Topic: The State of the ASIC Market (Read 4489 times)

I've suggested the same scenario on the BFL forums, and Josh has that while he's not sure on the specifics of the change, that is likely.

This is both true and false depending on how you interpret it.

It is true because you cannot (reasonably or easily) use silicon designed for a QFN package (with edge bond wires) for a flip-chip BGA package (with an array of balls on the silicon similar to a tiny BGA).

It is false because the following scenario is possible.  We do something very similar with some of our chips.
1) Tape-out all layers to the fab.
2) The fab starts the N-week process with the bottom layers.
3) We realize we have a bug (or BFL decides to switch from QFN to FCBGA)
4) We make the changes to the top layer(s) of metal and tape-out only these top layer(s)
(Note that the wafers are not yet at the step where the top layers are done.)
5) The fab charges us a boatload of money for new top layer masks and they use these new masks when the wafers get to that step.

My best GUESS as to the events of BFL's silicon are that they actually got some engineering samples of their chips in a QFN package back in November or December and realized they generated too much heat for that package and melted some.  So they made the changes to the mask set and did another tape-out for these changes.  If the fab was already past this step, a fresh batch of wafers would need to be started (and the old ones scrapped).  If you assume BFL is genuine in delivering an ASIC product ASAP, then their delay stories are consistent with the above.

It does appear to me that the public chip photo is one of a wire bond (QFN package) design, not a FCBGA design.  Unless there is a new photo out (I've been away from the forums for 1.5 weeks or so).

Disclaimers:
I ordered 1 BFL SC single.  All I have so far is an email receipt but I believe I will get my SC very soon.
I ordered 1 bASIC and now have my refund - which I will likely re-invest in another BFL SC or an Avalon.
I do not work for any bitcoin ASIC company and have no "insider knowledge" of them beyond what is posted on the public forums.
I do work for a non-bitcoin ASIC company and have been working in this industry for over 25 years.  (I started with a 2 micron = 2000nm process!  )

The countdown timer is for when they ship the first units.  It says "ships in" directly above the timer.

As I understand it, all 300 units won't be shipped tonight.


http://support.avalon-asic.com/solution/categories/40996/folders/66201/articles/31066-when-are-the-avalon-asics-shipping-

This post from BitSyncom earlier today regarding shipping options also suggests that not all units will be shipped tonight.


https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1464530

If you're going to export 300 units at once, you don't leave sorting out shipping preferences until the day of shipment - the paperwork's too much of a pain in the ass to do it at the last moment.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what is the countdown timer to if it isn't the ship date?  Is that when things are supposed to be shown off?

Personally I don't care about one company Vs another in a he said she said game.  It's all just words until someone can actually show a working product, and I think that is all anyone cares about.

thatjusthappened.jpg

I have no time to "troll" unlike majority of people on this forum who don't even have the knowledge to make a educated guess when it comes to ASIC production where statements are made purely based on baseless assumptions.

See below for example:

I'm just calling on their lies made in the past now have surfaced like how they mentioned to switch QFN to BGA packaging in December whilst saying they are supposedly waiting a fuzzy date from the foundry on when the chip is coming around the same time, anyone with IC knowledge can tell you this is impossible. I'm not looking for any proofs because there isn't any.

@ BitSyncom sense your saying you haven't seen any results from BFL then this must mean you're prepared to show your results. If you do have any results to show. At this point you must have completed your production run and have begun burn in testing. Let's see a video of those units hashing. But we know you can't do that. At the same time you are looking for such proof from BFL.

BitSyncom don't blame 'bad luck' if you are unable to meet your stated shipment date because we know that it's just bad management from university students.

??

You're not making sense...what's your point? You asked for opinions on when a delay can become a scam. I offered the opinion of "never" since a scam implies malice (which won't be present if the company really does intend to ship...), and you can't delay something that isn't coming. If you delayed right now to your original shipping date, I'd probably attribute that to bad luck, since your team seems pretty competent.

By the way, how come you have time to troll Josh? I thought you were so busy trying to ship that you couldn't update...

Oh come on. BFL said BFL wouldn't be hashing at CES.

I notice that you carefully avoid saying that he's actually wrong here, presumably because you know he isn't - there's no way for you to go from wirebonded QFN to flip-chip BGA without taping out again.

I think even if AVALON or BFL supplied product @ %50 of spec G/Hash used %500 more power customers would be happy

This is where allowances are made due to start up's

Ball is in both BFL & Avalon court

FTFY. Historically BFL has only failed in every "impossible" task they have attempted, and till this date have no results.
  

Sorry Inaba, but you are completely full of shit.  Completely.
You've continue to refresh what I've thought was the rock bottom of your ability to construct a logical response. The delusional confidence you have from a mere simulation is laughable.

I wish you best of luck for when if you get your chips back at the end of this month a miracle descents and BFL is able to meet your 1.2w per Gh/s fallacy

p.s.
You are not the only one with 65nm simulations.


This is purpose of this thread and it should apply to every ASIC manufacture, Avalon included, but not limited to.


Really now? Maybe I should announce we'll be shipping at our original shipping date of end of Feb, 2013 due to "bad luck"

The same thing as BFL and bASIC customers....wait.

At least their delays aren't all that long.

He's just worried.

They probably let him know something unfortunate when he got to the chip plant in Calfifornia.

Take a look at the BFL twitter feed. He said it was a long day. I wonder what that means. Typically you would hear him expunge himself of utter enthusiam for things going great.

I am guessing...something did not go well.

P.S. For the uneducated the packaging part of the process is where they also test and check the chips performance values.

Uh, no it doesn't.

See BFL @ CES 2013.

Change the word stick with Fact and you have a conversation worth holding.

BitSyncom stated that BFL would not be ready as claimed. They weren't. See the posting on BFL forums for that.

BitSyncom also stated that a production of ASIC is a known process governed by physics. It is a predictable process. Again Josh refutes this in his ignorance.

What happened in January? (30 days later)

They still didn't have the chips ready. Was this predictable based on the manifacturing cycle? Yes.

----------------------------

Now Bitsyncom is providing more claims, that a package change cannot be done on "a whim". That it would require significant changes?

In all of your post you do not deny this. Here take a look at what you wrote:

Because he is in the same buisness as you. And knows enough about making ASIC (even if on a larger process) to know when you are pulling a bullshit stunt to buy "extra time".

Which is...coincidentally....the trend.


Josh levels the demand just days before having told his customers (paraphrased):

"It will be ready in another month. Just wait. Oh, and I have some goodies of more pictures for you to contend with."

LOL, in one breath he states the age of the process was developed and used in the world of technology, but gladfully omits that 90nm and 65nm was developed almost ten years ago.

Does that put things into perspective? Nah. Blowing more smoke.

Oh, and he finishes it off "professionally" with a "so enjoy the few weeks of glory you will have if you can manage to ship a working product that doesn't melt."

Which is coincidentally what happened to his plastic packaged BFL ASICs when they were checked in December. (keep in mind we are now in the later fringes of Mid-January)

You can't make this kind of comedy up!



Said by the guy who's chips melted....

(Ah, by the way, bASIC was going to release 1.4w per GH/s chips @ 90nm)

(BFL is now going to release up to 1.2w per GH/s chips @ 65nm)

Heh.

Run Forest Run !!

So what will people do when there are no avalons next week?

Panic?

Network total: 23.555 Thash/s

Still... Hehe.

Agreed...

You must be new.

That is perhaps the dumbest thing I have heard....

I suspect that some posters were simply annoyed by the lack of demo, which had previously been promised.


Malice.


Never, since that usually comes from bad luck or incompetence.

Now that's a .sig worthy quote.. lol

Pure speculation at this point however consider the following say they demo the working unit. Then the next day a group rob the facility.

Perhaps it is as much a security step as it is a project policy that they stick with their time schedule.

I would have thought any asic company would be thrilled to show off a working demo unit mining away. Absolutely thrilled to share in their hard work and amaze everyone. But i guess i live in bizarro world. Go figure. Marketing and common sense treatment of customers and future customers is harder then being an engineer. Two diff types of people i guess.

Question:

If Avalon sold you a product claiming it produced a hash rate of 60GH for $1300 and only delivered 50GH would you expect a proportional amount refunded? For example, if the delivered Avalon product only produced 30GH and you paid $1300 would you still be happy with your purchase price or would you demand a 50% refund?

What if the power requirements increased 50%? Under that circumstance would it be acceptable to you if Avalon offered no refund?

How far does Avalon have to miss their stated performance before you request a full refund?

I never said no greed and/or belief, I said less. Clearly we need some, but pirate, ponzis, failed exchanges, glbse, numerous individual scams and at least one failed asic group point to the fact that the community needs to wise up quite a lot. Greed is/was necessary for the initiation of bitcoin, but how will it survive if all it is ever known for is scamming/stealing/drugs/gambling? If bitcoin were a town, I'd avoid it like the plague.

Wow.  First y'all clamor for pics, demos, and whatnot.  Then as soon as one post is made in response, we get:




Y'all really are superior trolls.

Tell you what.  I'll post some pics of mine next week and show it mining on eligius.

http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/userstats.php/1P69J7PU2w9DhRJnWDVxQVY8kKzt69QdoS

That's my GPU rig right now.  Soon I expect the graph to look very different.

Plesase show a working prototype by now!

+1 post of ninja avoidance. You promised to show a working prototype by now. Show a working prototype or get back to work.

Of course Kaerf. The Avalon development team did their due diligence by creating and testing a prototype and knew all along of the problems but didn't inform the community because of fears customers would cancel their orders. Instead, if memory servers me correctly, they told the community they have increased the hashing rate.

I guess that 10+ years of ASIC experience served them well (sarcasm). Either that or the lies are piling up and biting them where the good lord split them. Now you know why Avalon avoided clarifying their claims of 10+ years ASIC experience made on their website.

Tips to Avalon customers: Be sure to replace the batteries in your smoke detectors before falling asleep with a plugged in Avalon product.

if the imposisble is to announce numerous delays  and alienate others with cutting remarks such as 1990's tech, then yeah BFL has done quite a good job.


I dont have an order with any asic mfg. yet, but it looks like Avalon will be the first to market and the first choice customers. This far, they've shown the most definite shipping date, and even if they release a melting product on monday, it will still be leaps beyond the current state of Butterfly Labs' ASIC, which was supposed to be released In December.

Sorry Bitsyncom, but you are completely full of shit.  Completely.  You have repeatedly stated that it's "impossible" to do things, yet somehow BFL manages to do the "imposisble."  

Why do you continually prod me with a stick?  I have left you alone to go do your own thing with your ancient technology and your ridiculously immense power requirements, yet you want to keep antagonizing me.  Why is that?  

I really hope you have something to show on Monday, you have about 24 hours to produce, so we'll see then.  The fact of the matter is, though, no one is going to buy your 1990's tech after we ship, so enjoy the few weeks of glory you will have if you can manage to ship a working product that doesn't melt.

PS - Your last few sentences are interesting.  Are you having some issues with heat and have to throttle back a bit to fix the the issue? 

Would it then be correct to assume that either


1.  BFL had not taped out prior to Dec 12, or
2.  BFL was forced in to multiple tape-outs, costing big money


If only deciding in Dec 12 that a different package was to be used that a new tape-out and production cycle would require a minimum of three months to complete. 

My head is swimming in all of this BFL BS.  This would mean at any given time any timeline guidance provided by BFL was completely false.


Nice.

I don't think anyone would be interested in bitcoin if they had no greed or belief.

Nonsense. The community has been a terrific sucker to the ASIC manufacturers. Large companies worth billions of dollars do not take in money for delayed products, completely unrelated.

What's his face up there is trying to bring up the idea that there are reasonable production delays, and there are scammy BS nonsense excuses, and people need to be more discerning as to which is which.

The rest is a thinly veiled attack on BFL and the broader user base, and those affected can respond as they see fit. 

I personally would like to see less greed and blind belief in the bitcoin community, but that's my naïveté I guess.

One question, in this case it is not going to release the design of miner in open source as happened with previous versions of ngzhang?

First +1, the community has been a terrific asshole to all the ASIC developers and it's a shame. Large companies worth billions of dollars frequently have delays that go months upon months and they aren't subject to the vitrol that comes up here. Disgusting.

Perhaps BFL is sticking it's head out, but i feel genuinely sorry for the situation Tom is in. ASICS might not be rocket-science but they are one hell of a complicated level of engineering and I think all the companies from as far I can tell really have taken on an enormous task.

Avalon has done the right thing- stay out and above it. Ship when you're ready. The community for the most part is unfortunately ungrateful and unkind and it's hard to have sympathy even when people are legitimately scammed.

Keep up the hard work, I'm not a purchaser of any ASIC at this point, but I welcome it's arrival.

omg! avalon is going to release at 50GH/s with way higher power consumption than 400w?  



I think all of the waiting causes people to be relieved that they got something. After waiting months and months wondering if you will ever see your money again, people will tend to accept missed targets.

Sad, but that's how it goes.

All the words on the screen mean nothing, really. Products in hands will speak for themselves. Once we have real world products providing real world stats then we can address whether what was provided was adequate relative to what was verbally sold.

If you ship devices that work as advertised then all of the current noise is just that, noise... including the OP.

I think you should spend more time getting your Avalon devices ready so I can place an order for the second batch.

I've finally got a chance to read the forum in detail after leaving for awhile, now ( around 3am), before having to catch a flight around 7am in the morning. I must say the FUD surrounding the current state of ASICs is unbelievable.


I've began to question the literacy of the people in this forum. I left a clear message in the Avalon thread. I quote, "team members are going to stay and live in the factories to make sure everything work out smoothly". I, ngzhang and others then left to commit to work whilst giving everyone a clear countdown timer to the exact scheduled shipping date. What do I see in the Avalon thread when I come back? FUD.

In addition, I've also stated "we will not be providing any information until we ship" simply because we feel the strongest argument is an demonstration by a third-party customer, it doesn't even take the intelligence of a three year old to question the legitimacy of any pictures we provide; real or not, (maybe the same reason BFL_Josh said why he couldn't take any photos to the packaging facility he visited this month) and frankly speaking, I do not have any time to play babysitter like Inaba from BFL coaxing the community telling them "next week(s)" or by downplaying the direness of their situation in December and then proceed to have the audacity to announce a month later in January the fact that they switched from QFN packaging to BGA. It is important to know that is not possible to switch packaging after you have tape-out the chip.

Maybe Inaba; you were being left in the dark about all this. Since often you are waiting for a third-party to provide you "fuzzy" dates, from a foundry no less; any respectable foundry will give you an projection date and a expected date with difference not greater than a few days, because making ASCIs are pretty much an exact science. Just like the fact you didn't know the die photo you posted was blacken-out rather than it being "dense", it is not like it takes a genius to figure out BFL's 16 hashcore pipeline design. I wish you the best of luck Josh, for that moment when another third-party tells you another "fuzzy" date or an actual delay: You will be taking the blame, despite of being a good secretary and is in fact not guilty.

---

Anyways, the real question I wish to raise to the community is the following

Delays are a common occurrence in start-ups. As frequent backer on Kickstarter and a project manager I experience delays first hand. When does a delay become an fraudulent event however is not defined clearly in an especially time sensitives market such as ASIC mining equipment? Is it one month? two, three, or even four month? what type of delay hold their merit? Chinese New Year, Custom Import problems, Chip testing and configuration, assembly time; All these are real and possible problems one may face in electronics manufacturing. Where do we draw the line? When is "few weeks later" not good enough?

Let's then look at performance. Where is the line there? History has shown BFL was not labeled as fraud when they failed to reach their advertised FPGA of 1000Mh/s & 20W release, but instead a 830Mh/s & 80w. Does this mean Avalon can release a product with 50Gh/s and not be a scam? Does it mean BFL can continue this trend and continue to release products with higher power consumption than advertised?

What does the community think?