Big news from BFL that effects us extremely positively.
It appears we will not only receive 9 - 1TH/s Imperial Monarchs, but we will also receive 9 - 600GH/s Monarchs at the end of their shipping queue. The reduction in power usage is also extremely positive for our future.
This announcement brings our BFL equipment on order to 14.4TH/s, with an anticipated arrival date of late April for the first 9TH/s.
04 March 2014 - Monarch Update
Power & Performance better than expected
The initial power consumption numbers for Monarch are in and they're about 20% better than anticipated, meaning we expect the Monarch to consume 0.45W/GH at the chip level. This translates to about 300W per 600GH at the wall. Chip performance of all systems is as good as or better than predicted. To put this in perspective, this makes the Monarch chip nearly twice as power efficient as compared to our 28nm competition whose products operate between 0.9 and 1.0w per GH at the wall.
Chip Delay
The initial batch that we currently have in hand is not suitable to ship to customers. This is due to a problem in a top metal layer of the chip that prevents some engines from initializing when the chip is first powered on. (With ASIC design, there are a number of layers to a chip; most of those layers are in silicon, but the last few layers are in a special type of metal. Subsequent batches were held in wait just prior to the metal layers so that we could affect any necessary changes and proceed with chip production from that point, drastically reducing the time it takes to bring a new batch of chips to life.) The problem was positively identified and the fix is already in progress; however it will take approximately 5 weeks before we get packaged chips in hand, meaning the deployment of the Monarch will be delayed about 5 weeks from now. The specific date is still being determined, but I wanted to get an update out as soon as possible.
Refunds & Delay Compensation
Because of the delay, we're offering several different forms of compensation that vary based on order pricing and order date:
Free performance upgrades
All customers who ordered 600GH Monarchs prior to the price decrease on November 28, 2013 will be upgraded to the Imperial Monarch product, which is a new, high performance version of the card. The Imperial Monarch will operate at 1 TH/s (+ / - 20%).
Six Month Refund or Double Shipment Guarantee
If you’ve been waiting in queue for six months or more, you qualify for either a full refund in USD, OR double the hardware you ordered. This latter option will come in the form of (a) first shipping you the new Imperial Monarch, giving you an expected 160-175% of your ordered hashrate, and then (b) an additional Standard 600 GH Monarch at the end of the queue, giving you another 100% hashrate boost, totaling an expected 250+% of your ordered hashrate once all products have shipped. (Note: Electing the refund cancels the Imperial Monarch upgrade offer in the first section above.)
