[WTB] Want To Buy 2 Custom PCB Designs

[Viceroy]

New Design Request


Design a multi-chip pcb board.  

This is the chip: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon#Chip_Specification  (Specs to be out in May)

All communication must be done through USB port.

This board should "plug and play" in a windows or linux box with CGMiner installed.

Size is not a factor, I'll design the case to fit the board.  Is additional cooling required?

Power supply is 12V.



I am seeking a specification sheet and then a price to develop the complete design and deliver the first board(s).  

Please submit proposals below or contact me through PM.





Original Design (Now SECOND VERSION), we'll call it the "Schrankwand" after it's inventor:

I am looking for a proposal to design a board like this:
http://enterpoint.co.uk/products/asic-development-high-performance-computing/merrick-3/

Only, I intend to place these chips on it:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon#Chip_Specification

My only design requirement is that it fit within my computer case and operate on any PCI slot and it must use the standard molex power cord, the same as my VGA card.  Design can be either one or two slots wide.  Length can be as long as an AMD reference design.

[Schrankwand]

I need a printed circuit board designer to consider the following:


Design 1, we'll call it the "Schrankwand" after it's inventor:

I am looking for a proposal to design a board like this:
http://enterpoint.co.uk/products/asic-development-high-performance-computing/merrick-3/

Only, I intend to place these chips on it:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Avalon#Chip_Specification

My only design requirement is that it fit within my computer case and operate on any PCI slot and it must use the standard molex power cord, the same as my VGA card.  Design can be either one or two slots wide.  Length can be as long as an AMD reference design.



Design 2:

Same objective, design a multi-chip pcb board.  Only this on is to be square and small and be powered and all communication done through a USB port (will consider second power source option).  In short, I need a PCB to compete with the jalapeno using the Avalon chip.  I'll design the case around your board.



I am seeking a specification sheet and then a price to develop the complete design and deliver the first board(s).  

Please submit proposals below or contact me through PM.

Not even a month in it and someone plans to name a device after me, must be a new record

Bear the following in mind: The avalon Chips eat electricity. so one Molex might not be enough. PCI-E 8 pins or 6 pins might be the way to go for boards with lots of chips on them, otherwise you can watch the Molex cables burn inside the case.

[BkkCoins]

On the PCIe card you definitely want to use PCIe power connectors. Either one or two depending on needs. It's also made by Molex but not generally called "a molex connector". Part # is 45718-0002 or 45558-0003 depending on straight or right angle.

The Avalon chips are much smaller than the Xilinx FPGAs. This is one reason they look more spread out on the board - they're 7mm square. Packing them in as densely as FPGAs could be problematic due to heat. They really depend on heat being conducted away from the bottom via copper to heat sinks.

An engineer could calculate how much heat a decent heat sink could remove and then determine how close the chips can be given they put out about 2W each. My guess is that the Avalon designers would have put them closer and made the board smaller or more per board if they thought it was safe to do so.

[2weiX]

building and selling a PCI mining module? very nice.
maybe if you coild equip it with case/sink and fans also?
that'd be awesome to revive my old rig!

[MrTeal]

It's coming out within days (May) and lack of specs hasn't prevented others from starting their designs.

Of course, there is a lot of work that can be done without the pinout, but you won't be able to finish a board until that happens. What is your timeline for getting the design done? Also, for the PCI board to do have a specific application for it already? I'll assume you meant PCIe, does it have to fit within a certain number of slots?

[samurai1200]

Anyway, I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that on the timeline you're probably looking at. I've never done a PCIe design before, and while it should be pretty simple to implement a PLX PCIe to serial or USB bridge it's probably beyond a 10 week evening and weekend project.

For the other design, you would probably be looking at 2 chips and ~550-600MH/s. Does that sound about what you were thinking of?

Depending on the time between Avalon datasheet release and chip delivery, a preliminary set of boards should be possible. Best case is all troublesome scenarios are caught with additional components on the board, so that a first revision is complete and does not require debugging.

The big question is, Viceroy, who is doing the software development? Interfacing with a PCI-e slot is no trivial matter in hardware OR software. Something to keep in mind -- there are often USB ports meant for internal/auxiliary use on motherboards. You could mount to an ATX case slot and skip using the PCI-e interface altogether (might simplify things), but then also have easy access to +12V from the PCI-e VGA card power connectors. Making it USB for data would also have the benefit of easy design re-use for a standalone unit type of application (think, BFL SC, Minirig, or your "Design 2" application).

[Viceroy]

What is your timeline for getting the design done?

ASAP.

The big question is, Viceroy, who is doing the software development?

So you are proposing I scrap the PCI-X design in favor of a USB design with a separate power supply because it will be easier to communicate with, yea?  

I re-wrote the OP.  Please reconsider.

[samurai1200]

The big question is, Viceroy, who is doing the software development?

So you are proposing I scrap the PCI-X design in favor of a USB design with a separate power supply because it will be easier to communicate with, yea?  

I re-wrote the OP.  Please reconsider.

Makes sense, right? The design could essentially be used inside a PC with PCIe power connectors, or slightly tweaked (if at all) and used with an external power supply and USB hookup in your own chassis.

This still means someone has to do firmware coding for the onboard data management (avalon uses an AVR i believe, many designs on this forum have begun with a PIC). Not that this task is that tough in the scope of things, but some folks don't have the expertise in PCB design AND coding. Depending on the complexity of data communication, I might be able to do the whole package myself.

I'll keep you posted.

BTW, where are you located roughly? US, EU, Asia?

[Viceroy]

BTW, where are you located roughly? US, EU, Asia?

Colorado Springs, CO, USA

[BkkCoins]

You could do a PCIe board but the only reasonably quick way would be to use a PCIe Serial Bridge chip like the one from Pericom. I believe it uses standard drivers and you talk to it as a serial port in your OS (Linux or Windows). This is fairly easy both hardware and software wise as long as the chip works and all the bus specs are in line. I would find a serial board from Newegg/Amazon that uses the Pericom chip and mimic their design as best as possible.

I think you can have 40 chips on one PCIe board without trouble. The main limit is the space because even 80 chips would be less than some GPU cards power/heat wise.

I would use this chip: PI7C9X7954 4 port UART bridge, used on 4 port serial boards.

http://www.pericom.com/products/pcie-pci-bridges/?part=PI7C9X7954

Non-stock item at mouser 90pc minimum $13.94 each. The two port version is $11.50.
Either way you want something that uses standard drivers so you don't need to get into writing one yourself (or paying for it).

If you can talk to the company and sound like you'll buy a lot then they may give samples. This is common in semiconductors as long as you don't sound like a hobbyist (and even then I've got some from nice companies like Maxim).

Obviously, I'm busy now but perhaps later (when my design is working and we're all waiting for chips) I could adapt my design to fit 3x 16 onto a board like this. The PIC has a UART on board and could talk directly to such a Pericom serial brdige with almost no driver/firmware rewrite. Or it could have a USB pin header and plug into a mother board USB port. Only one would be needed as a "crossfire" like 3 wire could join several of these in one PC.

[Viceroy]

how's your design coming along bkk?

[BkkCoins]

how's your design coming along bkk?

I've pretty mush got the board layout done. I need to clean up and rework a bit and do the silkscreen layer, add a logo. That is, not including data signal tracks because for that I need Avalon specs. I've started writing the firmware code and expect to have that worked out over the next few days.  I've ordered some prototyping items and once I can get that all together I'll be programming a test device to debug the code. So, making progress and prototyping what I can while waiting on better docs.