I have a small window of time now, and I've had a bunch of people message wondering about getting in on a group buy, so I've decided to do it again. The first BFL group buy was a big success with 1200, but it's been awhile since it happened and I want to let all the people who've shown interest get in on another buy. After running the last one and seeing how much time is involved, I'd made a couple changes. The biggest is solely pricing the sale in BTC rather than in USD, but most other items are the same.
From BFL:Specifications:
Technology: Global Foundries advanced 65nm technology (IBM core)
Die size: 7.5 x 7.5 mm
Substrate package: 10 x 10 mm
Package type: Standard BGA 144
Design type: 100% Hand routed for performance density
Power consumption: 3.2 Watt per GH/s
Performance: 4 GH/s
Performance design: 16 engines @ 250mhz nominal (294mhz max)
Advantages of Butterfly Labs chips:
1/2 the power usage per GH as the closest competitor
1/10th the silicon area per GH as the closest competitor (Very high performance density)
Proven design currently operating in the field and ready to go.
Unlike some QFN packages which require underside heat sinks, you can use off the shelf heat sinks due to the FCBGA package. No need to design and manufacture heat sinks!
Terms of purchase:
Delivery: 100 days
Payment: 50% deposit on order and 50% upon delivery
Cancellation: All sales are final and deposits will not be returned if final payment is not made prior to delivery.
Minimum purchase: 100 chips
Considerations:
Chip grades: Chips come in four grades of performance. Chips are sold in mixed grade lots. A grade has 16 engines, B grade has 15 engines, C grade has 14 engines and D grade has no less than 12 engines. All chips run at a minimum of 250 mhz. Higher grade chips will run up to 294mhz. The percentage distribution in each lot is 60% Grade A, 20% Grade B, 15% Grade C and 5% Grade D.
Reference documentation: Butterfly Labs is releasing it's PCB schematics & MCU code to open source. Links to this documentation will follow shortly.
Limited availability: Chip availability is limited to 100,000 units.
Group Buy Terms- Payment will be in Bitcoin
- The chips are expected to be of the mix stated by BFL. It appears that the chips will not be binned prior to shipping by BFL, so it will be a lottery. Some chips in the batch will be tested at verify the batch is function prior to shipping them out, but QA for each chip to determine its grade is up to you.
- Lead time is still listed at 100 days. I have spoken with BFL (on June 13th) and they clarified that they have already placed orders in excess of their current needs and the bulk sales come from that, so while it's likely that the lead time from today is less than 100 days, I don't guarantee that
- 50% of the chip cost will be due prior to the placement of the order. When the chips are ready and the final 50% is due to BFL, the remaining 50% will be due.
- I am not responsible for taxes/duties on your end.
Cost, Coupon Codes and Escrow- Price for each chip will be 0.65BTC, inclusive of tracked shipping. I reserve the right to change this based on the price of BTC. This will be fairly basic; if you want something extremely fast the extra cost will be on you but we can work that out.
- If you have chip credit codes, those can be applied and will credited at a value of 0.03BTC/code, up to the number of chips you order. IE, if you want 64 chips and have 64 credits it will be (0.65BTC-0.03BTC)*64=39.62BTC. If you want 128 chips and you have 64 credits it will be 0.65BTC*64 + (0.65BTC-0.03BTC)*64 = 81.28BTC.
- Escrow: I do not offer escrow on chip sales at this time. The extra time and cost just doesn't justify the limited protection offered.
BFL has now provided the
source code for the microcontroller, and a
design document for the chip. Reference schematics have also been posted.
TimelineI will begin accepting orders and securing the funds now. I plan to place the order on Wednesday July 24th at 5pm, so all transactions will need to be done before then. When BFL indicates that the chips are almost ready I will message everyone to confirm what they want done with the chips and the shipping address.
Once this group buy is done, I may do another.
Shipping OptionsAt this time, you have 3 main options for shipping.
- Shipment direct to you
- Shipment to someone else to get assembled for you
- You decide to go with our design and have the chips mounted onto PCBs, which then get shipped to you.
Obviously there's be extra charges associated with the third option.
What can you do with them?Mount them into boards and start mining! There are a number of projects that are currently underway to house BFL chips. I am (of course) partial to mine, but I will list any other ones here as long as they appear serious and not a scam.
Mr Teal / Chip Geek BFL ASIC projectGamaStackLucko's Board projectIf you're interested, post in the thread or PM me.
