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Regarding near term and further out roadmap, did the AM BE200 design fall off the map? Looks like AM will have the most affordable pricing per GH on their chips in the near term so I would definitely be interested in hardware that supports their chips.
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Payment received and package will ship out in a couple of hours.
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Sold pending payment of 0.055 BTC to 18JYRKPXjPYL2zc8jT4jCwDsG1f1FH25FG. Thanks!
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empoweoqwj: very sorry to hear about this, and I hope you or havelock track down exactly what happened. Man, this has been a really crappy week for BTC.
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Not sure if others are still having problems, but mine confirmed here. There was a several hour delay on one of them, but that isn't unusual for AM dividend payouts.
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Good luck everyone on future endeavors -- may we all have better luck than this one (thanks again for screwing everyone, Yifu).
Don't forget to leave fair trust feedback for Steamboat after this mess. Although I do wish there had been more communication throughout the ordeal, in the end I feel the refund was fair and he made good on his promises. Thanks again SB.
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Standard ASIC miners in the market (28nm) consume an average of no less than 1000 Watts per Terahash. (it is in reality a lot worse, about 1.3kW/TH).
1 Kilo Watt --> 1 TeraHash
1 Mega Watt --> 1 PetaHash
1000 MegaWatts --> 1000 PetaHash
Where is ASICMINER building the nuclear power plant they need to power their miners? The biggest nuclear power in the world generates 6200 MegaWatts, and employs 4000 people. Then ASICMINER needs, not the biggest, but an average sized nuclear plant.
They also need to start buying some land, to start building supermegadatacenters, thousands of times bigger than Google ones. But maybe they have that problem figured out already, as they said, they will outsource those minor issues to local chinese shops.
Or is it that ASICMINER will only build the waffers? (with only <10 PH per year becoming working bitcoin miners).
And they are not even talking about bleeding edge technology. They will build waffers with 40nm chips.
2013 was the 28nm ASIC miners, and this 2014, the 20nm ASICs will start mass delivery.
There is a reason for building ASICs with newer generation chips. Electricity consumption is tightly related to it.
Ask Cointerra, which promised that their new 28nm ASICs were going to be 2x more efficient than KNCs 28nm ASICs because of some magic technology they had. Once Cointerra chips became a reality (TerraMiner IV), their 28nm ASICs were exactly as efficient as KNC ones. How efficient will be ASICMINER chips? At 40nm? They will consume about 50% more electricity than 28nm ASICs, and double what 20nm ASICs (2014 miners) will consume, regardless of any storytelling they might tell now about some magic technologies that will make their ASICs more efficient (exactly as Cointerra did).
Libitum
You are so off I don't know where to start. Let's just say that AM's 40 nm chips are spec'd to be more efficient than any shipping or announced chips. Next as it has been discussed on here and several other threads, AM is focusing on selling chips not on mining. |
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Payment received.
There is a relay causing double sends today. Something to do with Mt. Gox problems. One transaction will drop off. Yes, and just a note that both transactions are identical (exact duplicates). So it doesn't matter which one drops. |
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Refund confirmed. Thanks Steamboat.
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(update: from a photo of a Cointerra wafer I found, it looks like they can probably make around 700 chips per wafer, which at 500 GH/s a chip is around 350 TH/s per wafer; much higher than AM's 40 TH/s per wafer. thus at the wafer/chip level Cointerra might be cheaper than gen3 AM, even though their 28 nm per wafer costs are likely much higher)
Sorry if I'm being ignorant here but I believe Cointerra like KnC use 4 DIE per package so the 700 chips on the wafer are 125GHs each and they missed their speed and power marks first go around. If I'm missing something please correct me. You are very likely correct -- I just assumed 1 die per chip. My 700 dies per wafer is just a guess as well -- I just counted an approximate radius from the photo and did pi*r*r. I did hear as well they hadn't met their speed/energy marks. |
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Speaking of Avalon, based on my calculations AM pricing their gen3 chips at $0.99 GH/s will pretty much overnight make Avalon's 2nd gen 55nm chips unprofitable to produce at the wafer/chip level (not to mention the miner level). This is assuming a generous 4K chips per Avalon wafer, priced at $.99 GH/s (way overpriced considering their energy usage is much worse). That gives you a total selling price of around $5K (again some very generous assumptions on my part) per wafer of chips. That just isn't going to be profitable to make.
I wonder at what price point KNC / Cointerra / etc. chips are no longer profitable to produce at the wafer/chip level? That would be an interesting number to calculate.
That could be an interesting strategy for AM: price the chips aggressively enough that few other chips are profitable to produce, thus giving them a corner on the market until a more competitive chip is available.
(update: from a photo of a Cointerra wafer I found, it looks like they can probably make around 700 chips per wafer, which at 500 GH/s a chip is around 350 TH/s per wafer; much higher than AM's 40 TH/s per wafer. thus at the wafer/chip level Cointerra might be cheaper than gen3 AM, even though their 28 nm per wafer costs are likely much higher)
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Basically confirming that its not impossible/unrealistic to produce 85k chips per day.
Those figures show that around 50,000 chips per day can be produced. That doesn't mean that 85k can be produced but it doesn't mean that it can't either. IMO, it totally validates that the numbers are in the right ballpark and aren't just some BS that AM has made up. The issue isn't going to be getting that quantity of chips fab'd/diced/packaged. The issue is going to be pricing the chips aggressively enough that they can move that quantity of chips (and still make a good profit). I believe $.49 to $.99 / GH/s pricing is a strong enough catalyst to make that happen, presuming they can start cranking within 2 months. |
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Based on what we've seen from all previous bitcoin ASIC manufacturers, it just doesn't seem possible for AM to produce the stated amount of chips in a reasonable time frame I think it is. Until recently mining companies have been focused on selling high profit mining hardware, but we are seeing (and started to see when Avalon dumped 1 million chips on the market) a shift of ASIC companies just cranking out chips as fast as they can while they leave the end hardware production to 3rd parties that can fight to reduce costs and get miners produces as fast as possible to squeak out a small ROI. This is a fundamental shift for an ASIC company, but a smart move given the quantity of end mining hardware that is going to be produced. As to how quickly wafers can be produced, diced, and packaged, it is clear that the fab industry is set to handle these types of volumes. Let's break down the numbers assuming 10K wafers over a 12 month period into end mining hardware that will be produced (not by AM, but by 3rd party chip buyers). Assume a hypothetical gen3 miner based on the chip count of AM's Cube (96 chips). 96 gen3 chips will give us a 1.23 TH/s miner that consumes about 500 watts (note those specs are better than any shipping or announced miner despite gen3 using a much larger node size!). Some calcs: Chips per Wafer: 3,125 Gen3 Miners (96 chips) per Wafer: 32.54 Assuming 10k wafer over 1 year, we get 27.4 wafers / day: 85,616 Chips per Day 891 Gen3 Miners per Day For a final total of 325K Gen3 Miners over 12 month period. Now that is a TON of miners, and I think it illustrates why AM is getting out of the selling miners business and into the selling chips business. The chips are where the profit is. Scaling up AM to handle producing/selling/shipping/supporting that type of quantity of end hardware (not just chips) would be a huge undertaking and would distract from AM's core value: its ability to create the most efficient ASICs as quickly as possible. So they are focusing on their core competency, which thankfully happens to be where the profit is. AM (smartly) wants to be Intel of the BTC space, not DELL. Anyhow, if one presumes they can get 10 major buyers for the chips and they each end up with the capability to produce just 100 miners a day, then the math works out. The numbers might sound aggressive, but consider the price point AM is planning on selling the chips at. $.49 to $.99 per GH/s pricing 2 months from now is very cheap compared to competition. I think at those prices they are going to have more orders than they know what to do with (at least for the first few months, then they will have to lower the price to further entice buyers) and they will indeed be heavily supply constrained. AM is aggressively getting into the chip business and doing so with a product at a low enough price I predict we will have a significant hash rate / difficulty spike in about 6 months. There will also be several new mining hardware businesses that are going to spring up to race product to market to take advantage of the gen3 chip pricing. |
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Jutarul did say "Depending on fab capacity", so I am sure scheduling enough fab time might be an issue.
That said, worldwide 40nm fab capacity 2 years ago was 4 million wafers per month. So on the high end we are talking about AM using a fraction of a tiny fraction of worldwide capacity. As an example, Global Foundries alone has capacity to do 50K to 100K+ (depending on wafer size) / month at 40 nm.
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In order to be viable 2.5 years from now, AM would basically have to give the chip away. 14nm will be readily available by then and most manufacturers will have produced far more efficient chips. 2.5 years is far too long a life for gen 3. No one knows what BTC/USD exchange rate or difficulty is going to do over the next 2 years. If there is a crash or stall, then yes, 2.5 years could very well be the life expectancy of gen3. Do I think that is likely? No. But it is an upper bound. 9 months is my lower bound, which I think is also unlikely. But it is still reasonable to think in min/max caps when doing projections. Who cares about nm size? Do you buy the camera with the highest MB pixel count, or do you get the one with a good aperture and optics that produces the best photo quality? Based on the specs AM is about to release chips that are over 2x efficient as their competitors 20nm chips. If competitors want to spend a boat load of money to do 14nm nodes, then I say they can knock themselves out. If you think that's clear, then tell me when gen 4 chips will be released, based on that information. All that that paragraph say is that AM will try to double the number of transistors every 2 years while making the chip more efficient. Well I think it is about as clear as it can be. It means they aren't hanging up the towel after gen3. Gen3 isn't even taped out yet but you want a specific date when gen4 is going to be done? Please... |
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If that's the overall expected production for gen3, then an obvious question arises. When is gen4 expected? This year? Next year? Never?
If it's this year, then those numbers seem highly suspect. If the answer is never, then those numbers are meaningless. I'd say gen4 won't be out for a year or two going by those numbers, which would see the chips become pretty weak again compared to the competition. Aren't AM supposed to be working on gen4 already though? In which case, surely it won't take a year or two to be released and therefore AM won't be putting out anywhere near 1600 Ph/s.
Basically, those numbers are completely meaningless without knowing the lifetime of gen3. No one knows how long gen3 will last, which is one of the reasons for the wide spread of quotes Ph/s. My guess is it will still be a viable (sellable) chip for 9 months to 2.5 years. As to gen4, that was pretty clearly answered in Jutarul's update: 4) What is the currently anticipated long-term strategy for ASICMiner after the 3rd generation?
re 4) Long-term strategy is to follow the step of Moore's Law, while squeeze all possible efficiency out of each stage of chip design and production. |
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Fully Assembled: $133.5 *25% = $33.75 It is 25% of the $60 assembly charge it looks like, so the $35 PCB + components aren't factored into the refund. Maybe we'll get some back on those parts in the future, but I'm not counting on it. Because you got fully assembled versus DIY kit, you do get a 100% refund of that assembly cost, which is $10 per board ($133.5-123.5). So for those of us that did the fully assembled unit option, it comes out to $25 per board (25% of $60 + $10). Then you get 100% refund for the shipping and the $15 setup fee for hosting if you chose hosting. |
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Okay, based on my calculation SB did peg the refund at an exchange rate of $123.50. If I multiply $123.50 by my proposed BTC refund amount I get a nice even dollar+cents amount.
I then subtract out shipping and hosting fees (100% refunded) AND I subtract out the $10/board extra I paid for fully assembled units [vs DIY kit] (100% refunded). You then divide the remaining balance by the number of boards and get $15 which is 25% of the $60 assembly cost.
It wasn't calculated exactly how I guessed it might be originally, but I was able to make the calculation make sense and match his last post outlining the refund details.
What this leaves still on the table, as mentioned by SB in the email, are the components ($35 PCB and $28.50 DIY kit/fan). Perhaps SB will be able to use those and we will get a bit more back at some (likely very distant) future date. I'm not counting on getting anything really, but it would be nice.
Regardless, if the proposed refund does actually occur, then I think the refund is equitable given the shitty circumstances. SB pegging the exchange rate at $123.50 is generous IMO and goes a long way to making up for the refund process dragging on for months. I don't see how this refund is occurring without SB dipping into his own wallet.
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I just got an email from SB with the refund information. I'm verifying the total now.
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Final payment received. Thanks stex2009!
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