Topic: [Group Buy#1] Avalon ASICs CHIPS! Using JohnK as escrow! FINISHED! - page 57. (Read 150591 times)

I'd also like to get my name put on the chips i bought from atcsecure and dserrano5

What's the pricing like? There's already an Oregon-based effort going on here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/closed-stumptown-miners-avalon-pcb-assembly-west-coast-usa-203388

Looking at (conservative)
Projected K16 price: ~$93
Projected K64 price: ~$372

If you can significantly beat those prices, I'd be very interested.

+1

Also interested: potentially 4x 64 chip boards.

Interested.

I'm reviewing the newest "Klondike" PCB schematics from BkkCoins today. He has agreed to let us license the boards for $2-3 per board, I'm guessing $2 for the 16-chip boards and $3 for the 64-chip boards would be fair, I'm sure he wouldn't mind a tip also for his hard work on designing these new PCBs.

I'll be ordering a couple 16-chip boards and a 64-chip board for my own needs from an assembler in California, getting them ready before the chips arrive. If you guys are interested, I can start a group thread for PCBs from the California assembler.

I hope RagingAzn can chime in here also. It would be great to get some of our "sample" chips onto a test board as soon as they arrive in the States. Cheers, all.

was wondering this as well

RagingAzn how do you plan to allow us to weigh in on sample chip distribution?  Samples should ship in 1-2 weeks.

Nah I was just really curious, want to transfer 592 chips to me and you disappeared right after I struck a deal. Hope the chips are being shipped to your new home!

When you get a chance, I hope you can confirm that Rallye still has 592 chips which he can transfer to me. thanks! and shoot me a pm.

Hope the guy who was whining gives JohnK a gratuity. Well deserved and yet again he goes well above and beyond the call o' duty.

Relief!  Thanks for checking in. 

SORRY! Haha I've been trying to get things done in my new home. I'm totally here though

Escrow has let him know via PM to touch base with us... this should be enough to get some action from him. There are certainly questions that need attention.

Also curious to know the plan with the chips

My understanding is there are 30 sample chips for every 10k order, so every 333.33.. chips would get 1 sample chip, if divided evenly.

[ I think we don't want to go old-testament style "the chip shall be cut in two and each person shall receive half" ]

I've purchased 572 chips from batch #1 (252 from atcsecure, 320 from dserrano5, both transactions posted publically, confirmed by original owner, and raginazn himself)

I am an EE with access to a lot of nice test equipment and plan on having my Klondike-16 boards assembled by a local professional PCB Assembly (P&P + Reflow with Pb63Sn37 solder) company I've worked with and can get boards made very fast.  I'd like to get one or two of the sample chips to test and publish for everyone's knowledge the results of these tests before the full batches ship in July:

* The Klondike-16 design as-is (P&P files, Solder Paste locations -- especially the QFN pad, Solder paste stencil thickness, etc) as populated by an outsourced assembly house
* The standard functionality of the boards (with a single chip, my understanding is the design will work with any number of chips, might need to tweak the firmware).  Hash rate, power draw.  Power draw of ASIC at various clock and hash rates.
* Thermal analysis of the board.  With various heatsink, without a heatsink, with various heatsinks with poor mechanical connection (I'll watch the temp closely so it doesn't overheat and damage the chip), with and without forced airflow.
* Overclocking.  I can modify the design, change out clock sources, modify the settings on the PLL on the chip(s).  Am very curious to see what these chips are capable of with proper cooling.  I would not be surprised to see 20, maybe 30%+ better performance.  I do not think the current 282MH/sec is a thermal limit, but I can't know for sure until i can play with it.  Similar to thermal analysis, I'll keep the chip within acceptable operating range.  I don't want to blow anything up until we have a lot more information.  Especially with only the one chip.
* Affects of the above on the power requirements (increased current on the 1.2V line, perhaps above 2A/chip.  Possibly need for additional decoupling capacitance on the chips.  Oscope measurements, Spectrum analyzer (depending on if there is harmonics or noise coupling onto the Vcc plane(s)).
* After the above, some modifications to the design to support overclocking.  -- While at this time I believe there is a good amount of headroom on these chips, the current design, both Avalon's official reference and Klondikes, provides exactly the max current spec for the chips (i.e. 32A @ 1.2V for 16 chips, each rated for 2A max.)  I expect that OC'ing will push this beyond, something i'll confirm with power/current measurements when OC'ing.  (Will report Clock freq, Hash rate, Current draw, Temperature, Heatsinking methods used, etc.)


If i happen to get more than 1 (i have some chips in other orders), I will probably have multiple PCB assemblies built up, each with 1 chip.  This will help to verify a tiny bit better the yields of the assembly, which in theory should be very high.  But there would be nothing worse than suddenly realizing that 50% of the boards are scrap.  If i get say, 4, i will have 2x boards with 1 chip and 1x board with 2 chips made.

Of course we want to check to make sure that a board with say, 16x chips works of course. But i expect that BkkCoins will be getting several dozen chips from various people, so he should be able to take care of that.

I've PM'ed him to ask him pop in sometimes. 

Agree, this is what you are receiving the fee for...

OP - please update.

I see OP online about 4 hours ago though - are you sure he's not here? 

Yes it was. However, JohnK (escrow) has made the payment. He has done his part.

Push come to shove, can we change the shipping address?

was it on escrow?