Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1635.

itod

legendary

Activity: 1974

Merit: 1077

^ Will code for Bitcoins

Quote from: Puppet on September 20, 2013, 09:39:46 AM

Seriously you guys are misinterpreting whats been said, or they misunderstood the question. There is no way anyone is going to assemble a complete pcb around a chip thats had neither wafer level nor chip level testing.

Why is that so difficult for you to accept this concept? If you:
- manufacture something for 300-400 EUR and sell it for 3.000-4.000 EUR,
- and already sold thousands of them,
- and you are in mortal fear of mass refund requests,
how much are you gonna care for a few percent of bad units?

cognoscente

member

Activity: 111

Merit: 10

The shortcut that they took is that they are trusting the DESIGN. They didn't waste a couple of months doing a 'test batch' to verify the design. They never hinted that they were taking any other shortcuts in assembly. NONE. Some of us need to check our medication.

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

I've always maintained they will ensure some of the chips are tested initially. What's up for interpretation is who's doing the testing, and how it's being done (in circuit or out).

Once they have a green light on some random tests, they won't be testing each chip prior to PCB assembly unless it makes sense to do so (ie, takes longer to test out of circuit). Their time to market is far too critical. They'll do what's best to achieve time to market, whether its loss of whole PCBs or not. Keep in mind they're allowing refunds.

To do otherwise is actually a shot in the foot.

Puppet

legendary

Activity: 980

Merit: 1040

Quote from: timmmers on September 20, 2013, 09:34:16 AM

I'll spell it out for you a lot simpler since you seem unable or unwilling to understand.
1) First few orders only...assemble as fast as possible,

I get it that time to market is crucial, but if that is your only argument, testing a die or chip (that has been processed for about a month or more in the fab) takes about 5 seconds in a machine. How long do you think it takes to assemble a complete miner based on a faulty chip?

Seriously you guys are misinterpreting whats been said, or they misunderstood the question. There is no way anyone is going to assemble a complete pcb around a chip thats had neither wafer level nor chip level testing.

timmmers

sr. member

Activity: 1176

Merit: 265

Quote from: Puppet on September 20, 2013, 09:18:02 AM

Quote from: timmmers on September 20, 2013, 09:02:41 AM

Sure they can afford to scrap bad boards. Damn, it's the best thing for them to do. Initially.
Fuck the cost, think of the cost of their first deliveries not being on time against that, and cancelled orders.
Get the initial couple of dozen or so units out of the door ASAP, gain the kudos for that, then relax a bit and test chips once they have that milestone achieved.
IF they get 50 perfectly working rigs in customers hands (literally since they are collected), get some good feedback... the lion's share of orders are october delivery so they'll have more time. Then they can test and not waste components.

Just curious, do you think they should test assembled miners before shipping? Like at least turning them on and running them for a few minutes? Or ship them asap and let customers find out if they work? The latter also saves them time and money.

This isnt only about wasting components, automated testing of those chips will if anything, speed up production of functional miners. It takes so much longer to assemble (and test!) a complete miner based on a bad chip than it does to do chip level testing.

This has been covered. They are burning in the rigs. They said so. Not for long though.
I'll spell it out for you a lot simpler since you seem unable or unwilling to understand.
1) First few orders only...assemble as fast as possible, test them to check they work as spec ..get them to customers as is Wylie Coyote is chasing them. Any of that 1st batch that don't measure up...put to one side/scrap. These rigs are modular, and they are going to supply DIY upgrades when all orders are done. So any problems can probably be fixed that way for speed.

2) They fuck about, test everything...end up with the same number of working miners, less scrap...and their reputation alongside the scrap in the bin. Late. Missed the deadline. That's a big thing. To scrap the bad units from a batch of 100 rigs...what's that cost compared to their rep? Not a lot.

Boils down to wasting a grand or two of components initially, against a shitload of future sales. It's nothing. They have given more than that away in free rigs and loads more on advertising.

itod

legendary

Activity: 1974

Merit: 1077

^ Will code for Bitcoins

Quote from: timmmers on September 20, 2013, 09:02:41 AM

Sure they can afford to scrap bad boards. Damn, it's the best thing for them to do. Initially.
Fuck the cost, think of the cost of their first deliveries not being on time against that, and cancelled orders.
Get the initial couple of dozen or so units out of the door ASAP, gain the kudos for that, then relax a bit and test chips once they have that milestone achieved.
IF they get 50 perfectly working rigs in customers hands (literally since they are collected), get some good feedback... the lion's share of orders are october delivery so they'll have more time. Then they can test and not waste components.

Exactly, it would be unreasonable for them do this any other way. People seem to forget how seriously overpriced these machines are, their production cost is a fraction of a retail price. The time is the only thing they can't afford to waste. When the time comes to reduce price 50% each month to adjust to expected ROI they will start to pay attention to optimized manufacturing.

Puppet

legendary

Activity: 980

Merit: 1040

Quote from: timmmers on September 20, 2013, 09:02:41 AM

Sure they can afford to scrap bad boards. Damn, it's the best thing for them to do. Initially.
Fuck the cost, think of the cost of their first deliveries not being on time against that, and cancelled orders.
Get the initial couple of dozen or so units out of the door ASAP, gain the kudos for that, then relax a bit and test chips once they have that milestone achieved.
IF they get 50 perfectly working rigs in customers hands (literally since they are collected), get some good feedback... the lion's share of orders are october delivery so they'll have more time. Then they can test and not waste components.

Just curious, do you think they should test assembled miners before shipping? Like at least turning them on and running them for a few minutes? Or ship them asap and let customers find out if they work? The latter also saves them time and money.

This isnt only about wasting components, automated testing of those chips will if anything, speed up production of functional miners. It takes so much longer to assemble (and test!) a complete miner based on a bad chip than it does to do chip level testing.

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Quote from: timmmers on September 20, 2013, 09:02:41 AM

Sure they can afford to scrap bad boards. Damn, it's the best thing for them to do. Initially.
Fuck the cost, think of the cost of their first deliveries not being on time against that, and cancelled orders.
Get the initial couple of dozen or so units out of the door ASAP, gain the kudos for that, then relax a bit and test chips once they have that milestone achieved.
IF they get 50 perfectly working rigs in customers hands (literally since they are collected), get some good feedback... the lion's share of orders are october delivery so they'll have more time. Then they can test and not waste components.

That's part of my assessment, especially because the deadline is a bit of a headline-making one. If they meet this deadline and/or simply make folks really happy, you can expect SHTF and folks will be lining up moreso than before, placing orders. Their coffers will be full for awhile.

I really want to see KNC and Cointerra delivering and going head to head.

timmmers

sr. member

Activity: 1176

Merit: 265

Sure they can afford to scrap bad boards. Damn, it's the best thing for them to do. Initially.
Fuck the cost, think of the cost of their first deliveries not being on time against that, and cancelled orders.
Get the initial couple of dozen or so units out of the door ASAP, gain the kudos for that, then relax a bit and test chips once they have that milestone achieved.
IF they get 50 perfectly working rigs in customers hands (literally since they are collected), get some good feedback... the lion's share of orders are october delivery so they'll have more time. Then they can test and not waste components.

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Quote from: Puppet on September 20, 2013, 08:41:31 AM

Quote from: vesperwillow on September 20, 2013, 08:07:22 AM

You do if you're in a rush to make a headline-breaking deadline, and if it's a significant number of rejects you hire someone to extract what they can off the board to put in the scrap bin.

Makes no sense. You have to test these chips at some point anyway, its generally easier and cheaper to do that before they are mounted on a PCB
So regardless of the fact that it saves you the PCB and assembly cost, you would want to do this.

The only sensible explanation I can come up with is that packaging and testing is handled by orsoc and KnC just pays for tested functional chips and wont be doing any other testing on them.

I guess we'll see. I remember them saying they wouldn't be testing the chips themselves--whether that means they as in KNC or themselves as in the chip by itself, I have no idea. They did say they would do tests of the rigs prior to shipment.

Again, what may not make sense to us might just be their plan. With a deadline to meet, if they are handling the rejects themselves, they would likely toss the stuff aside to deal with after the deadline. If ORS is handling the testing/flowing then it makes total sense that KNC is simply handling the rig testing/shipment.

markm

legendary

Activity: 2940

Merit: 1090

Are the solder spots on the bottom of chips so non-standard that there are not some kind of socket things you can solder on the board instead of a chip and some kind of conductive gel or something so one can just press a chip onto the thing, hash, remove it, press the next one in etc? Doctors have some kind of gel or something they use for electrodes and paddles and such can't electronic engineers form a connection without actually soldering the thing?

Even if it doesn't always form a perfect connection couldn't you just skip chips that don't and keep moving on, worrying about the "poor connection or bad chip" ones later?

Or even use a conductive solder-paste so you place and press, hash, if it hashes convey it into the soldering oven?

-MarkM-

Puppet

legendary

Activity: 980

Merit: 1040

Quote from: vesperwillow on September 20, 2013, 08:07:22 AM

You do if you're in a rush to make a headline-breaking deadline, and if it's a significant number of rejects you hire someone to extract what they can off the board to put in the scrap bin.

Makes no sense. You have to test these chips at some point anyway, its generally easier and cheaper to do that before they are mounted on a PCB
So regardless of the fact that it saves you the PCB and assembly cost, you would want to do this.

The only sensible explanation I can come up with is that packaging and testing is handled by orsoc and KnC just pays for tested functional chips and wont be doing any other testing on them.

markm

legendary

Activity: 2940

Merit: 1090

But these guys are professionals, so no way they'd have a nice reflow station, right? Tongue

-Markm-

crumbs

full member

Activity: 210

Merit: 100

Quote from: -Redacted- on September 20, 2013, 08:26:26 AM

Quote from: capa on September 20, 2013, 08:22:52 AM

Is it at all possible that the chips with be mounted like motherboard CPU's? So if a chip is bad it can easily be replaced/upgraded without damaging the PCB?

It's a very large pin-grid array. They might be using sockets, but because of all the "bumps" it has, they're probably soldering it directly onto the board.

I think it's a ball-grid array (BGA), sort-a the same thing minus the pins. It's an awesome package if you never have to rework it, but removing/replacing chips is pretty difficult -- you need a nice reflow station. Hot air pencils won't do it.

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Quote from: ?? on ??

Well, to start with, you don't scrap bad boards that cost 10x what the main chip on them costs - especially when you are paying software licenseing fees for each copy of the embedded firmware on them.

Once things have died down, and depending on what the trouble is with the board, you would either rework it to replace the hashing chip and sell it as an add-on module later, you might possibly use it in a lower end machine (probably not worthwhile), or, at the very least sell them "as is" for the cost of the parts. I do not doubt they ordered extra to get through this first batch, but I seriously I doubt they are planning to just throw money in the trash afterwards...

I agree, which is why I mentioned hiring someone to handle them. By scrap bin, I meant the rework/look-into-it bin, not literally trash.

-Redacted-

hero member

Activity: 574

Merit: 501

Quote from: capa on September 20, 2013, 08:22:52 AM

Is it at all possible that the chips with be mounted like motherboard CPU's? So if a chip is bad it can easily be replaced/upgraded without damaging the PCB?

It's a very large pin-grid array. They might be using sockets, but because of all the "bumps" it has, they're probably soldering it directly onto the board.

capa

full member

Activity: 138

Merit: 100

Is it at all possible that the chips with be mounted like motherboard CPU's? So if a chip is bad it can easily be replaced/upgraded without damaging the PCB?

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Quote from: Beta-coiner1 on September 20, 2013, 08:19:35 AM

Ok,not speculation or guesses but just got a response from KNC concerning the speed increase for Saturns."The guaranteed minimum speed for Saturn is 200 Gh/s and we are expecting to be over that mark by a considerable margin"

They said this about the other units as well, a couple weeks back.

Beta-coiner1

hero member

Activity: 532

Merit: 500

Ok,not speculation or guesses but just got a response from KNC concerning the speed increase for Saturns."The guaranteed minimum speed for Saturn is 200 Gh/s and we are expecting to be over that mark by a considerable margin"

vesperwillow

hero member

Activity: 616

Merit: 500

Quote from: ?? on ??

I suspect that you've never actually owned an electronics business of your own...

No, never owned one. I've owned 3 other successful businesses though. I have worked at at electronics companies, and worked for companies which assembled/delivered things on time under duress of deadlines. There's always an acceptable amount of loss regarding service or product deliverables. If you plan for it, you minimize impact and lower stress.

This is why I'm presuming they ordered 30% more of everything critical and planned for at least a 5% loss.

Unless you have a much better plan--not saying you don't, just curious.

Topic: Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1635. (Read 3049503 times)