And of course I just ordered 2x of the batch18 s7's last night....
Argg 
Damn good performance !

All in all gotta say I agree with Searing. Here in the US considering that the IRS wants their share of our BTC income it really is the catch 22: Report the income and pay their tax each year as part of personal income (as I do) or setup a small business and file with the IRS that way. Good part of going 2nd way is then equipment costs are a write off but then you are most definitely not a 'Consumer" anymore.

Grant you, at the time these lawsuits started BTC was still a pretty gray area as far as taxes and status as 'money' but even then writing was on the wall -- BTC and other crypto-currencies are money and therefore taxable anytime there are gains. By extension of that, if you buy a miner to make money that means you are a business whether or not you are legally registered as one. The lawyers hired should have seen this ruling as a strong possibility.

Innosilison is an interesting question. I'll have o look back in my A1 chip kerfuffle files but I think they used GF (Global Foundries) to run the wafers. If so and they use GF again then they would have the 14nm node to play with. Since the GF 14nm fab is in Malta NY means no earthquake delay so... Wonder what they have been up to.

Sure the A1 was way off promised spec for speed  vs power but -- accepting its real world specs it was rock solid when used by integrators that knew how to build boards. The boards that AMT/Bitmine.ch tried were a disaster of zero knowledge of PDN design rules and ignorant thermal design whereas Dragon clones clones were rock-solid.

The 1.2TH  Dragon clone I eventually got from AMT in early Sept. 2014 (7mo late but I was lucky - I got one!) ran rock solid 24x7x365 right up to last Feb. when I finally shut it down to apply the 1.3kw power it used for a s7 located elsewhere at work.

That makes me wonder about Inno's silence about an A4...

EDIT: Just saw that question was answered while I was writing   and damn -- it's a scrypt chip. However, got to love the fact that they even give the chip layouts!
http://www.innosilicon.com/html/news/13.html
Raises the question of, 'What about another BTC miner ASIC?'.

As I posted in the other KNC thread, to me it seems the key point is that people who bought miners directly 'make income' from the machines vs crafters or hobbyists using a machine or tool to make something and then keep it or give away at no cost to friends,family, etc. In other words, there is no direct financial gain by crafters/hobbyists using the machine

Making money be it either by selling your products made from using a machine or tool or in this case, a machine directly generating income makes the buyers a business vs a consumer. The fact that a miner generally runs 24x7x365 doing what it does (generating income) clinches it.

Now if the suit(s) had been based on simple failure to fulfill the terms of a sales contract or other breach of Contract I think the Courts wold have looked at it differently.

To me it seems the key point is that the plaintiffs directly 'make income' from the miners vs crafters or hobbyists using a machine or tool to make something and then keep it or give away at no cost to friends,family, etc. That makes the buyers a business vs a consumer. The fact that a miner generally runs 24x7x365 doing what it does (generating income) clinches it.

Now if the suit(s) had been based on simple failure to fulfill the terms of a sales contract or other Breach of Contract I think the Courts wold have looked at it differently.

heh heh Just tossing this out there... https://hosteddocs.emediausa.com/foundation_ip_for_7nm_finfets_wp.pdf
And folks think the birthing of 16/14nm chips was/is painful...

As a most-basic primer on just what a FinFET is https://www.synopsys.com/COMPANY/PUBLICATIONS/SYNOPSYSINSIGHT/Pages/Art2-finfet-challenges-ip-IssQ3-12.aspx

Can't wait to see the hubbub and speculation about mining ASICs based on those nodes in the coming year(s)

edit: To those who like to talk of designing/producing a community mining ASIC using the latest and greatest node sizes -- at least skim through that to get a hint of just what is involved.

I agree.
Ja you were the 1st to post a link here to TSMC's PR though I think it was to their shorter one (they did 2 on the extended production recovery timeline) but I think that Punin was referring more to my posts expounding upon the implications of what TSMC said. Oh, link to my (last) post on the TSMC Guidance PR https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1291890.msg14775020#msg14775020

However when it comes to the 16/14nm nodes there are only 3 Foundries that after years of 'just around the corner' can finally do them. Excluding Intel and IBM who only make chips for themselves you have TSMC with their 16nm FinFets, and Samsung along with Global Foundries for 14nm size. Of those last 2 Samsung would REALLY rather keep production for their use only but have shown they *are* willing to shall we say dabble in boutique chips. GF... Well they finally had to license Samsung's (edit for clarity: 14nm) tech because their attempts were still not working but at least they are open to all comers.

Now 22/28nm nodes -- The big 3 have all that now very mature tech long ago paid for not to mention that those nodes are also available from several other foundries as well. Hell, even India has 2 'home-grown' 28nm Foundries that also handle the even now more mundane bigger nodes up to micron size...

edit 2: after an inquiry I did a search on India and fabs -- seems the progress on them stalled last year... Still, lots of high node fabs around ref https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants

Thanks for the complement but aside from digging up TSMC's Guidance press release it wasn't homework per se. Supplying bleeding-edge critical process equipment for over 25 years to one of the if not the largest chip packaging/contract sub-assemblies company in Taiwan gives a lot of insight on process timing and new product development cycle times along with the customer pecking order when issues like fire/flood/earthquake arise.

BitFury and others looking for boutique 16/14nm chips have invested several 10's, even maybe up to the low 100's of millions $$ to get chips made but Tier-1 customers have invested literally Billions with TSMC over the past few years so 1 guess who is first in line once a fab is back online...

That aside, rather enigmatic comment as well. Since 2Q (ref the TSMC PR) is almost 2/3 over I take it BitFury is starting to get initial pre-production/engineering sample wafers or gods forbid - full production approved wafers even if in limited numbers?

If TSMC Fab 14A is fully back online then yes, full production runs of ASICS for both Bitmain and BitFury could be going now. If so then Bitmain is in the Cat-bird seat with miners ready to go vs BitFury who rely on their integrators (including their own div that does the farms) to actually use their chips.

To me 3 chips wide could/should be more stable and forgiving of chip-to-chip Vdrop vs relying so much on the caps bypassing each node.

On the cooling fan(s) OT in the BitFury thread, it does of course factor into wall plug efficiency. Saving 30W or more is an appreciable part of the power budget. Good part is if the chips themselves consume less eg around 450w then less fan power is needed to remove it hopefully making for being able to use quieter fans. Win-win all around on that point.

Werks fer me. Some are s3+ as well if it makes any difference. Please do part out hashboard assemblies for replacements as well if you don't need anything off of them. Glad for anything to put them to good use and help folks out . Also hopefully more burger money for ya  as well

Ja by all accounts theri Batch-1 supplies sucked. But - a couple weeks after b2 came out with pretty much zero issues I started using them. Now have 25 of Bitmains 1600w PSU and zero problems with them. Typical ambient they and the miners are in is 85-90F in the summer.

Frankly, as long as miners need over 1kw the 220v requirement is not bad. Gotta remember many homes like mine (built in 1962) do not have outlets really suitable for sustained loads like that. The original wiring was 16ga fer chrisake. One of the first projects I did was changing that to 12ga runs for outlets and 14ga for most lighting circuits.

Ja I had to wire from what was a 220v dryer breaker to feed the 4x s7's I keep at home but it is by far the best way to go. Also do not have to worry about unbalanced lines from the pole or due to the house 110v loads anymore either.

edit: Also, my 4th 1-fan s7 will arrive tomorrow. So far rather happy with them and surprised that db seems about the same as the 2-fan ones as are temps. Hmm.

Agreed. Nor are they AMT/Bitmine.ch, Cointerra et al.
Last update from TSMC on 16nm production was Feb. 17 http://www.tsmc.com/tsmcdotcom/PRListingNewsAction.do?action=detail&newsid=THHKHIHITH&language=E

Do note that they differentiate between main production (IMHO meaning only Tier-1 customers) and others.
"Consequently, TSMC has devoted maximum resources to make up for all the impacted wafers. Nevertheless, we still expect to see wafer delivery delays in the first quarter. More precisely, for Fab 14A, the wafer delivery will be delayed by 10 to 50 days, and delivery of about 100K (12-inch) wafers will be delayed from 1Q to 2Q. "

Wanna bet that the 10-50 days is Tier-1 and the '100k wafers' being moved to 2Q are boutique chips including those from BitFury (and probably Bitmain as well but who knows there).

Then reply message duly deleted.

I've been biting my tongue long enough...
Ya know, this reminds me a lot of the movie The Godfather... Sorry but it had to be said

I understand that the are ways to maybe get repaid that are outside of the legal system. But - most folks here, even those who have been scammed, will not and definitely SHOULD NOT pursue those routes.

Really glad to hear from you again! Also glad that mining is still in the cards for you (sans Avalon).

Very glad you are still pursuing the ephemeral BitFury chips. Also for reasons I've previously expressed about TSMC and 16nm chip production, not surprised on the lack of movement. But - we should be getting close.

Just tossing this out there to see where the cow pie plops
you said it needs high level pre conditioning of the data the actual sha hashing cores handle and that cpu-type of operation normally is not present in each ASIC. Very true now and in the past but what if say a tiny ARM core or other MC was put inside of each ASIC to do that? That would be very easy to do these days. Possibilities there?

I take that as a 'meh' vote 
I  thought the gist of what the paper says sounded familiar. <light bulb> In early 2014 when I was getting into mining the Cointerra website made mention of stuff like that for enhanced performance vs others.

My info on it came from Sidehack a month or so ago when in a pm on the Community miner I offhandedly mentioned that Kilo had dropped off of CKpool a couple weeks earlier. Aside from that there is kilo's last post to the Forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1291890.msg14495583#msg14495583

For his part, I'd guess that kilo took a professional approach to that cold slap in the face and after selling off his hardware (and hopefully getting back the monies he had already given them for chips) just dropped the matter and left the BTC scene without ranting about it here and prolonging the burn.

 I haven't seen hide nor hair of him since even on Skype where he and I were talking a lot about the Avalon6 project

 It's been indirectly brought up in other threads regarding regarding Avlons amd BlockC by myself and sidehack as well.

Not necessarily...
Reading through their whitepaper is answering a lot questions I've been accumulating in the back of me mind on just what a mining chip Wizard is doing behind its curtain. Well, under its hood actually... Ever since Sidehack mention at least passing interest in mebe learning chip design my Muse's cat, Curiosity, has been bugging me about it...

EDIT: Thoughts on https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1604/1604.00575.pdf from ASICboost on their idea? So far looks like they say they have a different and more efficient use of gates achieved by using a different logic structure/flow than other folks.

Only 1 person I can think of can give me insight as to a 'yesss......' or , 'meh' and and they are not into BTC per se but are Wizard of chip-level data flow the likes I've rarely seen.

Gotta say ever since making a chip was brought up my natural curiosity into everything got me to thinking about what goes on inside a mining ASIC and methinks that paper is answering a some of that.