The time is finally here. I’ve been dying to announce formal sales for a long time, but we were adamant that we would not start taking people’s money until the assembly and supply chain is in place and we have the production board brought up, tested and hashing.
That time is now. The Chili is here and it’s ready to go.
The culmination of a long, costly development cycle, we’re finally ready to start taking orders for assembly of your BFL 65nm SC chips. I think it’s the most advanced, versatile BFL miner available. Almost every possible feature has been added to the hardware in order to really push the BFL chips.
Hardware- 4-phase Digital Voltage Regulator
Designed using state-of-the-art Texas Instruments integrated driver MOSFETs (DrMOS), it provides ample power to the BFL chips. Designed for high efficiency at 100A, it can provide 160A continuous with adequate extra cooling. Voltage levels are software programmable, and it supports reading a whole range of data, including input and output voltage, per phase and total current, duty cycles and temperatures - 11 Temperature Sensors
One at the MOSFETs, onboard the voltage regulator, a general board temp, and the on-die temperatures of each ASIC - Per-Chip Frequency Measurements
The hashing frequency of the BFL chips is very voltage sensitive, but even at the same voltage there is a wide variation in frequency at the same setpoint between different chips. The Chili is the only board that measures the actual frequency of each chip using the on-chip clock output. - High Performance ARM microcontroller
A high performance Cortex M3 microcontroller was chosen, and direct DMA access allows it to simultaneously communicate with ASICs on two SPI busses while also performing other job queuing and monitoring applications. - Versatile Form Factor
Designed to be compatible with a common PCI expansion chassis, mounting large numbers of the Chili is as simple as mounting a GPU. Alternate configurations are also available; holes with the same spacing as those on the bottom of common 3.5" HDDs allow the Chili to be screwed on a HDD caddy and mounted in a hard drive bay.
Software- Entirely Custom Code
Starting from a blank slate and using the BFL code only as a reference, we worked from the ground up to make the Chili as efficient as possible. - USB Firmware Updates
As new features are added, the software can be field updated over USB without the need to buy a JTAG programmer. - P2Pool Efficient
Because we are able to accurately measure frequency and the real hashing power of each chip, we can efficiently divide work between chips without gaps. This allows support for one job per board vs one job per chip. In addition, when a new block is detected the old work is aborted and the new work is immediately loaded. - Z-Link Chaining Connections
Similar to BFL's X-Link interface, this still in development interface allows boards to be chained together and a single USB connection to be used, keeping wiring clutter in check for large data center applications - Coming Soon - Fully Dynamic and Automatic Frequency, Voltage and Fan Speed Control
Fully dynamic and automatic voltage (V), frequency (F) and fan speed (S) control to maximize hashing performance while staying within safe operating parameters of temperature and voltage. As the environment (room temperature) changes, V, F, and S will be adjust appropriately to maintain the highest hashing power based on the specified limits. This allows each individual chip to be pushed to it's safe limit without one slow chip throttling the entire assembly or a single hot chip destroying itself due to localized overheating. The user will be able to select slower fan speeds for noise sensitive environments such as bedrooms at the cost of some hashing power performance loss.
Software work is still continuing at breakneck pace to make sure that every feature is ready to by the time production is done, including some exciting as of yet unannounced features that will really allow us to push the chips to their maximum.
How Hot Do You Want Your Chili? | We designed the Chili to use the extremely cheap, extremely high performance off the shelf components that are already available in the computing industry. Got some room and want a quiet system? Grab a nice tower cooler. Looking for something high density? Use a GPU cooler and mount the boards in a 4U PCI expansion chassis. Want to really push it? Custom water isn’t needed, just get a water block off the shelf. Intel’s 75mm LGA115x and ATI 53.2mm hole spacing are included. Lists of recommended and tested heatsinks and thermal interface materials will be provided to ensure setup is as easy as possible, and as we develop the ecosystem custom kits will likely be offered |
Pricing for the first order is
$300 for parts (minus your BFL ASICs) and assembly. Contact us for shipping options depending on where you are and your preference for speed vs cost.
First batch assembly is scheduled to start
October 7th, though it could start on the Oct 3rd if the majority of chips are received by then. Assembly will take place in Austin, Texas and the boards will ship from the US. Payment will be by Bitcoin or wire, contact myself at
[email protected] for details.
Edit: Batch 1 now closed and in production.
Edit: Batch 2 sales are now open. If you have chips that you are getting from BFL or have chips in hand, we can arrange to have them mounted on boards for you. Due to much less demands and a smaller order size, many of the economies of scale we had in the first batch will be gone. To compensate for this, the price for batch 2 will be $350.
Edit: Batch 2 is closed and shipped. Thank you all very much for your support.
Edit: Batch 3 is now open for assembly services with your chips. We are planning on starting production on the 6th of December.
Terms of Sale- Performance numbers are not guaranteed. While we are confident in our platform, the single most important factor is the BFL asics and we have no control of their quality. Chips are sold in mixed lots and are not marked, so it is the luck of the draw. Please don't contact me asking to get a AAA unit as a special favor.
- There is no warranty on these items. Each units will be tested prior to shipment and will not ship unless it is working. Should an issue arise due to a non-ASIC problem we can work with you to get it repaired. BFL's ASICs are a bit of an unknown however, and we can not guarantee their longevity or reliability.
- The price will include parts, assembly, test. Your quoted shipping price will include antistatic packaging and shipping. We cannot calculate VAT/Tax/Duty for international customers.