Already delays in BFL shipment plans?

[Bogart]

Well heck, by that criteria BFL is fine, too... since we've always maintained that we would would target October but it would be as late as December (hence the January 1st refund policy, which has been there since day one.)

Thanks for the confirmation that BFL is on target timeframe wise as well, I appreciate it!  

Anyone can point me what this Jan 1st refund policy is about ?  Please, just fact, like a link.. dont wish to read 12 crappy post to get to the fact.. please.

Butterfly Labs, INC. is accepting pre-orders for ASIC based products, expected to begin shipping in late November or early December 2012. Your pre-order with payment confirms your place in line for delivery once we begin shipping. Payments made for pre-orders of ASIC based products now under development should be considered non-refundable until products begin shipping or 1 January 2013, whichever is earlier.

[Bogart]

Orders canceled. Not dealing with this shit (BFL) anymore.

Well, at least you stood your ground and gave them every opportunity to come through....

Looks like the first (safe) wave of refunds have begun or are ongoing.

The second wave of refunds is where the risk is at (IMO).

Seems the risk is already here: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/pre-sales-questions/441-refund-not-getting-processed.html

Maybe they do not have money to refund. Each bug in the ASIC design is extremely expensive and increases the cost of the entire project. The question is whether  have they enough money to eliminate bugs and produce working chips?. Time is working against BFL, more and more people will want a refund. Any delay, any setback = less new customers = less supply of money. It threatens bankruptcy. BFL is approaching a critical time.

BFL took a big risk by going with a Full Custom design.  My ASICs for dummies book says that one drawback of using a Full Custom design is "the odds of screwing something up are much higher".

Compounding this is their strategy of doing a full production run of chips with every attempt.  The usual strategy is to get the design working first on a shared wafer, and only then move to volume production on full wafers in the next step.

[tacotime]

Answer: a small boutique fab. You know, like the one Inaba boasted BFL was using because small boutique fabs supposedly offered a much better, more personal service than the mass-produced crap from companies like TSMC.

If they'd used TSMC or GF 5 months ago we'd already have ASICs from them by now

[punin]

Bogart, no risk involved when your clients' money is used to pay for the gamble.

[Coinoisseur]

Assuming the bug was on a test wafer, how is it possible to expect large quantities of chips in hand in only 2 weeks time?

[Bitinvestor]

Bogart, no risk involved when your clients' money is used to pay for the gamble.

Exactly, Buttfly will simply declare bankruptcy if they can't get it to work before the money runs out.

[AndrewBUD]

It'll be problem after problem... They're assuming that everything will go perfectly...

[stevegee58]

Having personally worked on a project where our final product was an ASIC I can tell you that your chances of having a working first piece are almost zero.

You get everything working in Verilog on your FPGA development board and send the Verilog files to the fab.  They do the layout, make the masks, produce the first lot, do testing, ship you the first parts.  You get the parts and damn, guess what you forgot something dumb.  So it's back to the fab with rev 2 of the Verilog files.

[rjbtc]

I have no dog in this fight at all, just sort of watching it all go down from afar.  That being said, why can't BFL be more open with everything they are doing here? It's not as if they are launching a new iThing or anything else people want just because it's cool. They are essentially selling a product that is designed to make people money, and timing is everything in this case. Can they not just show their communications with the fab,  stating when the delivery date will be and any issues they are having? It's not KFC revealing the 11 herbs and spices, just saying that the chicken farm had a delay, here's why and here is the new estimated delivery date - straight from the farm/fab.  Also, and again I have nothing ordered from anyone here but I'll echo others in saying that the company spokesman comes off like a tremendous ass in these forums. Having a dual account for personal/PR makes no difference at all,  and seems almost insulting to the customer base in a way.   

This has got to be excruciating for anyone who was hoping to cash in on early ASICs. 

[squeept]

Having personally worked on a project where our final product was an ASIC I can tell you that your chances of having a working first piece are almost zero.

You get everything working in Verilog on your FPGA development board and send the Verilog files to the fab.  They do the layout, make the masks, produce the first lot, do testing, ship you the first parts.  You get the parts and damn, guess what you forgot something dumb.  So it's back to the fab with rev 2 of the Verilog files.

That's one way to skin a horse.

[bitmar]

Having personally worked on a project where our final product was an ASIC I can tell you that your chances of having a working first piece are almost zero.

You get everything working in Verilog on your FPGA development board and send the Verilog files to the fab.  They do the layout, make the masks, produce the first lot, do testing, ship you the first parts.  You get the parts and damn, guess what you forgot something dumb.  So it's back to the fab with rev 2 of the Verilog files.

Are You talking about Full Custom Design?
whatever, chance of success depends on how quickly detect and correct bugs.
bugs are expensive, time is money, money is limited,  customers have a limit of endurance

[mrb]

Josh just posted an update on the BFL forums.  It's gonna be another couple of weeks if all goes well.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/bfl-forum-miscellaneous/437-asic-update-26-november-2012-a.html#post6239

I'm kind of horrified that Josh only just found out about the reason for the delay.  A flaw in the chip is something BFL should have been informed of as soon as the problem was detected.

Called it.

Thanks for finally giving us the reason behind the delay Josh.

100,000 chips is 7.5*100,000 = 750TH/s.  Unless there's a significant price increase (let's all hope), then that takes just about all incentive out of buying ASICs once those chips are eaten up.  Payback would be around a year at that point... fairly risky in the world of Bitcoin.

You guys do this exact same dance with every single scammer, and you never see it coming somehow.

Here's a hint, they all give you these bullshit excuses.  Over and over again, and you all throw your money at them and thank them, then act completely stunned when they bolt with it.

Here's a test of BFL's legitimacy.  That ASIC you're blowing money on, have you even seen a prototype?  Any evidence that it would even work if it did ship?  Any evidence that the design behind it is sound?  Anything at all?

BFL's legitimacy is dead simple to assert: they managed to be greatly successful and profitable inventing, making, and selling thousands of FPGA Singles. I have many of them in my very own hands.

And if you have a profitable business, the natural human reaction, even for greedy people (the type who may want to defraud), is to simply expand the business, not to do something riskier by defrauding your customers.

[loshia]

If they were going to take everyone's money and run, it would have been done a long time ago.  They are very likely losing money by having to give out refunds vs the number of new orders they might be taking in.

I am really sorry about BFL. I suggest all of us to send them some money so they can cover their loss and make some money on top? Or just to speed the proses up? We all know that long term winners are ASIC producers themselves. Right?  If i were one of you guy's who preordered almost half an year ago i will feel like i am badly F....D UP. The winners eventually will be the lucky ones from us which happen to have ASIC's delivered first. Actually i am starting to doubt about this also.

[AndreyE]

Can anyone count what's the diffuclty going to be like in Feb-March, when everyone will have their hands on 100k chips?!!!! I wonder if it's worth anything.

Also I wonder if there is ANY example what I could possibly do with this ASIC after it's useless. Maybe another SHA256 currency? Maybe it's worth anything after all?

[Epoch]

Can anyone count what's the diffuclty going to be like in Feb-March, when everyone will have their hands on 100k chips?!!!! I wonder if it's worth anything.

Also I wonder if there is ANY example what I could possibly do with this ASIC after it's useless. Maybe another SHA256 currency? Maybe it's worth anything after all?

Each BFL chip is currently rated for 7.5Ghps. If 100k chips were to be mining, it would add 750 Terahash to the network. Difficulty would be 30x what it is now. And that does not include the chips coming from the other vendors. Not all 100k chips are yet bought, so deployment will not be 'instantaneous'.

[Meatball]

Can anyone count what's the diffuclty going to be like in Feb-March, when everyone will have their hands on 100k chips?!!!! I wonder if it's worth anything.

Also I wonder if there is ANY example what I could possibly do with this ASIC after it's useless. Maybe another SHA256 currency? Maybe it's worth anything after all?

Each BFL chip is currently rated for 7.5Ghps. If 100k chips were to be mining, it would add 750 Terahash to the network. Difficulty would be 30x what it is now. And that does not include the chips coming from the other vendors. Not all 100k chips are yet bought, so deployment will not be 'instantaneous'.

750 TH and that's just BFL's.  Be more with the other ASIC vendors as well.  Also, with the reward drop, that's 30x what it is going be like tomorrow.  More like 60x (you'll be getting half as much per hash) difficulty jump compared to where it is right now today.

[AndreyE]

And how long with 100x difficulty it is more to mine 90-95% of all the bitcoins?

[Epoch]

And how long with 100x difficulty it is more to mine 90-95% of all the bitcoins?

The bitcoin protocol automatically adjusts difficulty every 2016 blocks (about 2 weeks) so that, on average, 1 block is mined every 10 minutes. The difficulty is adjusted based on average network hashrate.

If the difficulty increases 100x it just means that if you mine 1 BTC/day now, you will mine 0.01 BTC/day; in other words a 100x difficulty increase means there are 100x more miners than there were before to share in the pie. But blocks will be mined at the same rate as they always have, and always will: 1 block per 10 minutes (on average).

10M BTC have been mined in the past 4 years. In the next 4 years there will be 5M BTC mined. In the following 4 years there will be 2.5M BTC mined. And so on, halving every 4 years, until 21M BTC have been mined (decades from now). This rate is unaffected by network hashrate or difficulty.

The first halving happens tomorrow. After tomorrow, your daily mining income will be cut in half (assuming difficulty stays the same). Many GPU miners will become unprofitable (i.e. their electricity costs will be greater than their miing income).

[AndreyE]

And there is no protection from a new online currency rising? Any moment bitcoin might cost zero, because some other @more advanced@ currency is out, e.g. SHA-2048 ^))

[bitmar]

If they were going to take everyone's money and run, it would have been done a long time ago.  They are very likely losing money by having to give out refunds vs the number of new orders they might be taking in.

I am really sorry about BFL. I suggest all of us to send them some money so they can cover their loss and make some money on top? Or just to speed the proses up? We all know that long term winners are ASIC producers themselves. Right?  If i were one of you guy's who preordered almost half an year ago i will feel like i am badly F....D UP. The winners eventually will be the lucky ones from us which happen to have ASIC's delivered first. Actually i am starting to doubt about this also.

hardware manufacturers always win, forcing you to buy a new firmware, new improvements, new product generation.
BFL double wins, can earn by selling hardware and using it for mining. With your money making machine to make money. And for the year, they will force you to bought the second generation. This is a good business All this is hypothetical because there is no guarantee that they will succeed.