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I'm just hugely confused here. I'm not a BFL Customer, and I haven't really been keeping up with the BFL story, but I happened to see this thread and this update has me puzzled.
I should firstly state that I have more than a bit of experience with electronics and semiconductors. I have been in the industry for a long time, and I deal with all sort of IC packages.
That said, bumping is almost always a term used to define the process of 'Bumping' a wafer so that it can be used as a flip-chip. flip-chips are bare, non packaged dies that are then attached directly to a circuit board (PCB).
I was under the impression that BFL was using QFN packages for their ASIC chips. If this were the case, no bumping would be necessary. The bare wafer would be cut into individual dies, the dies would be wire-bonded to a QFN carrier and the QFN would be reflow soldered to the circuit board.
Is that no longer the case? Did BFL switch from using QFN's to using direct flip-chip assembly? I thought they were planning on being able to build these circuit boards in house? It's been a long time since I looked at MyData equipment (wayyyy too slow to even be on my radar), but the last time I did, there was NO WAY Mydata was going to be placing flip-chips. I also didn't see any equipment in the BFL equipment thread that would be able to underfill a flip-chip.
I'm just confused. Are they using flip-chips (or some similar direct die attach assembly process), or are they using QFN's? I only bring it up because if they are using QFN's, then bumping is not happening.
Enigma
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If true to render, this would be the first ASIC (of any kind, bitcoin related or otherwise) I've ever seen that had JTAG.
Odd, to say the least...
Enigma
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Why can not one single company give us something real and concrete to work with?
I want to know exactly how fast the new CPU's from Intel and AMD are that come out in a few months. Where can I find those numbers? Cute and all, but apples to oranges. Intel/AMD don't ask you to pre-order and pay for your CPU 6 months before its available and benchmarked. Intel and AMD do send samples to review sites (Tom's hardware comes to mind) BEFORE general availability. Really.. Good try though.. |
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I gotcha. No need for an apology, just the clarification was plenty good  Cheers, Enigma |
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He walked up and capped a kid in a old folks community here in Florida and walked on the charges saying he felt threatened. And in the current law if you feel threatened you can "defend" yourself. Texas has similar laws, some states dont mind you killing in public as long as you have a good reason. (Although I think after several months of parades and outage Zimmerman did end up getting arrested.)
You are stretching the definition of kid to the breaking point. The young thug you called a kid was 17 years old, had a criminal record, and was pretty tall and black. But then he learned not to bring a bad attitude to a gun fight with the heroic neighborhood watch captain who was white!  Added a Touch of Gray. Remind me again why those bold statements matter? If it was The young thug you called a kid was 17 years old, had a criminal record, and was pretty tall and white. But then he learned not to bring a bad attitude to a gun fight with the heroic neighborhood watch captain who was black! Then would race ever be mentioned? White, Black, Purple, Brown, Or Yellow with Green dots... If zimmerman murdered martin, then he should go to jail. If he killed him in self-defense, then he should not go to jail. How does skin-color change any of it? Enigma |
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I wonder what the ARM place holder is for ? how could an ARM chip benefit the board ?
Add a network jack and some ram and you'd be able to have a low power standalone miner --- maybe? That would work if the board had place holders for those additional things, but it does not so it would need a board re-design, which makes it pointless placing an ARM holder on the current board. Has anyone seen the back side of the board? High speed DDR is often soldered right behind the processor.. And..  Something like this...  |
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Here is a full-sized side by side wallpaper  .  Do my eyes decieve me, but does ASIC chip 4 (1st on second row) look like its bulged out? POP! Could be camera angle.. Could be a Photoshop job to remove something.. most likely, it's damage from someone not following MSD procedures. Looks like typical popcorn damage. Or it could be that it was an early sample where someone stuck an oscilloscope probe where they shouldn't have and shorted something out. Not that I have any experience with doing that... BFL, I will say one thing, the layout is pretty elegant. Nice job. |
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Until then, you're publicly masturbating.
If they're seriously going to build high-dollar, high-mix, high-complexity (high-mix and high-complexity being the real difficulty) hardware on a MY-9, a semi-automatic (read: manual) solder paste printer and a 6 foot long reflow oven and then not even inspect the solder paste or placements and not x-ray the hidden joints, then I won't be masturbating for long... I actually hope they prove me wrong and build great hardware, but it would be nearly impossible. A 6 foot long oven can't ( literally, impossible) have enough zones to form a proper reflow profile for a mixed technology/mixed thermal mass PCBA. We use 14 zone reflow ovens that are over 30 feet long, and there are times we wish we had bigger ones. Longer ovens with more zones allow for better profiles on boards that have mixed thermal-mass areas. Run an Oven Mole though a 6 foot oven with the thermocouples attached to different parts of the circuit board and you'll see how incredibly uneven the heating will be in a short oven. Do you know why contract electronic manufacturers exist? Because most companies (yes, even ones that design really cool stuff) don't have the equipment or expertise to manufacture electronics. Dealing with ESDs, MSDs, Reflow Profiles, Solder Paste Issues, Inspection, Re-work, etc, etc, etc, etc are not trivial.... Are they building with lead-free solder (for RoHS compliance)? Do they have knowledge of how to reduce the risks of tin-whiskers if they are? Are they building with water-soluble fluxed paste or no-clean? Do they have the equipment to properly wash the boards if water-soluble is the answer? Do they have an ionograph to spot test for ionic contamination? Unless they can answer all of these questions, then bringing manufacturing in-house was a bad idea. Enigma |
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You guys are funny. I'm sorry, I didn't realize I had reached the Butterfly Labs Fan Boi Network (BFLFBN).
Since there is no concern about how BFL hardware is built/tested/inspected - I guess their first generation FPGA stuff must have had a zero or near zero failure rate.
Enjoy your day.
Enigma
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JUST Saw this thread for the first time.. MyData? Hahahaha.. "High Speed Pick and Place", um, no...
You want high speed? Assembleon MG/MX series, Universal Genesis Series, etc..
You want REALLY high speed? Universal HSP, Sanyo, Assembleon iFlex, Yamaha, Fuji, etc..
And that solder paste printer? It's slower than dripping dog turds in winter.
Sorry, these guys aren't serious about building hardware.
They're laying down BGA parts, and probably QFN parts.. Do they have X-Ray inspection? Do they have 3D solder paste inspection?
Enigma
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Neither have I. None. Zero. They've been great, actually.
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You should pull all your money/coin from MtGox and not use them any more. Clearly it's not safe.
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Ok. So wrap your room or building with expanded metal or overlapping layers of aluminum foil, then stick it in plastic or glass, then stick that inside concrete so the metal shielding is protected against physical damage.
For communications (internet access) use optical or fiber optics, at least until the EMP strikes. Then your room will get disconnected but is safe. Suddenly, you are in cold storage.
For electricity, get transformers or surge protectors installed if you must use power from the grid. If you can afford it, use your own power (from generators, windmills, solar, etc.) that are also shielded.
Electricity is your problem.. A transformer will not provide protection. A surge protector isn't even in the ballpark of being fast enough to respond to an EMP. A true double-conversion online UPS 'may' provide protection against a Nuclear EMP (can't say for certain because there is no test data to back that up). You have to realize also that the electro-magnetic voltages are just HUGE compared to what normal off the shelf protection devices are designed for. If you were physically close to the epicenter of a Nuclear EMP, voltages of 20,000 to 50,000 volts PER METER could easily be introduced into electric circuits.. What this means is that even the short (call it a foot or two?) wire that goes from the "protected" online UPS into your cage is enough antenna to radiate 7,000 to 33,000 volts into your protected cage. I guess what I'm saying, unfortunately, is that sensitive integrated circuits (like computers) are highly unlikely to survive an EMP if they are operating at the time of the EMP. Can they be protected - absolutely, but to do so is hugely expensive (governments can afford it, not much else). Best bet is to keep a laptop inside a good faraday cage and save it for that rainy day. Solar panels not shielded would likely be destroyed, so best would be to put a few of them inside your protected cage as well. After an EMP event, you could pull our your laptop and solar panel and be functional. Now, you'll likely have nothing to connect to, "the internet" as we know it will simply be gone.. but you'll have a functional computer. enigma |
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Seriously, you can shield against EMPs right? Thick walls, or really really thick walls? With rebars and faraday cages built in? Or do I need to be buried under a mountain?
It seems that almost all civilian structures, and even most military structures are not adequately protect against EMP anymore, unlike during the cold war. (And this, for Nuclear based EMP, not the non-nuclear based EMP which is a million times weaker.)
EMP's can be protected against, yes. The thickness of the wall is not at all important - 6 feet of concrete wouldn't stop an EMP even a little - it's ELECTRO-MAGNETIC, hence, it goes through concrete like it's not even there. A faraday cage will protect against an EMP, but if the equipment is plugged into to copper wires that exit from the cage, they will transmit the pulse into the cage. Because of this, Protecting equipment that is running is not trivial. Protecting equipment that is not running is easy - put it in a metal box. That's it... Enigma |
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Let me move these statements closer together: Fees
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Buy fee rate, paid by seller: 0.5%
...
Conversely, if a seller puts an ask order on the order book, he pays no fee - when a buyer places an order to buy at that price, the ask order comes off the book and the buyer pays the fee.In the fees explaination on GLBSE, the seller is the only one listed as paying a fee. But in your example you just cited a case where the BUYER pays the fee. So I think it is a typo on the GLBSE page. Not a clue where you're finding your information.... From: https://glbse.com/portfolio/feesFees Basis Point(BP): 1/100th of 1% or 0.01% New asset fee: 8.0 BTC Dividends fee rate: 0 BP Sell fee rate, paid by seller: 50 BP
Buy fee rate, paid by seller: 50 BPTransfer fee rate, paid by seller: 20 BP Trade fees are MAKER/TAKER, that is if you place an order, and it goes on the orderbook, then you pay 0% fee, if the order gets matched with another order then you pay the trade fee(buy OR sell fee, not both). So, unless glbse.com lists the wrong fees for their own service, my example holds true. Enigma |
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That could have been more clear.
Added to the GLBSE article on the Bitcoin wiki: Fees
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Sell fee rate, paid by seller: 0.5%
Buy fee rate, paid by seller: 0.5%
...
Trade fees are MAKER/TAKER, that is if you place an order, and it goes on the orderbook, then you pay 0% fee, if the order gets matched with another order then you pay the trade fee(buy OR sell fee, not both).
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/GLBSE#Fees - https://glbse.com/portfolio/fees <-- Need to be logged in to view. But the way that goes, it looks like in any trade the seller is paying the fee, and I don't think that is right. I think it should say "buy fee rate, paid by buyer" Unless I am just confused. :\ You are just confused. The transactor who takes an order off of the order book pays a fee. The transactor who puts an order on the order book does not pay a fee. I don't know how much more simple it could be made. If a buyer puts a buy order on the order book, he pays no fee - when a seller places an order to sell at that price, the buy order comes off the book and the seller pays the fee. Conversely, if a seller puts an ask order on the order book, he pays no fee - when a buyer places an order to buy at that price, the ask order comes off the book and the buyer pays the fee. Enigma |
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I don't suspect you'll find any 'real' insurance company that would insure an investment in GLBSE being that it's completely unregulated. Even if you did, I would guess they would charge you about 100% of the value of the investment to insure it, making the insurance pretty pointless..
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We just need a few locals to exercise their right to free speech and picket his house, while also exercising their Texas right to open carry.
Texas doesn't have an open carry law. I'm not sure what the texas rules are, but if they're is no law, then it's ok to do. Michigan doesn't have an open-carry law, so I'm free to open carry here. We don't have a green shirt law either, so, I'm free to wear a green shirt any time I please. |
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Every time I see a reference to the "Bitcoin Police", I LOL a bit.. Maybe you could consult with your local mall-cops as well.
Enigma
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