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Topic: Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1826. (Read 3049501 times)

hero member
Activity: 574
Merit: 500
August 17, 2013, 07:18:15 AM
Check it out 2 to 1 payout for October delivery on BitBet

http://bitbet.us/bet/472/kncminer-will-deliver-asic-devices-before-october-1st/

Get in on the action...KNC are sure to deliver ... Cheesy

(I may have a vested intrest in this blatant ad ..lolz)
legendary
Activity: 938
Merit: 1000
LIR DEV
August 17, 2013, 07:05:43 AM
KingCoin...Ever thought that maybe Markus knows something you/we don't?

If it were me wanting to know the answers to the techno-garble, I would call them.

My thinking is... either you trust them, or you don't; it's as simple as that.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
August 17, 2013, 06:29:00 AM
I'll probably get out of my depth here and show my ignorance, but WTF, its a quiet day so ...

Running scan insertion and inserting signature analysis on the hash core will require adding gates. More than what can be handled by a simple metal fix. Hence it would require a number of masks being produced at a high cost and more time and resources.  But why?

But (as has been pointed out upthread), this is totally unneccessary as its already built in - a bitcoin hasher is almost the ultimate in a self-testing design. Probably better than most of the self test bolted onto typical commodity ASICs.

Quote
BGA fixtures are expensive and not always so easy to deal with. It not impossible even though the package here is probably not the cheapest one around. But why?

So how do all the manufacturers of CPU, GPU, FPGA and all the other high power devices manage then? Of course the test fixtures are expensive, have a long lead time, and need specific expertise to program  (my first job, 30 years back was writing test patterns a TekTest for the 5 micron ULA devices that were just coming onto the market). ORSoc will have outsourced this to the experts (one hopes).
sr. member
Activity: 262
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 06:06:12 AM
Anyway its the same problem CPU and GPU manufacturers have to deal with, so the solutions will be out there (I defer to 2112 et al, my chip industry insider knowledge is two decades out of date now).

They use scan insertion and test methodologies and don't expect the motherboard/graphics board manufactures to take care of the testing and yield problems.
sr. member
Activity: 262
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 06:04:04 AM
Oh poo. The thread went chip-design while I was asleep. I missed all the fun  Sad

I'll just point out that KNC have had plenty of time since tape-out to refine their testing procedures. Yes is is insane to omit the wafer test on production devices, but these are prototypes (for all they say about commercial product, it will take many more months to shakedown a volume-scale design, and quite right too, time is very much of the essence with bitcoin mining).

Running scan insertion and inserting signature analysis on the hash core will require adding gates. More than what can be handled by a simple metal fix. Hence it would require a number of masks being produced at a high cost and more time and resources.  But why?

Provided they have sorted out a test socket/interface for the packaged chips, so they can weed out the DOAs (dead shorts between power rails do not make it onto PCB's), and (rare) controller failures, they will be fine.

BGA fixtures are expensive and not always so easy to deal with. It not impossible even though the package here is probably not the cheapest one around. But why?
sr. member
Activity: 1176
Merit: 265
August 17, 2013, 05:42:36 AM
Do you guys think it is sound that kncminer should offer a option to buy miners for November delivery, at a discount. For them to offer that now instead of when October is sold out. I would like to buy a miner, but I dont want it to be so close to November that I was a few days off from a cheaper price. I rather have a firm delivery date, like early November, than Late October with a higher price.

They didn't offer November delivery. They said a Nov price drop.
A firm delivery date. Good luck with that. Anywhere Smiley

I think all the Oct scheduled ones have a good chance to be early Nov...a 2 week delay is Usain Bolt performance  in this business.
legendary
Activity: 1148
Merit: 1018
August 17, 2013, 05:16:05 AM
I clearly remember how Knc stated they would have a working prototype by August. What do you say Bitcoinorama, will you be worried if this milestone is missed or not?
RHA
sr. member
Activity: 392
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 05:06:39 AM
Isn't it a bit hard for the factory to test properly a chip with such a high power requirements? Without a radiator? How many test beds can deliver ~200 W to the chip?

Each chip is mounted on its own PCB. If the failure level of the chip is high (many engines are faulty), they simply replace the PCB with the chip.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
August 17, 2013, 04:28:56 AM
Oh poo. The thread went chip-design while I was asleep. I missed all the fun  Sad

I'll just point out that KNC have had plenty of time since tape-out to refine their testing procedures. Yes is is insane to omit the wafer test on production devices, but these are prototypes (for all they say about commercial product, it will take many more months to shakedown a volume-scale design, and quite right too, time is very much of the essence with bitcoin mining).

Provided they have sorted out a test socket/interface for the packaged chips, so they can weed out the DOAs (dead shorts between power rails do not make it onto PCB's), and (rare) controller failures, they will be fine.
sr. member
Activity: 262
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 04:21:15 AM

KnC is skipping a testing methodology used by the vast majority of the ASIC industry: chip level testing to make sure they detect faults at the chip tester and not in the assembled product, where they might not even know if the cause is a defective ASIC. Rather than stopping or sorting the bad chips at the fab, they pass them on to their customers. Again, which hopefully will receive miners above the later announced rate.
Once they receive the completed machines they'll go a burn-in and anything not within specs will simply be set aside and they'll move to the next device and send you that one. It's not a big deal yo.

Then throwing away a full PCB containing working chips or go through the process of re-balling, re-flowing the BGA's? That's expensive, especially if the ASIC yield is low. I can't see why they are skipping this common simple test methodology for the price of possibly throwing away almost complete miners. But what do I know, perhaps is related to some requirement or incomplete procedure given by the undisclosed mysterious ASIC vendor.
sr. member
Activity: 252
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 04:03:19 AM

KnC is skipping a testing methodology used by the vast majority of the ASIC industry: chip level testing to make sure they detect faults at the chip tester and not in the assembled product, where they might not even know if the cause is a defective ASIC. Rather than stopping or sorting the bad chips at the fab, they pass them on to their customers. Again, which hopefully will receive miners above the later announced rate.
Once they receive the completed machines they'll go a burn-in and anything not within specs will simply be set aside and they'll move to the next device and send you that one. It's not a big deal yo.

sr. member
Activity: 262
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 03:08:42 AM
5) Extra-credit question for people who aren't engineers but have experience mining: how many mining devices/rigs you had that booted and started mining correctly, but kept failing after several hours or only in specific circumstances? Were you willing to consider them completely faulty and throw them away or were you willing to delve in and debug the problem? How many hours of "testing" was your cutoff time before you decided to throw that device away?

5b) Also how would you feel after spending X thousand dollars on your miner to discover that when you receive it it only has 100-Y% of the cores operating, while some other guy (also payed X K$) on the forum received his miner which has 100% of the cores operating? This after you have spent numerous of hours trying to restart your miner, upgrading software, power cycle, swapped pools, replaced the PSU you bought because initially because you thought it could not supply enough power to the miner, etc. Of course the hash rate is within the late announced hash rate given by the vendor, so you can't ship it back for a replacement.


6) Extra-extra-credit question for engineers: What do you think about other engineers that have an obsesive-compulsive disorder about some testing methodology but have no practical experience running an actual bitmine?

KnC is skipping a testing methodology used by the vast majority of the ASIC industry: chip level testing to make sure they detect faults at the chip tester and not in the assembled product, where they might not even know if the cause is a defective ASIC. Rather than stopping or sorting the bad chips at the fab, they pass them on to their customers. Again, which hopefully will receive miners above the later announced rate.

As I've mentioned earlier I would have expected the hash rate to be given by the architecture and static timing analysis (assuming they have designed the rest of the miner so the operating conditions of the ASIC timing model is not violated). I was not aware that KnC was skipping this common testing methodology, but it might explain why they are so uncertain about the actual final performance of their miners: It will depend heavily on the yield of ASIC's as they will be mounting defective ASIC's into the miners as they don't know in advance which chips are defective or not.

BTW: Just keep your rude personal attacks and wrong assumptions of what I do and have or have not done coming. I simply ignore them, but they seem to be good for your inflated ego.
hero member
Activity: 752
Merit: 500
August 17, 2013, 02:30:34 AM
Notice the page says, "ship to you in October."  Meaning you probably won't get it until Nov, unless you live close.  Cheaper units offered for Nov. shipping probably won't be received until Dec.  I've accepted that I probably won't receive my day 2 Sept unit until Oct.  Day 2 of what?  It's certainly not Sept. 2nd.  It's the 2nd day of shipping.  That could be Sept. 27th.  Who knows?  Curious how this will play out.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 01:50:31 AM
Do you guys think it is sound that kncminer should offer a option to buy miners for November delivery, at a discount. For them to offer that now instead of when October is sold out. I would like to buy a miner, but I dont want it to be so close to November that I was a few days off from a cheaper price. I rather have a firm delivery date, like early November, than Late October with a higher price.


so you rather them not tell anyone and pull a fast one come nov?
 they really cant win so they are trying to bring the win/win as close as someone can try to make it..
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
August 17, 2013, 01:09:16 AM
Do you guys think it is sound that kncminer should offer a option to buy miners for November delivery, at a discount. For them to offer that now instead of when October is sold out. I would like to buy a miner, but I dont want it to be so close to November that I was a few days off from a cheaper price. I rather have a firm delivery date, like early November, than Late October with a higher price.
hero member
Activity: 752
Merit: 500
August 17, 2013, 12:50:00 AM
refund processing
Cool!  Difficulty will be one unit less.  thanks!
legendary
Activity: 938
Merit: 1000
LIR DEV
August 17, 2013, 12:48:08 AM
Because they are shipped by order payment date, and Mercury wasn't offered till later
sr. member
Activity: 251
Merit: 250
August 17, 2013, 12:45:28 AM
I want my machine already Sad Wonder why the larger units are shipping before the smaller?

I could do some research I guess...
newbie
Activity: 56
Merit: 0
August 17, 2013, 12:42:04 AM
If you get a refund, then where are you going to put all your money? It gotta be somewhere


Please message me if you are looking for a refund, I would be willing to buy your order position from you.
sr. member
Activity: 280
Merit: 250
Hell?
August 17, 2013, 12:38:34 AM
refund processing

Sweet! Better for me!  Grin
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