oh, looks like the mail lost again!

  i pleased about everything goes well.

about 50% off

  are the repaired boards working well? 

both answers are YES.

i really think 28nm FPGAs are still 1 year away.
usually, XILINX's FPGA  will reduce the price to an "acceptable range" 2 years after first distribution. notice that until now, 28nm FPGAs are still can not do a quantity buying.
means: dismal speaking, until 2014 we will not have high cost-performance 28nm FPGAs.
by 2014, i think ASICs will also come out. a 130nm mining ASIC can fuck all fpgas to shit.

pull out today.
looks like we will have a sample in 2-3 weeks...

sorry, i just returned the box to the owner.... 

the answer is: we no longer accept icarus orders, and Lancelot is not have no delivery schedule now.


 

i think you will (or most of have this viewpoint) will change their mind after 1 month time form now. i still have some secrets.

certainly. this protocol can push new work to FPGAs at any time. and FPGA will handle it at that time.

because we have a future plan, set up a rig by 8-16 Lancelot on a single mother board (which is less than 200USD cost), this cluster only have one 220V power plug and LAN ports (RJ45 and WIFI).
so until now, i still consider 2 FPGAs pre board is the best structure for balance the cost, size, yield, etc.



i must say, icarus protocol is simple but efficient. by this protocol, one 20$ router can handle up to 70 icarus boards with a CPU usage under 10%. why all of you think we must improve this protocol? 
certainly.... i must do some modify to support added functions.

if you really ask them, they will start to search the market (they have nothing in their hand), and tell you the actual price and supply ability.
 i have some friends do this job at past

oh, that's really generous man. thank you! 

but the main question as i said, these "second hand" chips are really cheap because NO BODY USE IT. that means, if you want to buy them in bulk, will cause 2 effects:

1, there are only hundreds of them. there are no followup because they are second handed.
2, the seller will soon increase the price several times because they realize somebody "REALLY NEED THEM".

 

next year.

this question please ask those miner developers.

any news and Q&A will post in this thread.
as we all know, Lancelot is a improvement edition for past "icarus" board. now the hardware design work is nearly finish ), but the firmware development is facing serious difficulties.
i write down what is confirmable and what we are still working at.
please feel free to ask questions, and i will answer what i can answer, if i can't answer right now, i will answer them later.
the design is not finished yet, so if there is any valuable suggestion i will put it into the design.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADD @ 8/5

accept bitsteam developer's orders.

one set for one person only.

on set include:

1* Lancelot, with standard cooling system, WITHOUT power adapter.
1* DEV kit, with necessary software, documents.
1* EMS shipment Service.

the total price is 500USD.

if you want to place an order, please sent a email to:

ngzhang1983@msn.com

or a PM, or both for a measure.

the message must include : your address.

payment accept MTGOX redeem code and bitcoins.

the shipment date is in 1 week after the payment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ADD some pictures.





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

1st batch production date fixed @ 7/17! quantity is 100. ----already finished, and tested.
bitsteam development reached a milestone. single core running correctly (very small but fast), but overall performance still waiting measurement. maybe will release at about 550MH/s per board, and rise to over 700MH/s after 1-2 bitsteam updates.
pre-order is still NOT acceptable.
price will reduce significantly after batch 2 (hope will have batch 3. )

EXTREMELY busy these days! reviewing HDL codes with other developers to mid night everyday! fix the hardware bugs! do the prepare work for the production! and lots of school works!
apologize for all delay, include mails and messages. will catch up next week..

sample stage reached (@6/6)! doing the hardware test.

some pictures:





notice: all test batch boards are green, and retail products is blue PCB. this is a personal habits.

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

1, price.

500 USD for one, and will lower up to  20% if your order is large (>50 Pcs).

2, delivery time.
still unknown. hardware will come out in may, first batch delivery will in July.

3, architecture.
XC6SLX150 *2, maybe -2C/ -2I/ -3C/ -N3C speed grade. first batch will be -2I speed grade.

4, speed.
still unknown, our design goal is higher than 550MH/s pre board (-2I speed grade), but.... who knows. certainly, will not slower than icarus.

5, power consume.
better than icarus. (hope for 10-25% more MH/W performance, means 25MH/w)

6, other features.

a, board temperature monitoring.
b, PWM fan control and speed monitoring.
c, standard 6 or 9CM low speed(1200RPM) fan.
d, MCU friendly port for development.
e, 64 GPIOs for general purpose application. plus 8LEDs, 8Switches, 4 push buttons, 24 internal connections.
f, 100 CM^2 PCB size.
g, both 2.5/5.5mm power plug and D-type Molex power connector.
h, 6-layer PCB with 2OZ copper for enhance cooling. special layout design for lower the FPGA core temperature.
i, USB port for communication.
j, ROHS.
k, will compatible with present icarus bitsteam at first.
l, core power module can provide 14A(25A peak) for each FPGA VCCINT, and io power module can provide 6A for VCCIO and VCCAUX (share by 2 FPGAs), all continuous output.
m, 2 milliOHM MOSFET.

7, pre-orders.
not start yet. will start when we begin the first batch's production.

8, cluster model.
our plan is implement a cluster model by a mother board. and will have LAN and WIFI function for independent operation.
but this mother board is still at the beginning stage of development . i hope will have a sample in future 2-3 months.
happily, there is no technical difficulties on this part, only need is to do.

9, about developer tools.
DEV KIT is still available.

10, open source.
hardware will still fully open sourced, software and firmware will have open sourced versions too.
on of ouer plan is to apply a close sourced commercial SHA256 core, but this practice is still under valuation.

11, payment
will same as past, BTCs, MTGOX$, wire, paypal(with 5%plus fee), LR. but NO Dwolla.

12, warranty.
will have a 90 days limited warranty and 1 year repair service with charge.
limited warranty means will have a free repair service for any unartificial caused damage. but NOT include FPGA damage (for any reason) and Artificial damage.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------Small installation guide---------------------------------------------------------

Introduction:

All Lancelot mining board delivery with a default bitsteam, so the boards can operate "out of box".

the Power switch is at the right side of the board, default is OFF. please keep the board OFF when you do the assembling work.


Hardware installation:

1, connect the Power cable, use Molex-D-type connector or 5.5/2.5mm power plug. please do not use both of them.
2, connect the USB cable. notice that computer will not found any new hardware when the board is power OFF.
3, keep the environment cool.
4, turn on the board. the fan will start to operate, and the white LED (DONE1 and DONE2) will light up. and your computer will find some new hardware.

software installation:

1, the only need driver is the FT232R driver, you can download it here:
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
use the  "Virtual COM Port Drivers".

2, open your device manager, and record the COM port number.

3, download cgminer, i only test the 2.4.1 version.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=28402.0

start the program by a .bat file, the following is an example:


the "-G" parameter means disable the GPU devices, the "-S com6" parameter indicate the Lancelot mining board is at com port "6". you must change this number to your board number.

you should get the follow screen:

the answer is, FPGAs include mass of possibility. if it can hold the Tj under the rated absolute maximum, i must say there is no over-driving at all.

that broken one still in operate (but not normally), so the FPGAs still can be probed.

notice that it's really illegal if use their bitsteam.

hope you can deal with the huge power consume. (40A pre core)

please don't lead this topic to off topic.... 

i will announce Lancelot at another thread.