Topic: Latest update on BFL shipping 21/02/13 More Updates 25Th (Read 4304 times)

I'll buy 1st gen Avalons when they're a few hundred!!!! Shit, it only costs me $25 a month to run one (660w @ .05c KWH) so yeah, it would pay itself off easily. And that's assuming 1) they go for that price in a year, 2) an aggressive 40% increase in hash rate per month over 12 months.

Nah, the most amusing thing about the vouchers is that using them requires you to order more hardware which won't be delivered for months.  The 60 day expiry means that you can't wait until BFL has caught up on back orders to order your discounted units.

There is a term for this. Vaporware

I don't see 600w for 65Gh/s as terrible at all, it's light years beyond what I'm getting now(which is far better than what I got last year), but hopefully the market can produce an even more efficient mining product.

BFL has done a masterful job of portraying Avalon gear as crap, while producing nothing but hopes and dreams themselves.

And once BFL hits, the resale price of Avalon will be in the low hundreds of dollars as well, since the power efficiency is so terrible.  It will be interesting to see how that all plays out...

FTFY

That's what makes their silly vouchers so amusing. A 25%/10% discount for missing their shipping date by 100% and counting is piddly when you consider that they'll have to lower the price on future orders anyway. Genius. This kind of trickery is the only thing BFL does well.

So everyone who pre-ordered BFL has been bummed with an eleven month pre-order (so far) and 'soon' there product will drop in price by 75%.  Although I do reckon they (kinda)-care about there customer base and BFL-ASIC's will hold there resale value more than the Avalon due to to the chip fab size.

Likewise, neither the packaging facility nor the assembly house are likely to be sitting sound doing nothing waiting for BFL's chips to arrive.

Lucky for BFL that Avalon doesn't have an open ended money grabbing pre-order model like they do. I suspect that'd sway many more to cancel and place an order with the competition.

So people paid upfront in June 2012 and its (almost) March 2013    Yes I know I'm stating the obvious but its also an important statement about BFL.  Yes they do have the best public available ASIC (when it finally ships) but I can see this fiasco pushing a lot of money into Avalon.  Although BFL wont care with all that pre-order money they made.  I reckon there'll be selling the BFL-SC-Single for $333 sometime in 2014.

It isn't exactly a lie... it's just a refusal to admit that BFL screwed up. They probably had everything in order... except no blank wafer... the bump shop isn't going to stop running their business just because BFL wasn't ready to go. Their primary expense is LABOR. So they'll retool the line, and run other jobs while they wait for BFL to be ready. Then once BFL is ready... they aren't stopping a half finished job to retool again... BFL ends up waiting for the end of that (probably much larger) run before being slotted in again.

And i am pretty certain they are refunding any who request it.  I suspect by now if someone hasnt requested a refund, they probably don't want their order canceled anyway.  I know i don't.

They have taken pre-orders, not orders.

Dont know about SEC, but FTC certainly applies:
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus02-business-guide-mail-and-telephone-order-merchandise-rule

And BFL are in clear violation of it


unless everyone has not only received these dalay notifications but also responded to them.

Translation, we have no idea how a fab process works. You think BFL has the scale to ask real facilities to implement an "accelerated time scale they are not used to dealing with"?

It is obvious BFL was never going to get an "accelerated time scale" from manufacturing facilities, to expect anything else is crazy.

This is clearly a delay tactic. Either BFL was aware of the real timeline the whole time and lied, or BFL is trying to cover for other mistakes, or BFL is a scam.

I thought the SEC only applied to public companies and i don't think BFL is public.

Well they have around $20+ million on peoples pre order funds and with the market increasing am sure ther at double that or 3 or 4 times that by now.

I'll take choice two.

If they were as well funded as they say they are then they won't need to be so desperate to hang on to orders which they clearly are to anyone above the age of 5. They could have simply developed the product quitely and without the forum bashing they have had. So in my view you can take the choice of stupid (to pre-announce when unnecessary) or lying (they needed the pre-order money).

They've been asked to provide proof of this in the past and declined.  Any argument that the amount of pre-order funds being held would reveal commercially sensitive information to their competitors is pretty much bullshit at this point as their competitors are already locked in to their own schedules and can't easily scale up production to accommodate any mass cancellation of BFL orders. 

Besides, knowing that they have ordered 75,000 chips already allows their competitors to make assumptions about BFL's projections and what level of order cancellation would start causing them pain.

Then, isn't the onus now on BFL to prove that all the pre-order money is in the bank, thus not under said SEC regulations?

According to SEC regulations, people with pre-orders are investors, not customers. Hence they should be treated as such (transparency, information, etc).

Remember: BFL customers didn't make a deposit - they paid fully upfront for the development of a (back then) not existing product -> investors.

Who would have guesses that ASICMiner would have been the first one to fully operates their ASICs?

More crystal ball predictions (my apologies to the real psychics of the world):


13 days and counting...

I honestly doubt that very many Batch 1 customers will cancel, no matter how bad the next estimate is.  I do think that unless they can regain some credibility and prove that they're capable of giving estimates which are at least within the ballpark, they're at risk of losing a lot of later orders, though.  

You'd have to be crazy to have any faith in their delivery estimates for Batch 2 and beyond right now when they can't give reliable estimates for how long the few remaining steps for Batch 1 will take to complete.  Ensuring this kind of clusterfuck doesn't happen again with the next 6 wafers or the 63 following wafers will require pro-active measures on BFL's behalf and if they want people to stick with them until May, June or even later, then they need to be telling people what they're going to do to ensure that their customers don't become stuck in the land of never-ending back-orders.  

BFL is not going to remain the only mass producer of ASICs forever - sooner or later someone will come along who doesn't require pre-orders and who can ship orders within a week of them being placed.  BFL expected to be the first company able to do that, but as the back-orders keep piling up and delivery schedules keep slipping, it seems less and less likely they'll be able to accomplish that before someone else.

You did. You dropped the ball. Stop blaming everyone else.

It's also a lie. Every step of the way, every other company they work with is always the one that won't meet promised schedules. Sooner or later Josh looses all credibility. You can't believe anything he says about dates, because he's just making them up as he goes along. 2 days in bumping becomes 2 weeks. Why? Because that 2-day schedule was all in his mind.

If BFL has enough funds to offer the bumping facility a "blank cheque", then they have enough funds to engage someone to troubleshoot this project.  Josh is clearly out of his depth in terms of managing customer expectations - it's time to hand that job over to someone else because this isn't going to end when Batch 1 ships.  

People want credible reassurances that the schedule for the second 6,000 chips is going to be better managed, and especially that the batch of 75,000 chips is going to be made into actual units and shipped some time this year.  Someone needs to get this project back on track and they need to explain to existing and potential customers how that's going to happen.

Deflecting blame to the bumping facility is unacceptable.  It's up to whoever's in charge of the project to ensure that contractors are chosen wisely, that contracts are locked down, and that contractors are provided with what they need to do their job (if your chip is so dense that creating the mask will take extra time at the fab or that the absence of an alignment wafer will slow down bumping, it's your responsibility to know that).

Even if the bumping facility burns down with the chips, there should be enough insurance on the project to refund customers whose orders are affected.

BFL should cease taking any further pre-orders until this project is back on track and they can offer delivery in a reasonable time-frame.

Edit.  What in the hell is going on that Josh feels it would be inappropriate to disclose publicly?  People with pre-orders are undoubtedly stakeholders, but they're not necessarily entitled to the same level of detail as investors or board members.  Seriously, if you can't provide enough information publicly to reassure your existing customers, then why on earth should they trust you for another day instead of cancelling their orders right now?  And why should any potential customer take a chance on ordering with you?

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/1034-february-14th-2012-update-discussion-thread-12.html#post16015

Reassurance needs to be as public as possible right now. 

They've cemented a reputation for themselves that will only be rectified by sufficient market pressures.  I.e. they couldn't run a profitable business in a competitive environment where their product, at this point, is essentially Public Relations.

If this is a scam I have a feeling someone might be getting "bumped" off eventually.

You usually have much to say about BFL.  How would you evaluate this setback for BFL?

D

I'm Keith Apicary at this point.


I've focused on 'the classics' and resigned myself to not think about mining (first, second...whatevs) with shiny new, tasty technology.



*Goes back to playing Galaga*

It's great to say that the bumping facility can't wrap their heads around urgency.  In fact the problem seems to be BFL being unable to wrap their heads around the fact that you can't leave organising these steps until your chips are ready to roll out of the fab because these facilities book slots many months in advance.

And "blank cheque" my ass.  They may have offered to pay over the going rate for urgent orders, but let's not pretend that they're willing or able to pay 10 or 20 million hurry up the bumping.

Thanks for sharing this, Micon. Good find.

Seriously! BFL (Josh) is one bunch of arrogant amateurs! It's like coming 10 minutes after closing hour to a gas station saying: "Hey! Give us 2 fl.oz of gasoline. Pronto! We'll pay you 20 cent extra!".

Anyway ...

I thought February would be the last month where I make good money betting against BFL - but it seems March will be a save bet too.

Looking forward to get my payout from this one: http://bitbet.us/bet/7/bfl-will-deliver-asic-devices-before-march-1st/      

I'm not sure that there's any reason to believe that bumping, packaging and board assembly of the second 6000 chips is going to happen any more quickly than the first.  Batch 2 is also going to be a small order which facilities are going to fit in around other work and the likelihood of all the facilities having open slots so the process flows seamlessly is small.

to find the actual latest updates on BFL ASIC status, you must dig:



IMO this is part of the "let the mark down easy" stage, where there will be many delays and very weak excuses.
 

I'm not a huge fan by the amount of trolling that usually goes on in these kinds of threads, but this made me lol.

There is a fair chance BFL still has to find that out.  Fully expect a "oops, now we have the wrong equipment" or "oops, those BGA balls crack without underfill" or "we cant chew bubble gum fast enough to underfill our chips"  post by Josh in the next weeks.

Gotcha.  Missed that update.  Thank you for clarifying.

Enigma.

Yes, BFL said they switched from QFN some time ago, due to some heat issues.

I'm just hugely confused here.  I'm not a BFL Customer, and I haven't really been keeping up with the BFL story, but I happened to see this thread and this update has me puzzled.

I should firstly state that I have more than a bit of experience with electronics and semiconductors.  I have been in the industry for a long time, and I deal with all sort of IC packages.

That said, bumping is almost always a term used to define the process of 'Bumping' a wafer so that it can be used as a flip-chip.  flip-chips are bare, non packaged dies that are then attached directly to a circuit board (PCB).

I was under the impression that BFL was using QFN packages for their ASIC chips.  If this were the case, no bumping would be necessary.  The bare wafer would be cut into individual dies, the dies would be wire-bonded to a QFN carrier and the QFN would be reflow soldered to the circuit board.

Is that no longer the case?  Did BFL switch from using QFN's to using direct flip-chip assembly?  I thought they were planning on being able to build these circuit boards in house?  It's been a long time since I looked at MyData equipment (wayyyy too slow to even be on my radar), but the last time I did, there was NO WAY Mydata was going to be placing flip-chips.  I also didn't see any equipment in the BFL equipment thread that would be able to underfill a flip-chip.

I'm just confused.  Are they using flip-chips (or some similar direct die attach assembly process), or are they using QFN's?  I only bring it up because if they are using QFN's, then bumping is not happening.

Enigma

21 Feb 2013

The chips are still at the bumping facility. They are taking their time, much to our chagrin, to be sure we don't wreck one of the wafers with a failed bump. We are trying to determine if we need to physically go to the bumping facility and sit in someones office until it's done. We should hopefully have more information on that later tonight or tomorrow. If it turns out it would be efficacious, that's what we will do. However, perhaps my reputation will precede me and they will elect to get the job done and send the chips to the packaging facility instead of having me sitting in their office all day.

The good news is, we should be able to accelerate the second set of wafers as well as the bulk of the rest of the wafer run, allowing us to ship product en mass even sooner than we expected. This is still being negotiated, but things are looking good as far as that goes.

After reading the update from BFL I had to find out what josh was referring to when saying chargrin. It looks to be something like this below.

cha·grin  (sh-grn)
n.
A keen feeling of mental unease, as of annoyance or embarrassment, caused by failure, disappointment, or a disconcerting event: To her chagrin, the party ended just as she arrived.


Now even making claims like this does this give an indication that their already is a failed bump? and are in a way indicating that their is a failed bump causing all the delays.


Well after reading elsewhere BFL do not have any contact with the bumping facility and this in my option is a bad move. Having such big orders and currently delays one would think it would be wise even if going to the facility to check up and make sure everything is been done. This should be a standard proceedure to actually go to their bumping facility rather than spending time flaying around and booking flights on your airobflplain and having fun. CUSTOMERS FIRST BEFORE FUN AND ADVENTURES EVEN IF YOU ARE A PILOT.

How many more delays are they going to be. Next I can bet 100 satoshi on it that their will be a failed bump if no one goes to the bumping facility as seems their doing something wrong and will cause a big delay.


How the hell is their any good news to speed up things if things are already going wrong. Yes indeed speeding up bumping will speed things up however with all the above do you really think it is wise to even do this?

Am a little shocked at their latest update and I feel very concerned for all the people who have already ordered with them. I just hope that things progress and no more delays happen as am sure BFL are losing customers to Avalon including me and am sure 600 other people decided on Avalon rather than BFL due to their delays. If they pick up and fix their problems then I might just might order from them. However I would have to wait until theirs an actually product that some pre orders have got theirs in the post.

This is just me posting some updates and speaking my mind on current situation on BLF. I do hope for the people who have ordered with BFL get their orders and theirs not much more waiting for you


Edited reason update as of 25th

25 Feb 2013 Update

I know people have been waiting on an update for awhile. The simple fact of the matter is there hasn't been any solid updates to offer. I know people are desperate and starving for information and I wish I could provide new information every day, but some days there just isn't new information. Luckily there is some new information today. It's not the best information (such as we are shipping today!) but it is at least an update.

We had expected the bumping to be done by now, as per the previous update(s). That has not been completed yet. There are a number of reasons why this is the case, and we are not pleased with any of them. The bumping facility, which we have no direct contact with, did not complete the NRE on the timeline we had spoke to the packaging facility about. As I've written in previous posts, we are dealing with such an accelerated time scale that all of these facilities simply aren't used to dealing with. It's been a learning experience for both us and for the facilities we are using. The upside, such as it is, is that going forward, we will have all the large, time sucking hurdles already out of the way and the rest of the chips should breeze through without issue, as all the NRE, tooling, design, planning and machines will already be configured for what we need.

Since Friday we have been, in a word, agonizing over how to make up for lost time. Obviously, we can't make up for all the lost time, but what we have decided is to effectively burn (this is not a technical term, I simply mean we are using one of the wafers for testing instead of creating chips out of it) one of the initial six wafers for testing. This is definitely not something we wanted to do, as it will reduce our initial chip count from a potential 6000 to 5000 chips for the first set of wafers. We are doing this because it will buy us 7 - 12 days for the second set of wafers (and the remaining set of wafers down the road). The time frame between the 1st set of wafers and the 2nd set of wafers should be reduced to a matter of a few days.

Why are we burning the wafer, what advantage does that give us and how can that accelerate the timeline? As many of you already know, we have had the 2nd set of wafers holding with the last layers being unfinished until we confirm we have everything the way we want it on the first set of wafers. We've already started the process to continue laying down layers up until about the last 5 layers or so - by burning one of our precious wafers, we can send it to the ASIC engineers who can essentially wire bond it manually and test the chips, but the wafer will become useless for creating usable chips. By doing this, they will verify that everything is how it needs to be and we can give the foundry the go-ahead to finish the second set as well as the bulk of the chips immediately. The second set of wafers should be done and on their way to us by the time we get chips in house in KC, and the bulk wafers should be done shortly after that.

The test wafer is already on it's way to the ASIC labs and should arrive tomorrow. Presumably it will take a better part of the day to get everything situated and for the testing to begin, so I don't expect to hear anything until late Tuesday or sometime on Wednesday assuming everything goes well. In the meantime, the bumping facility will be bumping the remaining 5 wafers, which should be shipping out on Friday to the packaging house, whom we are paying extra to stay on for the weekend and start the packaging process. We expect at least some of the chips to be on their way to Chicago by Tuesday, where they will be mounted and sent out to our engineers and KC for testing and final MCU programming. At that point, once the MCU programming is confirmed we'll begin assembling the units. Right now, I'm planning on a week from Friday to be the day, but I'm just gonna say that's subject to change at the moment, although I don't anticipate a change right now.

The ASIC team has promised me pictures of the wafer tomorrow, Tuesday the 26th. As soon as I get those, I will be posting them. As soon as I hear something with regards to the chip testing, I will be posting that as well. If I'm not posting an update, it's because there's nothing new to report.