Bitcoin Forum

Edit:
BitSyncom clarified that this was a miscommunication here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=230157.msg2428298#msg2428298) and sample chips will be in fact provided per 10k batch.

Sorry for causing panic over the weekend.

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Folks, miners and Avalon ASIC board developers,

I just got emailed from Avalon that the sample chips for the ASIC chips ordered are shipped. Even received an EMS shipping number, great news!

But I was also informed that only one set of sample chips will be delivered to one receiver address, which essentially means that you will receive 30 samples, no matter if you ordered 10k or 200k chips.

Given that I did the group buy with 70k chips for almost 300 users and there are at least 10 projects working on mining boards and desperately awaiting the samples for validation, this is disastrous news. It means that only one or two of them will be given the chance to finalize their design before chips arrive.

Very disappointing :(

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=177827.msg2421403#msg2421403

The result will most probably be for my group buy: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=187660.msg2422271#msg2422271

Ouch. That is going to leave a mark.  >:(

Maybe the developers that do get the chips can share chip application information with everyone.
The Avalon data sheet left out a lot of information that can be acquired by developers applying the chip to their designs.
Hopefully some developers will share lessons learned with the community.
 

I need only one chip, a single chip, to verify a clone I am building based on Avalon published data. At the logical level, I can model the chips on a hashing unit, and run that model using another Spartan FPGA, but it would take time to produce even just a logical-level model.

If it is difficult for me, building just a clone of the original Avalon design, what more for those who are trying to come up with their own design, like Bkkcoin's Klondike.

That's a bit shee-ty  >:( but it was really a bonus

I think we should just trust the group buy owners to co-ordinate and distribute the samples among the developers they think has the greatest chance of making good use of them.

Very disappointing indeed.

If there's room for just one to come my way. I would really appreciate it.

thanks,
   Allten

If 2 groups are designing 16 chip boards, how can you distribute 30 chips to them equitably?
I think the escrow folks are going to have to put the screws to Avalon for more samples, or ask for their money back.

At least there are samples. 2 steps forward, 1 back.  >:(

I don't have an exact count but aren't there like 4-5 groupbuys? those that come out of my mind are zefir, t13hyda, biswoo (or someting like that), sebastianju, steamboat
That should give like 120-150 samples, maybe each group buy could support atleast one developer?

IIRC, Avalon said 30 sample chips per order, then changed it to 30 sample chips per shipping address. If that is true then they can take Avalon to court for breach of contract.

They only wrote: "sample chips will be provided 4 weeks into ordering." That leaves room for interpretation...

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D China  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Good luck with that. Maybe ull have better luck suing BFL.

Lying to make a sale is really common... and Avalon people seem very sincere to me.

I don't think there's any court case in this, but it's a really shitty thing for Avalon to do. They knew full well what they were implying, and they knew full well how it was interpreted by the market, due to the frenzy of discussion on the topic. They never made any attempt to clarify until well after it was too late for anybody to base their decisions on that information.

REALLY shitty for Avalon to be such tightwads over a set of chips that cost them maybe $100 to manufacture, on $100,000+ orders. Steamboat has organized 5 group buys up to this point. That's over half a million bucks worth of orders, and they're gonna stiff him for $400 worth of chips? Ouch!

That said, they don't appear to have done anything illegal. And even if they did, I've been dealing with the Chinese for long enough to not be surprised by it in the least...

I really can't believe, that company, which sell product in price of new luxury car, communicate in this way. Also is really shit, that depends, how many addresses you use, and absolutly no matter, how many chips you ordered. Only reason for this behavior is, that there is not competitor on the market yet. Once there will be, it will much improve this kind of approach.

I would imagine the escrow agents would sue in their jurisdiction first and then if successful try to get that judgement enforced where the company has assets. That is the usual method for going after international companies.

Without seeing the actual contract terms, it is impossible to know how much leeway Avalon has. Plus, Avalon has $8 million dollars in one bitcoin address and that will buy a lot of lawyers.

~300 users, 10+ projects, only 30 chip samples. Very disappointing indeed.

This is good news for difficulty.

i consider it good news overall  ::)

Well, at least they shipped some chips.....

I really don't think these companies estimate demand very well (or care about their customers).

Well,Steamboat says :

Avalon has sent an email stating the samples have shipped. They have also stated each address is only eligible for one batch's worth of sample chips. As soon as the chips arrive, they will be sent to BkkCoins to further development of the Klondike project.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=192916.msg2422470#msg2422470

Whoo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D 8)

I'll die laughing if I get a Klondike before my BFL 30GH unit!!!!!!!!!  :D

What would YOU do for a Klondike  ???  8)

I'll just confirm that any info I uncover from testing sample chips will be made freely available. And time permitting if specific tests are requested I'll try to provide answers for them as long as I don't think that chip damage could occur due to testing, or that it interferes with finishing my own tests.

If I had to reduce testing to a level where I was comfortable saying "ok this works", I'd say 2 chips per bank and there is 2 banks on a K16 board, ie. 4 chips. This allows testing the ASIC chain, the result wire-ORing, and nonce range splitting between banks. Having more chips would not help much with testing stacking or multiple K16 chaining as those functions are independent. It possibly could help with detecting timing issues in the code under heavier utilization.

The primary reason to have more test chips would be to test the K16 under heavy power use and heat dissipation and I think that's useful, of course, but will have to be approached according to how many samples I end up receiving. Sure, more would be better and allow more complete testing such that board users/assemblers/mfrs can be more sure that some use conditions won't have problems. If I can't test everything I'll try what I can and probably simulate what I cannot.

(I'll cross post this in the Klondike thread for completeness)

Why do these preorders always have to be such a clusterfuck?

I was under impression that there are only two distinct designs developing right now, BkkCoins and burnin, and that all other developers are basically cloning their designs. Is this not true? Shouldn't it then be priority to get sample chips to these two? What is the point sending the same amount of sample chips to BkkCoins and some other guy who is waiting for BkkCoins to finish his testing and order the PCB following that design?

This is nothing,you want to see a clusterfuck ??? Try 3 letters  :D

Very close!! Thanks for playing  :D

I have to agreed on this ...this 2 individuals should be the primary guys with more sample chips :)

Cmon guys please reward BKK and burnin for there hard work - most of the other clones are scammers who haven't spent any time contributing as much as these 2 guys

Indeed very dissapointing...

Same S**T as usual...

I think the thing about this that strikes me the most is...
Presuming that they're ordering each order of 10k from TSMC as they come in, aren't sample chips customarily provided by the foundries for customer validation per order?
What is Avalon doing with those sample chips if they're only delivering 1 batch of samples per shipping address, even if that shipping address has put in 5+ separate orders?

Plus, without sample chips from each batch to test, who's to say that 1 batch is fine but the rest of the batches are absolute crap with tons of failed chips?  I haven't seen anything indicating that Avalon is providing any type of guarantee at all about chips working.  Is there any recourse if a batch of 10k chips has a huge failure rate, like say 25% or higher?
Granted, 30 chips isn't exactly a large sample size to test, but if they provided those per batch, and the devs saw them all being duds, we'd at least have an indication that there might be a problem with the batch and be able to try to communicate with Avalon before the whole order was delivered, in order to see if anything could be done to resolve the situation

Then again, we don't know if the sample chips being provided are coming from Avalon themselves, or if they're part of the order from the foundry that the foundry is releasing to Avalon to validate and they're sending on to us.

+1 on this. I think the chip delivery should be prioritized so that both of these guys get the bulk of the chips first

In order to help out other community driven projects and given that only 30 ASICs samples will be shipped to zefir, we are opting out from the projects list since we will be getting our own batch of 30 samples.

Lesson learned... order with a different name each batch you buy.

seems to be some miscommunication here.

the people handling this just took all the people who ordered, and sent them 30 chips a person since they finally arrived, I've spoken to them and this issue is addressed, so all should be fine.

of course, the 30 chip per 10,000 rule still holds, it's just they'll show up later.

I mean it's kinda silly to do per address since people would just get more addresses or split their orders into single 10,000 orders...

Let's just hope they wont ship the chip orders before "Batch#3 delivered + 3 months".

Awesome! Now when will the remaining amount of chips be shipped? I'm still getting the same old message in the account page...

+1.
Developers of original new designs should get the sample chips first, then assemblers.

Great the Sifu has spoken, every 10,000 chip will get 30 sample chip .. probably maybe wait another week, that all :)

See, just miscommunication!
And we all got upset. On sunday!   :)

+1 Whew... thanks for the update.

Zefir ... please change the subject in order to prevent potential heart attacks ... seems to be all fine now  ;)

   one4many

On their page (http://store.avalon-asics.com/?product=avalon-asic-chips-10000):
  2. the chips being sold are packaged and tested.

Thanks Yifu

That's great news. Next can you fix zephir's missing order of 10k chips?

Or two weeks?  ;)

After issue has been resolved, closing here to let the thread die.