payment is at least 1 BTC
4) all other rules stated above for lot orders apply

The minimum quantity for this offer is 50 chips, and it was chosen based on my experience with other chip distributions where I realized that serving too many small customers kills my ability to ensure the service I would like to provide. A lot of 50 chips was therefore my compromise for offering an interesting entry volume for DIY folks and serious miners, as well as being a well sized offer for manufacturers of single chip devices.

Alas, for designers I understand that it is not ideal, since they do not want to order 50 chips just to see if the chip is doing as proposed. Therefore I am evaluating an additional offer dedicated to support you developers out there, without limiting my ability to handle everything well. The problematic part with low-volume orders is the shipping and handling component, which basically is identical whether someone orders 50 or 2 chips. The 8% surplus I put on top of Bitmine's prices are covering those expenses, but won't do so if applied to very small orders.

One option I am thinking of is to add a low-volume flat fee for smaller orders of say 1 BTC for quantities below the lot size, to compensate the S&H expenses. I understand that this would cause a huge cost overhead if buying a single chip. But assuming the reasonable number of chips required to test a design to be around 4 (if you want to test the binary-tree communication you need 3 or 7) it is maybe quite acceptable. As an example, 4 chips would be charged 4.4 BTC (3.4 for the chips plus 1 BTC low-volume fee).


What do you think, is this fair and acceptable?

So we need to buy chips to get samples right? What about possibility of smaller then 100 chips punches so we can buy them sooner for development?
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It's an hybrid package using both for maximum thermal performances. The bottom will have the GND pad along much like the QFN for PCB dissipation while the top will be used to mount an heatsink much like BGA (flip-chip) style.

So we need to buy chips to get samples right? What about possibility of smaller then 100 chips punches so we can buy them sooner for development?
[...]