Topic: tldr: Why isn't KNC able to compete with *55nm bitfury's W/GH? (Read 6660 times)

When you do a full-custom chip design, you actually specify the locations and sizes of the components of the transistors (source, gate, drain, etc)

WTF are you talking about? They never said it was an FPGA copy.  They said it was a standard cell design, and NOT and FPGA copy.


Definitely someone who doesn't know what "RTL" actually stands for, let alone what it means.

I would like to know more about bitfury (and about how one makes it's own transistor, or how smart must one be to go from nothing to best chip in bitcoin in 5 years). What threads can i read? Just his posts here on the forum?

Thanks.

Correct, I since read that elsewhere. Even I cant always be right

bitfury designed their own transistors. Just clarifying.

If I had any doubts, this removes it:
https://www.kncminer.com/userfiles/image/ASIC_PCB.jpg

Thats an altera cyclone FPGA on there. THats what you would use to prototype your design (and pcb).
THe chance that a custom asic would fit, let alone work in the same board as an altera fpga is zero.

Moreover they write underneath that picture:
We will be using these boards to fully validate the entire setup. They will consume the same power, make the same noise level, produce the same heat and run the same RTL code. The only difference will be related to hashing.

Definitely an altera hardcopy implementation.

I believe they advertised it as a FPGA copy, but the tech guy was ripping his eyes out at having to submit it. He wanted to spend more time on it.

Where did they say that and what did they say exactly?
You have to admit, the chip being nearly 4x the size of hashfast, worse power consumption, very fast tape out and promised post tape out implementations, apparently no interest in any tests and done by a company that promotes its hardcopy services. I dont know if they lied or what they said, but if it talks like a duck...

He/she is clearly an uninformed puppet, a simple search would have provided that information.

Are you saying you think they lied when they specifically said it was a standard cell design and not an FPGA conversion?

I think I know now why KnC cant compete with Bitfury on J/GH. And why they are moving so fast. And why they apparently dont feel a need for wafer or chip testing.
They use Orsoc to make the chip. On Orsoc's site I see this:

Retargeting of complex FPGA design from Xilinx Virtex5 into an Altera Hard Copy

http://www.orsoc.se/?page_id=79

KnC's chip is most likely not a custom cell based asic, but a hardcopy V implementation. Didnt KnC work on a FPGA earlier? They would just have used that design as starting point and things can go very fast then. Probably a good move too in this race, but not to win in power efficiency, nor die size efficiency nor cost per unit. But the surest way for time to market and probably more affordable NRE.

chip =/= hash. Oh look at this chip on my desk here [its actually a bottle of blue dragon sweet chilli sauce]. I'm not saying it won't hash, but I want to see it hashing before I consider it a hashing chip.

Oh, here are some pictures of the chips for all the "Where are the chips, they don't exist!!!!" people.

But the actual mining ASIC chip was ready when they started accepting pre-orders. That's the point. I also believe they had the chip hashing before they started taking pre-orders.

It is my thought, based on them saying they were working on a second gen design already, that they probably went standard cell on the first gen in order to get quickly to market with a viable product that they knew they could produce, while reserving the "work of art"  for the next iteration.

I don't know this, of course, it's just my speculation.

But it's the way I would do it. Promise what you are sure you can achieve, and work to blow it out of the water in the meantime.

So far, other than some marketing hiccups out of the gate, KNC has seemed the most professional of the lot, and I'm taking nothing from Bitfury on that. He and his collaborators did deliver the high grade goods ahead of everyone, almost when predicted in fact. That's outstanding. I think he and the KNC crew are worthy competitors in an arena where there are too many dodgy at best operators and a great many straight out scams. Had I been able to raise the funds for my own speculation, I would have bet on KNC to deliver first. Bitfury looked a little scammy to me. I would have bet wrong on delivery, but I still think in the long term KNC has the goods. I also think Bitfury does. This is an interesting game, is it not?

Also, as Bitcoinorama pointed out, KNC have consistently had the mantra of "under promise and over deliver". We only know what they want us to see regarding their actual power consumption. They are playing a close hand, and it may actually be significantly better than we've been told. We will hopefully all know in a couple weeks.

In the meantime, Congratulations to Bitfury. You did a bang up job from left field.

Hypothetical

What chips are you talking about?  I far as I know they don't exist.  I think you talk about specs posted on their sites.
They have no chips.

It makes perfect sense if you know anything about the different ways chips can be designed.

If it didn't actually exist then you can't say if it's power figures are "bad" or "good", they are non-existent.

If it does exist, and it's not as power efficient as bitfury, well, so what?  It's also cheaper, for October delivery, which is all that actually matters as far as profitability is concerned at this point.

The bitfury design is obviously really good - I don't think anyone is denying that. And KnC's chips aren't nearly as efficient as the HashFast/Cointerra chips.

But timing matters far, far, more when it comes to mining profitability then the ultimate 'perfection' of the chip. And KnC has clearly beat those two in time to market.

Punin from bitfurystrikesback.com (EU) and Dave from megabigpower.com (NA) took preorders, one week apart for cscape design hardware using Bitfury chips.

They delivered the majority of the orders within 31 days despite having manufacturing mishaps.

That's not quite comparable. Bitfury started taking preorders after showing a working chip, and then delivered working miners a few months later. KNC took preorders months before even having a chip, still doesn't have a chip, yet promises to deliver working miners in under 2 weeks. The odds of KNC delivering on time are rapidly dropping.