Topic: First Look at BFL's ASIC Hardware - page 4. (Read 16130 times)

Are you a GPU miner about to lose your investment?

/ontopic
I understand the CPU clocking explanations given, but isn't the manufacturing process something that yields predictable results? Ok, let's say there are some rejection rates of ... 1%?

I was expecting the jala to be a full working ASIC chip, the Single to be X working chips and so on. The difference in price between them would be from:
(++) additional materials used (i.e. fan, more electronic components, more metal in the case)
(--) discount from buying "chips in bulk".

Not from dwarfing a chip down.

It would be if there were many different PCBs, but because they are all the same, it only takes a one time setting up of the machine, and after that the process is automated.
Ofcourse it all depends on how much the PCB costs.

I don't believe anybody that says anything here. You are all crazy.

Mark my words. This is a scam.

Sounds more expensive to do than buy a new pcb.

Yes I see, I didn't mean you can replace it like a socketed chip, I meant it could be sent off to a special machine that removes the chips, re-balls and solders new ones on, laptop manufactures do this with failed integrated GPUs on laptop motherboards.

The chips in the rendering are soldered on, so no.

Does this mean if the ASIC chips become obsolete, then the PCB can be reused for another ASIC chip to do another task (or the same task but better) ?
If so then this could potentially create a trade in value again.

There are several steps involved in the type of project that BFL is doing.  Here's a general overview of the procedure they might be following.  We do this where I work, but in general, we don't do step #1 because we use off the shelf parts in most products.

If you need money to complete the steps, I guess you have to ask for it up front .

1a) ASIC (or whatever they are using) design:

The engineers will define the interfaces of the ASIC (power, digital and analog interfaces), and also decide at a high level how the guts of the chip will be put together (think block diagram).

1b)Implementation:

During this step, the designers work on implement the guts of the hashing chip and laying it out in the chip based on step 1.

1c)ASIC manufacture:

At this point, BFL will know how to use their ASIC (what the pinouts are and how to talk to the chip).  All that is left is for the fab to actually make the chip.  The fab or other company may also test the chip based on test vectors provided by BFL.  BFL may also do this in house on the final PCB or a test PCB.

2) Schematic capture / system design - deciding which other electronic components in addition to the ASICs are required, and hooking them all together.  This step can be started even before step 1 is complete.  Once step 1a is complete, the ASICs can be hooked up once the final pinouts and communication/power requirements are known, completing step 2.

3) Mechanical design:

How big can the PCB be?  Where do we place the parts on the PCB to make them fit?  How much clearance do you have?  How much heat has to be dissipated (airflow/heatsink requirements)?  This step would normally happen in parallel with #2.

The picture in the OP is the result of #3 with input from #2 and #4 (because the PCB routing can change where parts are placed).  However, the picture does not actually mean that step 4 is complete.  However, It might be finished because there is top/bottom layer routing that is visible.  Based on their proposed release date, either they have the boards already or are just waiting for them to arrive.

4) PCB part placement and routing:

Based on the data gathered from #3, the electrical design team must actually place the required parts determined in step 2.  Once the parts are placed on the PCB, the actual components must be connected as per step 2.  The parts are connected via traces on multiple layers on the PCB.  During this step, parts may also be moved around to make the routing easier.

5) PCB manufacturing and assembly:

A company manufactures the PCB and then places and solders the req5ired components onto the board.

6) Turn on and test

Now it's time for BFL to get the board, and figure out what actually happens when they turn on the power...  Errors that were not caught during the previous ste6s may be correctable with mods.

7) Done??

If all goes well, the product is finished!  Any problems that could not be corrected by mods will require you to create a new version of the board or ASIC.

They asked for money because they didn't or still don't have enough "capital venture" funds to produce and fully develop the ASICs.

If not enough people pre order then no ASIC for you.

Well, to give them the benefit of the doubt, kind of hard to finalize any hardware when you don't have any production chips to test your design with.

Enough to run off a USB bus, though? Going by BFL's proposed specs, each "full strength" chip would seem to use 10 watts/2.5 amps @5v. Not taking into account other hardware on the board, of course. Not sure you could undervolt/clock it enough. So either it will have to run off more than USB power, or it's a completely different chip.

So they only have basic 3d drafts done? Shouldn't they have made these designs way before they even asked for money?

It's more likely that it's clocked slower with a lower voltage. Better power savings that way.

It would make sense if each chip has 4 "cores". One disabled core would give you 3.75 GH/s...

More to the point, I wonder whether BFL will ship before cablepair...

Exactly.  While it isn't absolute proof the lack of photos, benchmarks, pool hashrate at this point makes the deadline seem implausible.  When you look at BFL history and inability to meet deadlines I think January is possible but on the optimistic side.  To be cautious I would leave it at "Q1 2013".

Hmmmmmmmm

You'd hope so, if they were going to be delivering in 45 days they'd want to already have moved on to testing prototypes, and at that point we'd probably see inaba's hashrate a lot higher than it is now (they've got to test a prototype mini-rig SC after all).