3.5k BTC is cloase to half a million US dollars. I think with that sort of readily available cash that Fabrizio could begin work on the 65nm chip while the 130 is being salvaged. If he can get the 65nm into production by the end of the year LabCoin could still be a big big player in the mining community.
Where to begin.. first of all, mask set for a 65nm chip alone would cost him ~$500K at a cheap chinese fab. No way that sort of money buys you working and deployed chips
Secondly, production takes 2-3 months, even he were to tape out today, chances of getting to market this year would be small. He is no where near tape out, no one is even working on it. Forget the 65nm chip.
AS for the 130nm chips, according tp "labcoin" they are all packaged in a plastic package which is simply inadequate for their power consumption. I cant see how you could possibly salvage them. You could perhaps run them at 10% of their specced speed to prevent overheating, but thats just not worth it. Doing another production run with the existing mask set, and using a more sensibe package would be possible, and not even very expensive, but would cost 2-3 months. By that time, a 130nm asic is pointless.
None of this is really important, because this is scam. But even if it werent, there is no way to turn it around.
