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It's been a long couple days here at the labs! Trying to test the chip in the test rig has been exceptionally trying and it turns out it's due to a bad socket on the tester. Initially we were concerned there might be a problem with the bumping or substrate, but fortunately we had tested the chips prior with the wire bonding technique, so we knew they worked. Getting the test boards made proved to be fortuitous as well, since we were able to bypass the test rig completely and bring the chips up on the board. By doing so, we were able to finally identify that the problem was related directly to the test rig and not any intermediate process or step.

Bringing a chip to life in situ on a board is not the easiest thing, so it has been slow going. The chip was responding properly on the board late this afternoon and we will be picking up the process in the morning. We hope to have a more complete test by Saturday night or Sunday sometime. Meanwhile, we will also be hard soldering a chip into place for use in the test rig and replacing the socket to allow the bulk testing to finish. In some other positive news, we've not found a single bad chip yet, which could mean our yield rate will be exceptionally high... maybe we just got lucky out of the 50 chips we have available on boards so far, but it seems unlikely. So that may mean the vast majority of our chips will be usable.

So the good news is the boards work, the chips work, the bumping works, the substrate works. We just need to nail down a bit more with the firmware and we should be able to conduct a full test and start shipping.

I will be posting another update as soon as I have more information. Needless to say it's been a pretty busy and stressful last few days here, and some script kiddie deciding to DDoS our sites this morning didn't help matters. All connectivity problems should be resolved now and we will keep people updated as time allows.

... and release a half-baked product.

I wouldn't wanna be a batch #1 or batch #2 customer aka BFL beta tester.

They either need to ship in the next week, or they need to ship in 3 weeks, after I've moved. It'll be my luck that I'll move, try to update shipping address, only to find out that the units have already shipped to the old address, then I'll spend weeks trying to recover my packages... More waiting I suppose. I should be pretty good at it considering I'm still here from a 2nd month preorder.

So they have a board and a chip that they claim works, but they dont have a 100% working firmware, nor have they *actually tested* the chips with the firmware and drives, yet they claim the chips work. Its kind of hard to claim the board and chip work if your firmware is buggy and you haven't conducted a full test. They act as if testing will go quick and smooth, this is NEVER THE CASE.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I'm sure they are working on a product, and I'm sure they even have some good engineering samples, but from their updates, theres no way they can possibly ship anytime soon unless they cut a lot of corners and release a half-baked product.

"days" is like Soon™ right?

Sir, At least Duke Nukem Forever shipped...ten years later.

Who knows if BFL ever will.

I feel you have soiled the Good name of the Duke. The resemblance is only in passing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzxWZupHWkc

(Warning, there is a lot of Joshin' in the video.)

(Bonus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UObpMvgmHjM)

Bitcoin Mining Rig
- www.butterflylabs.com/ - Blocked
We will not show you ads from butterflylabs.com again.

I remember that someone discussed before, going from a 110nm process to 65nm process in principle won't generate a 80% increase in efficiency, the best estimate is around 50%. There was a possibility that Avalon had an unefficient design, then BFL might gain another 30% efficiency by using a better design

In principle going from 110nm to 65nm reduces power consumption by 65% (1-(65/110)**2  because power efficiency is proportional to the inverse of the square of the feature size).

But the process node is not everything. Consider ASICMINER for example: they have chips that are more power efficient than Avalon, despite the worse process node (respectively 130nm vs 110nm). ASICMINER does 167 Mhash/Joule vs Avalon doing only 150 Mhash/Joule.

However, I must warn you (Inaba), don't place trust in the wrong people and what they tell you; for when that moment comes you won't able to meet the advertised specifications, at no real fault of you own besides ignorance since you really believed BFL. Be ready to take the spear to the chest as you were their spoke person. I wish you the best of luck and hope BFL can ship on time for when that time comes this forum can go back into the ol' days of competitive spirit of reducing power consumption and increasing hashrate of each others product.

Shipping in days?  ;)

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-2.html


I find it odd that BFL is going to go from testing to shipping in a matter of days (from the sound of it like a "few" days). This is where Josh keeps failing.

They dont even have a working prototype and it is MARCH......TWO THOUSAND AND THIRTEEN. Back in November they were leading on making it seem they had a prototype then but couldn't ship until 30 days or more. So how is it that all of a sudden that they FINALLY get a "working" prototype that they are going to go from TESTING to SHIPPING in a few days?

Expect more delays people. Everything BFL made themselves out to be has come out to be false. They outsourced pretty much every part of the ASIC development process to a third party. And that is just to get started...

BFL is and will continue to be full of crap as long as they DONT disclose what actually went on during the time frame of October, November, December...

So fail... :D

Check this:

Amazingly prescient of BitSyncom at the time. It's clear who the pros are at this point.

I should have spread my risk with Avalon in retrospect. Live and learn.

If you check out the Avalon threads, you see that people are receiving devices that have been used for months. They are dusty with melted connections, damaged capacitors and broken parts. One person has an unusable device due to damage. Avalon doesn't respond to return requests. Pay several thousands of dollars and there's a chance they'll ship you electronic waste.

If you check out the Avalon threads, you see that people are receiving devices which have been used for months. They are dusty with melted connections, damaged capacitors and broken parts. One person has an unusable device due to damage. Avalon doesn't respond to return requests. Pay several thousands of dollars and there's a chance they'll ship you electronic waste.

Back to the thread title - while it may be shipping in days, English allows for larger units like weeks, months, years that might be more appropriate.  June 23rd 1st day orders for Singles are still not shipped (60+ after this thread started).

... the shipping is what 7.5 months behind still?

It's been a long couple days here at the labs! Trying to test the chip in the test rig has been exceptionally trying and it turns out it's due to a bad socket on the tester. Initially we were concerned there might be a problem with the bumping or substrate, but fortunately we had tested the chips prior with the wire bonding technique, so we knew they worked. Getting the test boards made proved to be fortuitous as well, since we were able to bypass the test rig completely and bring the chips up on the board. By doing so, we were able to finally identify that the problem was related directly to the test rig and not any intermediate process or step.

Bringing a chip to life in situ on a board is not the easiest thing, so it has been slow going. The chip was responding properly on the board late this afternoon and we will be picking up the process in the morning. We hope to have a more complete test by Saturday night or Sunday sometime. Meanwhile, we will also be hard soldering a chip into place for use in the test rig and replacing the socket to allow the bulk testing to finish. In some other positive news, we've not found a single bad chip yet, which could mean our yield rate will be exceptionally high... maybe we just got lucky out of the 50 chips we have available on boards so far, but it seems unlikely. So that may mean the vast majority of our chips will be usable.

So the good news is the boards work, the chips work, the bumping works, the substrate works. We just need to nail down a bit more with the firmware and we should be able to conduct a full test and start shipping.

I will be posting another update as soon as I have more information. Needless to say it's been a pretty busy and stressful last few days here, and some script kiddie deciding to DDoS our sites this morning didn't help matters. All connectivity problems should be resolved now and we will keep people updated as time allows.