Oh man.. not looking good!
AMT entrusted to do the production and assembly! I would have preferred that they ship units directly from technobit. The delay to ship from Europe would likely less than the delays that AMT is known for.
BTW, how many boards will be needed to reach 1.2 THs?
That is not necessarily true (e.g, it could be great news, depending). A company like Flexitron could probably do 1000 or many times that boards in a day without breaking a sweat. Probably much faster, with better QA and at lower cost, than even a high quality specialized vendor could do. The problem is in setting up the assembly line, and lead times.
So the questions to ask are:
(1) Is the techno bits licensed design fully developed, tested, and ready to go, or will a testing phase be needed? IS the PCB design already in layout ready to be printed?
(2) Who is doing the PCB board manufacture and soldering? Do they have all parts in hand or will there be a lead time and if so what is that?
(3) When will assembly start and how many boards can be finished and tested per day?
(4) What are specs on the techno bit boards? Are they a design that is already being sold or a new AMT only design?
(5) Are there any post-board assembly tasks that will not be performed by the assembler? E.g., will the hashing chips need to be mounted separately, or will AMT ship those out to be mounted too? and how long before assembler has all parts in hadn and can start therefore?
(6) Has contract been signed with assembly shop or is it still under negotiation? Are there hard and fast dates and volumes in the contract or is it a reasonable efforts type contract?