Swedish ASIC miner company kncminer.com - page 1932.

titomane

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Quote from: Loredo on July 22, 2013, 10:53:41 AM

Quote from: titomane on July 22, 2013, 10:42:55 AM

It seems that we have to shut up and worship KNC.
You believe blindly, others hesitate to see. Both views respectable.

I don't believe blindly, and you or anyone else need not worship KnC. That was not my point.

My point is that these threads should not be - but do - become akin to sports talk radio, or AM politics talk. Among the few intelligent, experienced comments are many, many, more from naive, tribal, fans of this "team," or its competitor teams, which lower the signal-noise ratio with post after post of fatuous speculation and bullshit.

Sports radio is fun to listen to, sometimes, when caught in traffic, just it was fun to read the debate about the technical details, But there's no money at stake there. Here, there is. That's a big difference.

You contradict yourself.
You do not want to become the sport in a discussion thread.
But answer this:

No, it would not. It would likely spawn its own thread, where everyone and Their cousin would pontificate over naively or weigh in on whether or not there was enough time to ... blah, blah, blah.

A user who has not said any nonsense. If set to your height and you just answered. This really will become a sports discussion.

minternj

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Quote from: Ytterbium on July 22, 2013, 11:07:54 AM

Quote from: minternj on July 22, 2013, 10:58:52 AM

which is why you should be thankful that people pay attention to details and notice a specification change from previously disclosed figures. Why is that considered controversial to ask why technical specs have changed after it was supposedly finalized and sent off to the foundry?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it - we funded their project, and we should be treated like investors (IMO). However, there is a difference between something being concern, and needlessly panicking and freaking out for no reason. I don't think the difference between the stated number of contacts and the diagram is that big of a deal, or a reason to worry about their ability to deliver on spec.

Anyway, someone can email and ask, they've been responsive in the past, and it's Monday (Well, past working hours in Sweden). It seems strange to sit around speculating when you could easily just drop them a line.

Whos freaking out. This is a discussion board, on a thread that was started by knc . They obviosuly read it since they released the tech specs in response to this thread. A question is being asked. Why not let it be answered instead of being a white knight for knc?

pixl8tr

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Quote from: jmaccoin on July 22, 2013, 11:10:28 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

Packaging usually comes after the chips are made, so I hear....

Wouldn't they only package the devices once they are ready to be shipped?

He is speaking to the packaging of the the silicon die into a "chip". That can then be integrated onto a circuit board. Grin

minternj

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Packaging comes after yes but usually designed with the chip as noted by others.

jmaccoin

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Packaging usually comes after the chips are made, so I hear....

Wouldn't they only package the devices once they are ready to be shipped?

Ytterbium

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Quote from: minternj on July 22, 2013, 10:58:52 AM

which is why you should be thankful that people pay attention to details and notice a specification change from previously disclosed figures. Why is that considered controversial to ask why technical specs have changed after it was supposedly finalized and sent off to the foundry?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it - we funded their project, and we should be treated like investors (IMO). However, there is a difference between something being concern, and needlessly panicking and freaking out for no reason. I don't think the difference between the stated number of contacts and the diagram is that big of a deal, or a reason to worry about their ability to deliver on spec.

Anyway, someone can email and ask, they've been responsive in the past, and it's Monday (Well, past working hours in Sweden). It seems strange to sit around speculating when you could easily just drop them a line.

minternj

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Quote from: Loredo on July 22, 2013, 10:53:41 AM

But there's no money at stake there. Here, there is. That's a big difference.

which is why you should be thankful that people pay attention to details and notice a specification change from previously disclosed figures. Why is that considered controversial to ask why technical specs have changed after it was supposedly finalized and sent off to the foundry?

Loredo

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Quote from: titomane on July 22, 2013, 10:42:55 AM

It seems that we have to shut up and worship KNC.
You believe blindly, others hesitate to see. Both views respectable.

I don't believe blindly, and you or anyone else need not worship KnC. That was not my point.

My point is that these threads should not be - but do - become akin to sports talk radio, or AM politics talk. Among the few intelligent, experienced comments are many, many, more from naive, tribal, fans of this "team," or its competitor teams, which lower the signal-noise ratio with post after post of fatuous speculation and bullshit.

Sports radio is fun to listen to, sometimes, when caught in traffic, just it was fun to read the debate about the technical details, But there's no money at stake there. Here, there is. That's a big difference.

titomane

sr. member

Activity: 389

Merit: 250

Quote from: Loredo on July 22, 2013, 10:08:11 AM

Quote from: HyperMega on July 22, 2013, 09:13:05 AM

A KnC statement like "Tape-out was executed at 22nd July." would clarify all these speculations.

No, it wouldn't. It would likely spawn its own thread, where everyone and their cousin would pontificate over or naively weigh in on whether or not there was enough time to ... blah, blah, blah.

Just look at the controversy over each of the bits of information they provided here.

The best thing for them to do is what every design/development company routinely does: keep quiet.

If you think they're going down, then you should take your marbles and go play somewhere else, expressing your opinion if you want to (opinions are valuable to others, even when their are, in consensus, wrong) If you think they're going to make their deadlines, then chew your fingernails and wait.

It seems that we have to shut up and worship KNC.
You believe blindly, others hesitate to see. Both views respectable.

You must not say.
"likely spawn its own thread, where everyone and Their cousin would pontificate over naively or weigh in on whether or not there was enough time to ... blah, blah, blah."
Because this is the thread of KNC.

pixl8tr

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Quote from: Ytterbium on July 22, 2013, 09:45:06 AM

Quote from: pixl8tr on July 22, 2013, 08:58:38 AM

Wow! Thats a lot of solder balls per chip. Is this amount of connections normally soldered reliably in manufacturing?

The way it works, they just set the chip on the board, and heat it up enough for the balls to melt. If you search "bga reball" on youtube there are videos of people taking the chips off and putting them back on at home. Once you put the balls back on the chip, you just have to set it on the board and heat it up for the balls to melt, IIRC.

Thanks! Yeah, I am familiar with the process. I have used hot air to reflow some small packages for repair jobs. However, this size BGA is magnitudes away from anything I've experienced.
It just seems that there will be have to be either automated or manual x-ray checking of the soldered packages somewhere in the process. Just asking the question from those who know, how difficult is it to solder a BGA this large in a production line manufacturing process.

Loredo

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Quote from: HyperMega on July 22, 2013, 09:13:05 AM

A KnC statement like "Tape-out was executed at 22nd July." would clarify all these speculations.

No, it wouldn't. It would likely spawn its own thread, where everyone and their cousin would pontificate over or naively weigh in on whether or not there was enough time to ... blah, blah, blah.

Just look at the controversy over each of the bits of information they provided here.

The best thing for them to do is what every design/development company routinely does: keep quiet.

If you think they're going down, then you should take your marbles and go play somewhere else, expressing your opinion if you want to (opinions are valuable to others, even when their are, in consensus, wrong) If you think they're going to make their deadlines, then chew your fingernails and wait.

Ytterbium

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Quote from: titomane on July 22, 2013, 09:05:32 AM

Quote from: Ytterbium on July 22, 2013, 08:56:53 AM

Changing the package doesn't mean they changed the chip itself. If you look at the pin-outs on major chips you'll see a lot of them are redundant, extra power lines and stuff like that. I think they use a lot of lines because the connecting lines are so thin - I would imagine putting a high load on an individual line would damage the chip, so they have a bunch of lines to spread out the power load.

The package they're using has space for extra pins, that doesn't mean they're actually going to be connected to anything, or aren't just going to be used as extra power lines.

What? If they change pad-balls they change chip, or have had a design error. Prefer to be a chip change that an error.
Not to sound a troll, I am buyer KNC.

Who says they changed the number of pads? The balls might not be connected to anything at all. I'm not a semiconductor engineer - but the number of balls isn't necessarily 1-1 with the number of pads on the IC. (oh, and there are cool videos of wire bonding on youtube, you can see how tiny the connecting wires are, they couldn't individually carry a lot of current so you need a lot of lines to carry 250 watts)

If you have a 55^2mm package, it may be simpler just to cover the bottom of the package with balls rather then have a custom stencil made or whatever.

Or, finally it may simply be that the diagram is incorrect and there will be missing balls on the actual chip. Once you get your miner you can take it apart, heat up the chip and remove it and count the balls if you want. Wink

Basically I wouldn't worry that much about the discrepancy, although you could ask them for input since we're all curious.

Quote from: pixl8tr on July 22, 2013, 08:58:38 AM

Wow! Thats a lot of solder balls per chip. Is this amount of connections normally soldered reliably in manufacturing?

The way it works, they just set the chip on the board, and heat it up enough for the balls to melt. If you search "bga reball" on youtube there are videos of people taking the chips off and putting them back on at home. Once you put the balls back on the chip, you just have to set it on the board and heat it up for the balls to melt, IIRC.

Xian01

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Christian Antkow

Quote from: pixl8tr on July 22, 2013, 08:58:38 AM

Wow! Thats a lot of solder balls per chip. Is this amount of connections normally soldered reliably in manufacturing?

Yeah, that density is nucking futs. Raises a red flag.

HyperMega

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Quote from: Ytterbium on July 22, 2013, 08:56:53 AM

Changing the package doesn't mean they changed the chip itself. If you look at the pin-outs on major chips you'll see a lot of them are redundant, extra power lines and stuff like that. I think they use a lot of lines because the connecting lines are so thin - I would imagine putting a high load on an individual line would damage the chip, so they have a bunch of lines to spread out the power load.

The package they're using has space for extra pins, that doesn't mean they're actually going to be connected to anything, or aren't just going to be used as extra power lines.

Could be.

But it's a flip chip design. Therefore normally no real standard packages exists. The internal package substrat has to be designed too and the bump positions have to fit to top metal openings of the chip layout. This process is called package co-design.

If they have a package design from a previous project for reuse, they maybe able to adapt the chip layout to fit to the existing package substrate, which would ease this process a bit. Maybe the orignal 2046 balls were an mistake and they allways meant 2797.

Not that important. A KnC statement like "Tape-out was executed at 22nd July." would clarify all these speculations.

GandalfG

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Dig your freedom

Quote from: pixl8tr on July 22, 2013, 08:58:38 AM

Wow! Thats a lot of solder balls per chip. Is this amount of connections normally soldered reliably in manufacturing?

Like the GPU most of that are power lines. About soldering - comes to mind Xbox CPU reflow Tongue

titomane

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Quote from: Ytterbium on July 22, 2013, 08:56:53 AM

Changing the package doesn't mean they changed the chip itself. If you look at the pin-outs on major chips you'll see a lot of them are redundant, extra power lines and stuff like that. I think they use a lot of lines because the connecting lines are so thin - I would imagine putting a high load on an individual line would damage the chip, so they have a bunch of lines to spread out the power load.

The package they're using has space for extra pins, that doesn't mean they're actually going to be connected to anything, or aren't just going to be used as extra power lines.

What? If they change pad-balls they change chip, or have had a design error. Prefer to be a chip change that an error.
Not to sound a troll, I am buyer KNC.

pixl8tr

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Wow! Thats a lot of solder balls per chip. Is this amount of connections normally soldered reliably in manufacturing?

Ytterbium

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Activity: 238

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Changing the package doesn't mean they changed the chip itself. If you look at the pin-outs on major chips you'll see a lot of them are redundant, extra power lines and stuff like that. I think they use a lot of lines because the connecting lines are so thin - I would imagine putting a high load on an individual line would damage the chip, so they have a bunch of lines to spread out the power load.

The package they're using has space for extra pins, that doesn't mean they're actually going to be connected to anything, or aren't just going to be used as extra power lines.

HyperMega

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Quote from: titomane on July 22, 2013, 08:22:51 AM

Quote from: HyperMega on July 22, 2013, 07:21:01 AM

No offence here! Finally is just a question how they dice the wafers. Maybe it would be even wise, to have 4 dies 25 GH/s each in Multi-Chip-Package. But as you said, in sum they probably will have 100 GH/s per 120mm2.

Funny detail, the minimum count of wafers one can order at a foundry is 25 (1 lot)! Wink

It's really a good question, why invest another $1.5M - $2M for a new 28nm full mask set for gen 2 ASIC if you dominate the market with gen 1?

The hypothesis does not offend ever. Also if you are well explained, like yours so appreciated.

It is important to know ETA chips. It seems that the request was not made in June.

I rely on package change after the 26th June.
https://www.kncminer.com/news/news-22

They say 2046 Balls & now say 2797 Balls
Why and when they decided to change the number of pads?

I fully agree with you.

The tape-out date (sending the final layout to the fab, ordering the masks and wafers) is the major milestone of any ASIC design project. Every customer/investor should be informed about when this is planned and when it was finally executed (this is at least the case in the "normal" ASIC business world). Because after that the "train has left the station" and the time until wafers leave the fab is somehow predictable.

The layout was probably not final in June, otherwise it would not be possible to change the package later on.

If there is no tape-out in July it is impossible that KnC will have packaged dies in their hands end of September (not talking about delivering fully debugged miners to end customers).

Bitcoinorama

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Personally I'd rather they keep schtum about any design details from now until the chips are in hand.

This gives away wayy too much competitive advantage. I think they've said too much as is.

The money's been raised and spent, there is no doubt they are real and actually undertaking this. All these assumptions and demands for clarification serve no purpose for onlookers aside competitng entities.

I'm happy to switch off and watch from the sidelines for all of 4-6 weeks...

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