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Topic: BitcoinOrama Report on the KnCminer/OrSoC Open-day Mon 10/06/13 (Stockholm) - page 19. (Read 55755 times)

legendary
Activity: 1904
Merit: 1007
Ok, so Q&A (first page of) is typed up below. I dug a bit further than the question specified in a few places.

The pic below has an amusing story. We all know English is not the first language for anyone, but Sam, and he is probably the worst speller of the lot.

So, their tag line:

'Bitcoins make the world go around', is as they realised afterwards; a spelling mistake, and should read 'Bitcoin makes the world go round'.

Alas, too late and they had ordered Mar's boards by that point, all with the spelling error, which I had Sam so proudly pose with. We were all given a pcb board, complete with spelling mistake, as a memento. Who knows? Perhaps one day it itself may have value, if not only historical...


Heh. This could replace the "All your base are belong to us" line Smiley
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
Ok, so Q&A (first page of) is typed up below. I dug a bit further than the question specified in a few places.

The pic below has an amusing story. We all know English is not the first language for anyone, but Sam, and he is probably the worst speller of the lot.

So, their tag line:

'Bitcoins make the world go around', is as they realised afterwards; a spelling mistake, and should read 'Bitcoin makes the world go round'.

Alas, too late and they had ordered Mars's boards by that point, all with the spelling error, which I had Sam so proudly pose with. We were all given a pcb board, complete with spelling mistake, as a memento. Who knows? Perhaps one day it itself may have value, if not only historical...



Bare in mind any err, umm, or ahhs are due to Marcus having to speak a foreign language to his own. He wasn't hestitating.

Q&A


ChipGeek

Note: These questions come from a guy (me) that has worked in (non bitcoin) ASIC design companies for over 25 years so my focus is from that perspective.

My questions are:

1) Is your ASIC design a hardcopy of the existing FPGA design or is it a semi-custom standard cell design?  (They've said "standard cell" before but other information makes it look like hardcopy.)


Marcus: Ah no it's definitely a standard cell, we've done hardcopies before like this, yes and structured ASIC, yes and gate array ASICs, but this specific design is standard cell ASIC 28nm.   

2) Have you done a (semi-) custom ASIC design of this complexity before?  Have you taken wafers through all of the post-fab production steps: wafer test, bumping, packaging, package test and binning?

Marcus: Thats a lot of questions in one question.

Sam: Have you done an ASIC Before...?

Marcus: Yes we have done many ASICs before.

Sam: (confidently dropping ASICs fabricated on PCBs onto the desk): That one, that one, that one.

Marcus: We have done designs that are much more complex. One with 187 clock domains, that's the...that's the most tough design. I...hope that we will never see such a design again, so yes we have done more complex designs.

Me: What Was that?

Marcus: That was a hardcopy. 40Nm hardcopy.

Me: But what was that for?

Marcus: Ah that's a confidential large customer.

Me: Ok, I thought that might be the case, alright...

Sam: How many clock domains are going to be in our chips?

Marcus: It's basically, well...it's going to be two clock domains, but...but there's a lot of different complexity changes, differences in between as well...

Another forum member interupts: Large scale binning and fabrication...

Marcus: Fabrication and all that, that is done by the fab, so they handle that, that's their business. We provide them with our jailcode, we've written our jailcode in a way that makes the back end design faster, and the fab time faster. There's multiple ways you can do that...if you know what you're doing.

3) Are you doing pre-package wafer test?

Marcus: No.

4) Are you doing post-packaging testing on a real production tester (Teradyne or similar)?

Marcus: No. We...and...and...I..I..I need to say a little bit about why; ah because we will have a self built in test that will automaically test...the...because the chips are so large, so that we can compensate for any losses in the Bitcoin engines. If there are any failing ones then we can compensate for that.

Me: Physically large?

Marcus: The...the die size of the...the?

Me: Yeah

Marcus: The die size will be...very large.

Me: But does that...ummm...

Marcus: That, that means that some of the parts in the ASIC might work and some will not, but we can compensate for that.

Another member: We can compensate for that.

Me: So does that mean you yield less per wafer?

Marcus: So yeah, you will always have a yield problem, and when you increase the die size, the yield problem becomes larger of course.

Me: ok


5) (This question only makes sense if they are NOT doing hardcopy.)  Is your package the same as the FPGA package or a custom one?  If custom, have you done custom packages before?

Marcus: Thats, it's not going to be the same package as the FPGA, as this is going to be a super large package. When we are talking about ASIC packages you have custom ASIC packages, and you have standard ASIC packages, ah, right now we're leaning towards, we have two options. We can use a very very large customised package solution, but we also have an option, so we...we don't have to decide that right now, but very soon we have to pick what kind of package, we should use. But it's, it's with ah, it definitely has to do with power, and heat dissipation. That's what's critical.

Me: So your now, your now going through a different route for heat dissipation, as you're not going down the liquid cooling anymore. Which was the original...

Sam: Datacentres told us not to. Please don't do it, we don't want to host that, we really don't want to see our customers demanding water cooling in our datacentres, blah...blah...blah, so...

Marcus interjects: But it's just the mounting...it's...it's a different mounting scheme, really. We mount that (show's big ass heatsink and fan) we can also mount water cooling

Sam: That's the heatsink (points)

Marcus: So err...we can choose, but for the first productions we'd rather use this ah, this massive active heatsink and over cool it and run the chip a little bit slower to make sure we can, we, we, we don't overheat it.

Me: So, I mean is it fair to assume, then, anything that you would house in future will go through this method, but you might offer a water cooling method if they want to do it at home if they want and have...?

Sam: Basically...basically yeah, at the moment, because we see it going towards industrial centres, rather than into ah single bedrooms like graphics cards are.

Me: But it's only going to be other than the cool factor, the ambient volume and, and being able to overclock it...

Sam: And then the only problem with these things (pointing at Mars fans) is they're not very big. That makes a lot more noise than this will ever make (pointing at huge fan on monster heatsink).



ElGabo

How many miners will you able to produce a day? Not exactly, their realistic perceived capacity + - 10%.

Sam: We can effectively ramp up the production to meet our demands. The numbers we are talking about making 100's effectively, maybe low thousands are umm their not even...their not even bothered by that number. The factories we are using are used to doing this kind of thing, on this scale, large production.

Me: How many daily, then...?

Sam: How many, how many men do we ask them for then...

Marcus interjects: Do we need 10 or 20 guys...? What will be our maximum. They have the space, they have the equipment, everything.

Sam: The factory is not the limiting factor, it's the parts in the door really. As long as we can always get the parts...

Marcus interjects: Yep

Sam: ...we can build the boxes

Marcus: Yep.

Me: Ok, umm...

Marcus: If there would be 50,000 boxes, then it would be a limiting factor. But if it's 1000-2500 boxes, or even 5,000 then it's not a problem.

Me: Ok, so are we going to see...10, 20, 50 a day, what do you reckon...?

Marcus: More

Sam: More

Marcus: Many, many more.

Andreas: More

Sam: Many more.

Me: No, no I just...

Sam: In the hundreds.

Marcus: Exactly

Me: Okay, okay, no, no no...I, I just need to get these guys a figure...ok?

Marcus: Hundreds, in the hundreds.



Ok, more tomorrow...night!



EDIT: Jailcode (where mentioned) = RTL Code.
sr. member
Activity: 265
Merit: 250
Football President
All this makes me feel “warm and fuzzy” may I point out they have the money for about 800 rigs in the bank about $6 million USA $. I hope you are right .They could also disappear into the sunset with a bag full of bitcoins.


Joking
newbie
Activity: 18
Merit: 0
Good to hear. Thanks for writing.
legendary
Activity: 1974
Merit: 1003
KS
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
I think I'll wait for the abridged version  Shocked

Now I know lots of you are going to get your panties in a bunch for me saying this but.....

Could you just post the straight unvarnished answers to the questions. I started reading your post, skipped the Ryanair nonsense then started on the novel that followed, I soon lost the will when I discovered it was another bitcoinorama circle jerk. High on vague assumptions, Low on facts.( Marcus is a perfectionist, living in a James bond lair........really?  Roll Eyes)

I appreciate you taking the time out to do this but sending the most Pro/biased/lobbyist for KNCminer on the forum probably wasn't a great idea if we wanted an objective opinion.  Also Bitcoinorams motivations are becoming clearer. He's angling for a job in the bitcoin industry, hopefully with KNC (PR maybe?)so take what he says with a large grain of salt.

Can we please have some facts rather than speculation, assumptions and wishful thinking. Some of us are still considering making this investment and could do with information sans rose tint and varnish.

And before you say it. I should go and do it myself. Believe me I will. I'm looking at purchasing multiple machines and have a couple of friends interested also. I won't be dropping any money utill I've thoroughly checked this out. I was hoping some fundamental questions would have be answered but as of today the are still holes you can drive a bus through.

Mate, if you read the first handful of lines, I stated I was getting down what I remembered off the top of my head whilst it's there. I also stated I was aware everyone was chomping at the bit for me to publish something sooner, rather than later. I also stated there is hours of recording and I asked every question that was asked of me and more. I asked them as they were written, regardless of whether they had been answered before, so I could give you the unadulterated opinion from the horses mouth. I also stated; 5) This keeps the actual Q&A clean and separate from my own opinion. So you can wait for me to drip feed the questions as I dedicate the time that I can afford (I do have a life), whilst that takes place it only made sense that I jotted down what I perceived to a fresh opinion having just been in attendance myself...

10 lines bro, you could have made it that far...

So, did you buy anything yet?

I see that you aren't reading everything related to KnC, but you always have a grudge against them (only you know why). He already stated that he bought a Jupiter.

quote please?
legendary
Activity: 1918
Merit: 1570
Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending
Read page one. Excellent OP. Will read the rest latter.
legendary
Activity: 1610
Merit: 1000
Crackpot Idealist
Nice write up! The shit I just took was epic!
member
Activity: 112
Merit: 10
Very nice report.

Thank you for taking the time to go and write it up.
member
Activity: 87
Merit: 10

alright, once I see it actually hashing then I will buy the product...

By then it'll be too late and you will be behind the curve. Dive in now head first like I have on a Jupiter and Saturn. Take some risk.
newbie
Activity: 34
Merit: 0
First of all: BitcoinOrama thanks very much for your effort and chairing with the community.

As i understand, KnC has the full design of the chip ready. Why did they not release any specs to the visitors?
How many chips are they gonna use in there devices? What is the Hash rate for one chip? What is the power consumpion of one chip?
My understanding is that a 28nm chip can be much more power efficient than the one they are using...

Do you have more info about that?

sr. member
Activity: 433
Merit: 250


Liar or Fool?

You tell me that I can't understand where you are coming from, but your slothful inability to place enough effort into realizing the OP was only editorial is telling.

I get it, you are a wannabe Puerto Libre, smoothie or Phinneas Gage.
However, those folks are smart, funny and/or relentless in efforts to find truth.
You are zero for three.

I rest my case Roll Eyes

Anyhooo.......Looking forward to updates
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
Guy's please, without breaking out the popcorn, this is where the thread begins to derail.

Let's keep it on point, or at the very least light hearted.

I started a new thread, as the main thread is hard to work through.

I'd rather we had quality, over quantity.

Peace (and hugz)...Lips sealed
sr. member
Activity: 322
Merit: 250
I appreciate you taking the time out to do this but sending the most Pro/biased/lobbyist for KNCminer on the forum probably wasn't a great idea if we wanted an objective opinion. 

Wow, I din't realize that we, as bitcointalk members, SENT people to KNC.
I would have thrown my hat into the ring.

Oh, holdonaminute, I hear mumbling in the background...

You mean bitcoinorama wasn't SENT?
He paid his own way from the U.K. to Stockholm?

In other words, if it is too difficult to understand that the people that visited KnC were not representing us, but themselves, mining bitcoins might be a venture that is best left to folks with a bit higher mental capacity.
Stick with lottery tickets.


The OP stated that the first post was all recollection.

Someone claims to be interested in dropping a small fortune in bitcoin miners, but happen to be too lazy to read opinions of people that have actually visited the people in whose trust is required with said fortune...
Liar or Fool?

-----------------------

Thanks for the prologue, 'orama.

I look forward to the 'real' report.

Yeah whatever buddy. Considering you don't understand the meaning of the word "taint" when used in this context. I'll take nothing you say seriously so stop trying to split hairs and put words in my mouth, it seems comprehension isn't your strong point.

You go ahead and read peoples opinions. I'd rather read facts. I've read plenty of Bitcoinoramas opinions, he has mine, we both know where we stand. I believe he is being overly optimistic, he probably thinks I'm an arse but for all the Jonny come latelys who think I've just had bad things to say about KNC try reading the whole openday thread before running your mouths.

If you had read the whole thread you would probably have learnt nothing you did not already know from what bitcoinarama wrote. He likes them, he liked them from day one. Is this news? No. So forgive me for not wasting my time reading it again. I'll wait for the facts.

Once again Bitcoinorama thanks for taking the time to do this. May I suggest uploading the audio instead of transcribing it? It would save you a lot of time. I could edit it if needs be.

Liar or Fool?

You tell me that I can't understand where you are coming from, but your slothful inability to place enough effort into realizing the OP was only editorial is telling.

I get it, you are a wannabe Puerto Libre, smoothie or Phinneas Gage.
However, those folks are smart, funny and/or relentless in efforts to find truth.
You are zero for three.
hero member
Activity: 752
Merit: 500
bitcoin hodler
I don't believe that they will deliver 28 nm ASIC out of the blue, the desing is exceptionally hard to make and it's very expensive.

..which is why they're converting their current FPGA chips to ASIC..which is cheaper and faster than designing a custom 28nm chip...

Indeed Mars had a very significant purpose for those that didn't fully understand (including myself at the time) why they were intent on building a 6gh/s FPGA.

Now in the interim watch what Marcus and the rest of the team that I neglected to credit can achieve with Mars;

Michael Unnebäck, Yann Vernier and Henrik Nordström.

The HW is really a huge team-effort, Marcus emailed and said I'm irreoneously giving him all the credit Wink

In any case hardware within Mars is about to be pushed to the limit, and done fast without delays. So you're about to see what is capable.

The ASIC final design is complete though, and from what I understand any improvements to the FPGA from here on in, apply to future chip revisions. Though perhaps some aspects of the hardware improvements will be relevant. That we'll need clarity on.

VeeMiner, of course your opinion welcome, and I'm in no position to promise anything, all I can relay is they on record have announced they want to be held accountable for;

A 28nm chip, 175/350 Gh/s miners come September. In a room full of witnesses...

alright, once I see it actually hashing then I will buy the product...
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500

All I can tell you and hopefully you will glean from their own answers as I'm about to sit down now and work through this (despite having a million other things to do day to day), is they appear very competent and knowledgable. They are not promising anything they don't believe they can deliver, having met them, ignoring what I'm imparting upon you, none of the other attendees disagree with this...

Thanks again for taking the time to do this. I understand what you're saying about the transcript. I can edit out the chit chat and reduce the background noise but I know what you mean about people not wanting to hear their own voice. I can make them sound like Optimus Prime if that helps Tongue
The offers there if you need it.

I'm pretty much sold on the company not being a scam and I'm as sure as I can be, without meeting them myself (next on my to do list) that their hearts in the right place. But I do not know enough about the technicals and that troubles me. I hate having gaps in my knowledge when making decisions. That's why I am keen to see the answers to the questions posed.

I went out to dinner last night and had one too many so forgive my earlier rudeness but I am keen to learn as much as I can. Its a really busy time in my industry and I cannot take the time, especially on a week day to go there myself. I would if I could.

So thanks again for doing this, I'll restrain my impatience and await your upload.

Thank-you, you're welcome. I will do my best, that I can promise!
hero member
Activity: 752
Merit: 500
bitcoin hodler
I don't believe that they will deliver 28 nm ASIC out of the blue, the desing is exceptionally hard to make and it's very expensive.

..which is why they're converting their current FPGA chips to ASIC..which is cheaper and faster than designing a custom 28nm chip...

and how exactly does that prove that they are capable of creating a chip of this quality?
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
I don't believe that they will deliver 28 nm ASIC out of the blue, the desing is exceptionally hard to make and it's very expensive.

..which is why they're converting their current FPGA chips to ASIC..which is cheaper and faster than designing a custom 28nm chip...

Indeed Mars had a very significant purpose for those that didn't fully understand (including myself at the time) why they were intent on building a 6gh/s FPGA.

Now in the interim watch what Marcus and the rest of the team that I neglected to credit can achieve with Mars;

Michael Unnebäck, Yann Vernier and Henrik Nordström.

The HW is really a huge team-effort, Marcus emailed and said I'm irreoneously giving him all the credit Wink

In any case hardware within Mars is about to be pushed to the limit, and done fast without delays. So you're about to see what is capable.

The ASIC final design is complete though, and from what I understand any improvements to the FPGA from here on in, apply to future chip revisions. Though perhaps some aspects of the hardware improvements will be relevant. That we'll need clarity on.

VeeMiner, of course your opinion welcome, and I'm in no position to promise anything, all I can relay is they on record have announced they want to be held accountable for;

A 28nm chip, 175/350 Gh/s miners come September. In a room full of witnesses...
sr. member
Activity: 433
Merit: 250

All I can tell you and hopefully you will glean from their own answers as I'm about to sit down now and work through this (despite having a million other things to do day to day), is they appear very competent and knowledgable. They are not promising anything they don't believe they can deliver, having met them, ignoring what I'm imparting upon you, none of the other attendees disagree with this...

Thanks again for taking the time to do this. I understand what you're saying about the transcript. I can edit out the chit chat and reduce the background noise but I know what you mean about people not wanting to hear their own voice. I can make them sound like Optimus Prime if that helps Tongue
The offers there if you need it.

I'm pretty much sold on the company not being a scam and I'm as sure as I can be, without meeting them myself (next on my to do list) that their hearts in the right place. But I do not know enough about the technicals and that troubles me. I hate having gaps in my knowledge when making decisions. That's why I am keen to see the answers to the questions posed.

I went out to dinner last night and had one too many so forgive my earlier rudeness but I am keen to learn as much as I can. Its a really busy time in my industry and I cannot take the time, especially on a week day to go there myself. I would if I could.

So thanks again for doing this, I'll restrain my impatience and await your upload.
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