Topic: GekkoScience BM1384 Project Development Discussion - page 37. (Read 146665 times)

Hey, glad to hear you made it home in one piece.

If a foundry mandates an NDA (effectively restricting the IP regarding how they make chips, if I understood 2112's post correctly, which I may not have) and one wants a chip made, the only alternative I see is to build a new foundry.
What am I missing?
Should "we" be considering creating an entity that is a foundry?
That operates under a different paradigm?

"Additionally, decision-making rights based on how much money you have strikes me as not only the way literally everything is run, but also as a terrible idea."
What other metric would you suggest for determining decision making rights?
What criteria must one meet or exceed to be endowed with the decision making responsibility?
And who determines what that criteria is?

Under the model I'm proposing, let me paint a simple possible worst case picture.
1) 10 VC whales each "invest" $100,000 (1 million voting shares).
2) 1,000 investors invest $1,000 each (1 million voting shares).
3) and one newb invests $1 (1 voting share).

The whales will likely communicate amongst themselves privately with greed as their motivation. The 1,000 will likely communicate amongst themselves in a variety of manners (Bitcoin thread, PM's, emails, etc. . .) along with the 1 one dollar investor with curiosity, creativity, and learning as their motivation. Assuming the community of $1,000 and the 1$ investors are of a like mindset and the whales are of a like mindset and a referendum is raised that is self serving, greedy, and not in keeping with the spirit (best interests) of the community at large. Who wins the vote? Maybe it's my naivete' and faith in mankind, but I contend the 1,000 and the 1 will prevail. What is required by the 1,001 is the same kind of due diligence that the 10 will exhibit (driven by greed). If individuals contained in the 1,000 are the designers, engineers, and other key technology players and the 1,001 do not apply due diligence and consequently lose the vote, how much productive work would one imagine will get done. My guess is that when work grinds to a halt, the whales will bail. And if the proper legal framework is in place the 10, 1,000, and the 1 all re-coup their investment. The community still wins as they are the possessor of the IP which the whales are clueless about. At this juncture, the community has a plethora of options on how to proceed with what will be disruptive technology.

Additionally, if an individual shareholder had the ability to proxy their voting shares, for the exclusive purpose of voting in referendums, it would be easy for a singular individual to wield immense voting control. If numerous minority shareholders proxied their shares to a trusted individual of like minded high moral/ethical caliber . . . .

"I have zero money so apparently would have no say in the project whether I were to help or not."
1) As envisioned currently, which is subject to change as a result of a better idea, 1 share = $1 par value. I'll give you the dollar and I think many others would as well. But I think I get the jist of what your      saying/implying. I can think of, off the top of my head, several individuals who if they needed the "grub stake" I'd "sponsor" them, gratis, with the cash/BTC to become financially involved. Again, "no strings attached". And I think I'm not alone in this, as others would be with acquaintances they know.

Additionally, a referendum could be raised to bestow shares to an individual either by diluting everyone's outstanding shares or by issuing them from existing capital shares (i.e. shares the company owns that have not been assigned/purchased). This creates some interesting tax liabilities for the individual but not insurmountable ones. This happens fairly regularly in corporate America today at the executive level. Where a board of directors (shareholders in this model) either sell at a reduced cost or gift capital stock to executives so they "have some skin" in the game as part of their compensation package. The theory is that if they perform, share holder value will increase and their individual share value will increase along with it. Pay based performance, so to speak. As another example, several public companies I've worked for have allowed me to purchase capital stock at par value, which at the time of purchase was several hundred % less than what the market price was. Sometimes this is called an employee stock purchase plan.

So let's take an example, You're significantly contributing (or somebody just feels sorry for you) to the design team. A singular design team member could raise a referendum, given your stellar performance, to have the corporation gift you with XXX capital shares. If voted up and you accept the gifting, you become a vested shareholder with decision making authority and participate in any profit dispersal the company may declare going forward. i.e. you become a share holder of record just like anyone who plopped down cash/BTC.

Similarly, a referendum could be raised to make a cash/BTC payment (for services rendered) to an individual. The individual would then be free to do what they will with the money/BTC.
A referendum could be raised to loan money to an individual or other entity. And they could likewise spend the money however they see fit.

There are multiple paths to ownership suffice to say. But all are based on what the community (in this case share holders) deems is appropriate and prudent to the health of the entity and the community at large.

2) As envisioned currently, which is subject to change as a result of a better idea, participation would not be restricted as I imagine the discussion would be public.

3) Assuming this endeavor actually does get a chip to tapeout and they are sold for even a minuscule infinitesimal micro-miniature net profit,
    a) what would you envision doing with that profit?
    b) and assuming it would be dispersed, what would be a fair metric to determine how it would be dispersed?

The model I'm working on will give the "every man" share holder a say in the decision making process and if the "every man" share holder bands together (which I've seen this community do) it can effectively steer the direction the ecosystem goes. Regardless of powerful outside manipulators.

None of the above is said and questions asked with even a tincture of sarcasm (with the exception of the feeling sorry for comment,  ).
I am simply truly curious and welcome solutions to the existing paradigm.

If there is a way to make this happen fairly that prohibits ego's from manifesting themselves, that ethicality needs to be in the foundation.

And the topics/advantages of Public Benefit Nonprofit Corporations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_nonprofit_corporation) and Mutual Benefit Nonprofit Corporations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual-benefit_nonprofit_corporation) have not even been broached.

As a footnote, I'm really glad these questions are surfacing now as opposed to later.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -- Maragret Mead

Just as an off-the-cuff opinion based on quickly perusing the thread after a 500 mile drive and 3 hours of sleep...

IP restrictions is a big deal for Novak and I. So that'll have to be taken seriously on our end if we want to pitch in. Additionally, decision-making rights based on how much money you have strikes me as not only the way literally everything is run, but also as a terrible idea. I have zero money so apparently would have no say in the project whether I were to help or not.

My intention is to create a new thread in the not so distant future.
I'll also be soliciting for moderators as I'm a F'ing newb at that too.

I'm a newb at fabbing chips, but have a strong desire to know/learn all the aspects ("inquiring minds wanna' know").
But I would not want to become a hindrance to the very gifted, brilliant, and accomplished folks that lurk in these here waters.

In the organization model I'll be proposing, a shareholder may raise a referendum to be included in the design team (or any other team for that matter).
Then all the shareholders vote that referendum up or down (I assume shareholders will vote based on the merit of their referendum).

With regard to the discussion that the design team has ongoing, I envision that will be a separate thread.
So that anyone (whether they are on the design team or not, a shareholder or not) may contribute to the "brain working" and/or learn the process.

This participation would only be limited by shareholder determined IP restrictions.
In other words, if the shareholders were to ratify a referendum that restricted the release of information regarding a design, for say patent/IP reasons, then those particular aspects of the design would be withheld.

Speaking of a new thread and parameters thereof; the entity will need a name.
My input would be "Alliance Chip & Circuit Design (ACCD)"

Suggestions? Thoughts? Inputs?

Thanks guys/gals.

Really Thanks @PlanetCrypto
@AJRGale i think you are right, but i also think that PlanetCrypto's post answers to your questione too 

All this talk here about fab'ing some GPL'ed Bitcoin calculation cores onto silicon, is it wrong to think maybe making a new post about making a Bitcoin calculation core from scratch?

Basically what I want to know is how a core works, what is required to make a core do its job, then go from there, making a prototype core (discrete logic), making a software version of it (programmable logic) etc, etc.  I'm probably using the wrong words for this, but I know what I mean

IMHO, shipping, delivery costs, delivery delays, etc. are component costs of ownership and can be quantified. Just sayin', not criticizing, If I was ordering an expensive piece of mission critical equipment I would include a guaranteed delivery method in the total cost of ownership or elect a different avenue.

A long while back we ordered a butt load of miners from Bitmain and they got stuck in American customs cuz' the total declared value on the one business (versus personal) waybill exceeded $2500. It cost us extra money, days, duty, and numerous phone calls to get UPS to interface with customs to get them released. The combined dollar value of payments to UPS, lost mining revenue, duty, and phone expense would have easily covered me hopping on a plane to China and couriering them back on the same flight, potentially as checked luggage. Since I have no desire to "tour" China we now ensure that each waybill exhibits a declared value of less than $2500. It was an expensive lesson regarding the various shipping options available and customs wrangling.

Am really sorry you're stuck learning this lesson, but imagine (as smart as you are) it won't bite ya' in the butt going forward.

We are designing a version of crowd funding that encompasses not only the financial side of it but also the control, ownership, and contribution components as well.


My observation as well.

The corporate design I will propose will eliminate the trust component/requirement and steer/guide the company in the communities desired direction.

My estimates are to bring a chip to tapeout will cost a bargain basement 1-2 million.

Yes, am working on that now.

My belief as well. This endeavor will require administration, finance, development, production, and PR teams/departments/divisions at the least.


All of the aforementioned teams/departments/divisions will need project management skills to stay on track. Much like the skill set a construction site manager uses only not with 2x4's, concrete, steel, etc. The things one is/are managing are different but the concepts are the same. And both subsets manage human capitol (probably the most important project asset).


Nothing is an unacceptable compensation amount. As it relegates an individual's effort into the classification of hobby. Can't speak for everyone but my hobbies change, sometimes abruptly. My business and business interests span the test of time. If for no other reason than my obligations to others. Hobbies are self centered, obligations to communities (like companies, BTC community, etc.) are externally oriented.

I envision the compensation to manifest itself in the form of dividends, paid in fiat or BTC, with timing and in amounts determined by voting stakeholders. This timing and amounts may be proposed by any stakeholder at any time to be voted on by all stakeholders regardless of the quantity of ownership. i.e. every dollar contributed gets one vote.

If successful, I can envision a time where, for lack of better words, capital non-voting stock might be offered.

Now if I'm going to get this concept/proposal out in the next couple of days I need to get back to it. But thanks for the distraction, I needed it.

a word about backup for you alpha testers..

my old folding at home box threw a disk hardware error today.  PCPower and Cooling Red 750 PSU, two nvidia GTX 285's with Artic Cooling Acelerro Xreme aftermarket coolers , ASUS 5QE Pro mobo, intel Q9550 with Evo 212 HSF, OC'd and prime95 48 hour verified, XP OS just for a legal cheap license <- posted just to show I am serious.

anyway, long story short blown drive. right now I restoring from an image backup with Macrium Reflect Free Edition bootable rescue  CD that I have verified in the past that works. it will be online in 26 more minutes serving as my Music Appreciation Room computer as its no longer a decent F@H box.


PROTIP: make sure your backups for your miner controller actually works, dont take your programs word for it. seriously

TLDR:  make sure your backup solution works.. verify it.

Why not crowfunding?

i mean.. why are "we" part of a community full of brilliant minds, a LOT of experience and strong will but "we" keep garage speaking?

i am pretty convinced that quite few lads could find interest into financing a proper project, with a defined target.
Honestly i am browsing a lot of pages lately looking for a product (or brand...) that could change the game, not being the most powerful or the cheapest to run only, but something that doesn't obey to the market laws imposed from the big 3 or 4 companies.

Remember guys that you are buying used miners because nothing else is available, and falling into SCAMS because of wrong beliefs and misgiven TRUST.

If this project could count on 100000$ what could it become? and a million?
Can there be a virtual table where everyone has the possibility to sit and contribute if he wants?

I know that this post seems a bit like dreaming, but i whould like to invite the big names on this thread to read the last 10/20 pages and ask themselves if this is the usual product launch thread or something different.

IN MY OPINION everyone could contribute with something, having something in return.
There are business specialists... able to redact a serious business plan, economic plan...there are Sidehack and Novak (well.. we know what they are able of), there is people that can host machines, others able to ship them and other able to manage the economics.. or even print a 3D case......

Me?
I sent a Pm to Novak months ago, when the project was launched but still no hardware appeared, offering myself to help.
I am a construction site manager, so i don't pretend to be able to help with chip soldering or frequency testing, but I'D PREFER 1000 TIMES TO PARTECIPATE INTO A PROJECT WITH MONEY.
100$? 1000$? is it really important?
I'd rather prefer to put 1000$ in this project rathe then in a miner itself, or in your burger address.
Why? because IMO the burger address doesnt lead to what YOU forum members are posting in the last pages.. it leads to the GekkoScience USB miner, which is only the demonstration of what i said about "US".

Whould i expect a return from my investment? of course! like any other thing in this world. Maybe a miner, maybe a profit share, maybe nothing....

I whould like to add many other things, but i'll finish here.
I hope that some of you will agree even partially with what i wrote in my still poor migrant's english.

I'll sit here, with my saturday's beer, waiting to order my GekkoScience USB miner.
Cheers

The problem with carry-on is it's usually limited in both weight and dimensions. We ordered a pick-and-place and a decent SMD oven; the shipped dimensions we were given are about a cubic meter and 300lb. Another problem is paying for round-trip airfare and other transportation costs. I think you overestimate the funding we have available.

As for everything else you said... count me in.

Holy crap, are you sneaking around in my brain? Just kidding.

We actually were planning pretty much exactly what you're describing. Multiple circuit designs on the same die, so if one or more designs is FUBAR the run is not for naught. 2 of the designs I can talk about. The third is sooooooo patentable, sooooo simple, and will appeal to such a broad market that this simple concept will make everyone display the "wow I coulda' had a V8" look (in addition to being an interesting method of nonce selection).

So the 2 circuits I am willing to identify are the hash circuit and a simple (read inexpensive) USB 3.0 -> SPI/I2C version of the popular CP2102.

"The reason why hardly anyone is doing it is because of the personality issues and general instability of Bitcoin mining entrepreneurs."
Is an issue I noticed here years ago, "creative differences" or motivations. The technologically creative fight amongst themselves and all the techies fight with the business types (bean counters). Been there, done that, on both sides of the aisle. Additionally what I noticed was that the entities that have managed to survive (the current "big 4") have stable, albeit classic, business models (my second degree was in business admin). Over the last week I've been brain working on a model of an entity that "plays more fairly" with the creative geniuses, allows the "every man" to participate to their respective pain threshold, presents an attractive investment to VC's, can "shift gears" quickly, is totally transparent, and has the administrative and cash controls in place to protect all vested interests (be that IP or $$$).

Your input of the NDA's required by a foundry threw me for a loop, but I think I ironed that one out and the solution will be satisfactory to all concerned.

Currently am working on a document/Power Point Presentation that I'll make public for perusal and comment (which is solicited and desired). Should have it done sometime by the end of the first week in August. Undoubtedly, there'll be some tweaking (maybe major tweaking), but the current plan is to start the entity creation process end of the 2nd week of Aug and be formalized/created by the end of the third week. Sometime during August I'll quit cluttering up sidhack's thread, thanks bro', and if acceptable launch a new thread.

At this juncture I'd like to give a shout out to the sponsor of bitcointalk, PIA and thank them for allowing us to be here and participate.

sidehack - that tabletop PnP you ordered is SWEET!, now if the pricks would just get it to ya' . . . . . Might be worth it next time to take a brief vacation to China, bring it back as carry on luggage, and walk it through customs as a demo unit.

Gotta' run, more l8r.

So that is a prototype production test run for "free"

Then first batch run being "dual purpose" chip.   So a "reject" RAM chip could be a "good" ASIC.  The end result is a very low "dead" chip count.    Win/Win for the foundry.

One thing that seriously hampers the big Bitcoin mining ASIC vendors is that all of them (thus far) are "pure plays," meaning they do Bitcoin mining ASICs and nothing else. The better strategy seems to be a "conglomerate" approach, where an organization that has other ASIC development program dedicates a fraction of available silicon real estate on their chips to the research/experimental versions of their hashing cores. This can allow them to have a couple of serious test runs for essentially free, provided that the design is intelligent.

The forum user helveticoin (https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/helveticoin-82676) did try doing the above "compound" chip over 2 years ago, but it had a fatal flaw: it was a full ARM SoC with Bitcoin hashers as additional peripherals. This is a very wrong way to do it, as the optimal operating points for the hashers are outside of the reliable operation zone for the SoC, therefore their design was seriously underperforming.

The intelligent way of doing a "compound" ASIC would be where the primary ASIC function of the chip has only common ground with the mining ASIC function of the chip. Therefore the chip is still commercially useable in their primary function with mining I/O pads declared as no-connect. At the same time it can serve as a mining ASIC testbed by doing the opposite: declaring the primary I/O pads as no-connects.

Bitcoin mining ASIC is not that difficult to do. The reason why hardly anyone is doing it is because of the personality issues and general instability of Bitcoin mining entrepreneurs. It is a subject for separate discussion, but many people in the Bitcoin milieu were seriously hampered by their peculiar outlook that is a MLM-like salesmanship mixed with religious-like fervor, kinda like a mixture of AmWay & Scientology. This was very repelling to many skilled professionals. Thus far only Spondoolies seem to be capable of not pigeonholing themselves into that niche.

Wow, that's a lot to digest. It'll take me a few days to chew on all the references. But REALLY appreciate your taking the time to weed through stuff.
Obviously there are some road blocks. The real question looming in my mind is 1) Can this get done in time and 2) in the process of doing it will the entity be forced or coerced into falling into the big 4's business model by economic realities.

If it were easy to do, everybody would be doing it.

I'd have to discuss it with the business partner some more but we maybe able loan it to you for an extended period.

We really haven't used it since we produced our last product and everything we have now is only in the prototype stage. If you'd be willing to assemble some of our small runs for us and help us get our first miner to work as far as firmware/hardware I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out. There is no reason we need to have the pick and place on site as long as you'd be able to do our small run assembly(which doesn't happen much at all), we are time poor and tool rich.

Oh, for sure not. "Proven" means "works correctly", not "works efficiently". The Intellectual Property blocks are sold as encrypted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register-transfer_level sub-circuits, that completely rely on the underlying implementation technology giving correct results.

This is the essence of digital design workflow: the assumption than the errors/faults are vanishingly small, like 10^-10 or better. This is vastly over-reliable for Bitcoin mining where which can easily tolerate some percentage points of erroneus computations, like 10^-1.

Besides, the general purpose hashing circuit will be easily outrun, even by the open source dedicated mining circuit that takes all the cheap and trivial optimizations: the nonce only changes 2 block of the inner SHA-256, the bit-lengths of both stages are fixed, last 3 rounds of the outer stage are unnecessary because we only look for zeros in the most-significant word.

https://github.com/progranism/Open-Source-FPGA-Bitcoin-Miner

No frequency hopping. This is continuous sliding up and down within the preselected range around the center frequency or below the upper limit frequency. Check out the manual for the example chip that I had in my browser bookmarks for couple of years now:

http://www.ti.com/product/cdce913

Well, it is worth dreaming sometimes, just so one won't become another bitter Bitcoin miner with perpetually pursed lips:

http://www.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/hc_archives/hc23/HC23.17.1-tutorial1/HC23.17.121,Inductence-Gardner-Intel-DG%20081711-correct.pdf

Edit:

You have a nice ideology, but it is nearly completely impractical. Any foundry will require you to sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement that prohibits publication of their design kit. So you'll have two options:

1) open-source RTL design, which is really kinda trivial, on the par with student's homework at better schools.

2) open-source uncommitted pre-layout BSIM4 analog model, which is more or less useless for actual design of the masks.

The real value in the mining chip design is on the back-end, in the optimization of the layout. And for that open source is currently helpless. Without violating NDAs one could at most produce a scientific/research paper that could get published in the peer-reviewed journals.

Edit2: I'm so out of date. BSIM is now at BSIM6 and is about to split into more specialized braches:

http://www-device.eecs.berkeley.edu/bsim/

Edit3: Older, now closed, thread about:  OpenBitASIC : The Open Source Bitcoin ASIC Initiative

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-openbitasic-the-open-source-bitcoin-asic-initiative-76351

If you want design help, I can do that. But I'm not interested in spending money on a different machine, especially when it's money I don't have because I already spent it on a machine. Thanks though.

If I'm remembering the numbers right (Novak has the details) what we're supposed to have is more like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Tv2DK2v1k

I'm in Eastern Iowa we have a Madell fully automatic, does 200-800 cph, can place qfn and 0603 easily enough.

video when we first got it. 2 years old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONmngcGjEQk

$4500 you can pick it up today, we'd also be willing to take design work help on our own miner as part of the payment. PM me for more details.

Is anyone close by, with a pick-n-place that could be "loaned" to you for a few hours when you are ready?

Sidehack if you do end up with manual assembly I'm certainly up for taking a trip to help at my own cost. The only thing I'd ask is brain picking and burgers. Hell, there are probably several people in the MO, OK, KS, AR, etc surrounding areas willing to do the same.