Topic: KnCMiner declares bankruptcy due to increased competition, upcoming halving (Read 4263 times)

It seems kfc did just this:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://digital.di.se/artikel/project-klondike--sa-overtalades-investerarna-att-satsa-i-knc-miner&prev=search

In their investors prospectus, they never mentioned the fact that block rewards would be halving in 2016 and that this was a potential threat to investors money.

KNCMiner - scamming people by hiding that fact since 2013!

But everything in the world is a scam.

Stop scamming people by hiding that fact!

Scammer scammer!

My interpretation of it (and their low hash rate) was that 16nm either failed or required 2 goes at it to get a sensible chip.

Its worth pointing out that this isnt a BFL / Spondoolies style bankruptcy, they're essentially just calling it day and will (as far as we know) pay all their commitments and distribute the rest to shareholders. Its also worth pointing out the large amounts of money that flowed out the company which is still counted as success, ie the core and extended team's handsome payments for several years as well as any other side companies they have. They were trying to be competitive though, they let go ~20% of their employees back in January.

"Tapeout only means that they have functioning chips -- which back then would mean strictly very low yield per-wafer engineering samples to play with. Maybe they work per expected or (mostly likely) not. Considering TSMC first announced 16nm starting full tilt production for AMD around July last year (ref link?) it is possible KnC had earlier finagled getting a few test wafers slipped in but no way any large - and decent yield - amount of wafers that were production-grade.

I won't fault them on being, well, call it "overly-optimistic" about when 16/14nm would open up to customers other than Tier-1 simply because said T1 customers had for the last few years been transfixed by the light at the end of the 16/14nm tunnel as well. Problem is, it kept slipping further and further back... That said, KnC should have been closely following what was happening at the Foundries back then and tempered their enthusiasm with experience from past forays into new sizes.

Edit: Given the history of (finally) hitting 14/16nm nodes with decent yields only around Nov. of last year it sounds like that since TSMC at least ran samples for KnC to evaluate and given the general simplicity that 2112 says sha mining ASIC's have vs huge complexity that full up SOC or CPU's have they would have made nice tests for any foundry to use as process response benchmarks so that would be an incentive to run a batch or few of 'test' wafers with (again) someone else footing most of the foundry's actual process cost...

Wanna bet that what the foundry learned from running KnC's chips was applied to Bitmains and BitFury's? (and where applicable the Tier-1 folks as well) A foundry may not be able to suggest layouts 'other folks' used but they *can* apply information regarding how the various process steps are performed and the general results from their 'secret sauce' . That information is IP for the foundry to internally use as as desired

Of course back in Feb last year making the actual state of process readiness to run boutique chips known -- *that* would have heavily dampened any VC and pre-order/other funding...

According to their news archives, they taped out 16nm in Feb 2015 and "deployed" in June 2015.

That said, their investors said they encountered "large technical issues" and "they failed to get the right processors", so you assume they f-ed up 16nm, a big part of the reason they went bust.

They certainly didn't have 100 million dollars, they were VC funded to the tune of 20-30 million.

So what do you think of that story? Do you think they bluffed all their investors about 16nm?

True, but if a car company had a bunch of recalls leading up to declaring bankruptcy, it would certainly be brought up in the discussion.

So, when they announced 16nm tapeout with TSMC in the first week of February 2015, what kind of timeline should that have given them for deploying an appreciable quantity of any finished-product miner if the chip actually worked?

To have had enough 16nm chips to fill a data center a year ago would have meant getting chips  in quantity say around Jan 2015. That is impossible. At that point in time all research and production at ALL the Fabs just starting to be capable of producing 16/14nm chips (not counting IBM & Intel who only make chips for internal use) was exclusively for AMD, Apple, Cisco, and Samsung (and Samsung was 14nm, internal use only back then).

Unless KnC was willing to maybe pony up several 100 million dollars to join the que for low-node chips back then all they would have gotten is nice smiling nods in discussions with the Foundries and that's it.

It kinda looks that way, doesn't it.

If you want to be a mod, you should find another forum.

~LOL~

Their faulty designs are one reason we're not sad to see them go.

And I think if they had competently built the what, $30M-odd datacenter full of 16nm chips they supposed had a year ago they probably wouldn't have gone broke. But it looks like they screwed that up too.

True, this is the hardware subsection. And, a topic about a hardware vendor, filing bankruptcy. Though, not because of their latest shitty batches subject due to certain connectors and/or faulty designs, on which I agree and which also fall into the hardware subcategory for that matter, but due to (anticipated) increased competition and (pre-speculated) upcoming blockhalving 

Their faulty design is not the reason KnC filing bankruptcy; that's due to something else 

Yeah, poisonous thread.

Nope. This thread is in the Hardware subsection. You fellas just like agreeing with the ladies.

Well, that's why we use EVGA 1300 and Seasonic supplies with custom cables, right ?

KNC stated that HCS was a requirement, somewhat after the fact ofc.

~LOL~

While you are almost certainly correct, this thread with pins and all is a breath of fresh air compared to the "Spondoolies goes Under thread". No name calling, character insults, or generally rude behavior here. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an HCS ping!

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-spondoolies-tech-carrier-grade-data-center-ready-mining-rigs-unmod-1471914

Yep. The technical rose from a discussion of KNC's making shoddy hardware and how we're not that upset to see them go. It had actually been dropped already and then came back up.

You guys are aware this topic is about KnC and their bankruptcy right, and not some technical chit chat about their pin connectors and cables and stuff 

IF you have HCS terminals, and HCS pins. Most cables probably aren't made with 13A-rated pins, especially on consumer ATX PSUs intended for PCIe spec of more like 3-4A per pin expected use.

The ATX spec is 150/300 ( 1 6 pin connector, 1 6 pin and 1 8 pin connector)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/power-supply-specifications-atx-reference,3061-12.html

But

The Molex Mini-Fit Plus is spec'd up to maximum of 12A/circuit with HCS terminals for dual row 6 pin connectors and 11A/circuit with HCS terminals for dual row 8 pin connectors. That gives a maximum power rating at 12 volts of 288 watts for the 6 pin Mini-Fit Plus with HCS terminals and 396 watts for the 8 pin Mini-Fit Plus with HCS terminals.

http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/ps/PS-45750-001.pdf (page 5)

Therefore, although marginally close to maximum ratings, the KNC Titan power connector is operating within its intended application range. It would have been nice to use two in the design, especially as they are so inexpensive, just to provide an added margin of safety. But everybody knows that KNC are cheap assed *******.