What are the chances Bfl. Basic. Avalon. Etc use the same gear?

[psilan]

Possible?
Same pcb/chip maker, all hitting similar specs.

[crazyates]

They're not all the same specs. We know the SC Single is 60GH/s @ ~60W, with 8 chips. That's 7.5GH/s @ ~7W per chip.

As for all the other manufacturers, it's unknown how many chips they will each use, and at what power consumption.

[ChipGeek]

Very unlikely in my opinion.

[quasarbtc]

Odd that they all came in with a 60 GH/s model. Is there a magic marketing reason for this value?

[regular]

60 first cropped up probably because the Avalon  makers wanted a 50% boost over BFL's initial single offering.

[Desolator]

Considering that Intel facilities cost about $40 billion each and smaller chip manufacturers aren't all that much cheaper, I'd say the odds that the same chip fabricator is making all of their chips is approximately 100%.

[mufa23]

I'd say about tree fiddy

[crazyates]

Considering that Intel facilities cost about $40 billion each and smaller chip manufacturers aren't all that much cheaper, I'd say the odds that the same chip fabricator is making all of their chips is approximately 100%.

You're gonna compare Intel to BFL? BFL only makes a handful of products, and  they all use the same chip. Cablepair only makes 2 products, and they both use the same chips.

[thebaron]

Considering that Intel facilities cost about $40 billion each and smaller chip manufacturers aren't all that much cheaper, I'd say the odds that the same chip fabricator is making all of their chips is approximately 100%.

You're gonna compare Intel to BFL? BFL only makes a handful of products, and  they all use the same chip. Cablepair only makes 2 products, and they both use the same chips.

They're also on the cutting edge of technology. The manufacturing process that is being used for the ASIC chips is several generations old.

[abeaulieu]

Considering that Intel facilities cost about $40 billion each and smaller chip manufacturers aren't all that much cheaper, I'd say the odds that the same chip fabricator is making all of their chips is approximately 100%.

You're gonna compare Intel to BFL? BFL only makes a handful of products, and  they all use the same chip. Cablepair only makes 2 products, and they both use the same chips.

He wasn't comparing BFL to Intel. He was saying that the production facilities that ASICs are made in are extremely expensive. Thus there aren't a huge amount of them (increasing odds), and there are even less of them that have the capability to do smaller lithography that they need to achieve the high density (further increasing odds). (that's at least how i interpreted it).

[Desolator]

I wasn't exactly comparing them, as BFL does not make chips.  They sort of implied they do but now they claim they weren't referring to the chips.  They admit their chips are made in Asia.  Taiwan if I'm not mistaken and that's where most of them are.  You can probably count the number of high end and/or custom chip manufacturing plants in the world on 2 hands.  It's just that they sell to one company that sells to another that sells to another that sells to BFL.  The same goes for Marvell and Phision and SiS and even Samsung for example.  I think maybe Nvidia owns their own chip fab plant but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually didn't.

[Sitarow]

I wasn't exactly comparing them, as BFL does not make chips.  They sort of implied they do but now they claim they weren't referring to the chips.  They admit their chips are made in Asia.  Taiwan if I'm not mistaken and that's where most of them are.  You can probably count the number of high end and/or custom chip manufacturing plants in the world on 2 hands.  It's just that they sell to one company that sells to another that sells to another that sells to BFL.  The same goes for Marvell and Phision and SiS and even Samsung for example.  I think maybe Nvidia owns their own chip fab plant but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually didn't.

Maybe the 2nd gen ASIC's will be "more" custom then these first gen.

[crazyates]

I wasn't exactly comparing them, as BFL does not make chips.  They sort of implied they do but now they claim they weren't referring to the chips.  They admit their chips are made in Asia.  Taiwan if I'm not mistaken and that's where most of them are.

Can you link to this new information? I havn't heard of anything like that.

[abeaulieu]

I wasn't exactly comparing them, as BFL does not make chips.  They sort of implied they do but now they claim they weren't referring to the chips.  They admit their chips are made in Asia.  Taiwan if I'm not mistaken and that's where most of them are.  You can probably count the number of high end and/or custom chip manufacturing plants in the world on 2 hands.  It's just that they sell to one company that sells to another that sells to another that sells to BFL.  The same goes for Marvell and Phision and SiS and even Samsung for example.  I think maybe Nvidia owns their own chip fab plant but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually didn't.

Maybe the 2nd gen ASIC's will be "more" custom then these first gen.

You typically don't have another generation unless you screw up. That's the point of ASICs. You hard wire everything within, create the masks and manufacturer processes and then you have incredibly complex chips that have a sizable upfront cost but very low production cost. Contrary to what a lot of people thing you can design ASICs to accept some parameters, which makes them in a way re-programmable (this is bounded by what you design into them though). It's also quite popular to include in the ASIC a processor like an Arm8 or something. (I don't think BFL is doing this based upon looking over the layout they released a couple weeks back).

[Borzoi]

I wasn't exactly comparing them, as BFL does not make chips.  They sort of implied they do but now they claim they weren't referring to the chips.  They admit their chips are made in Asia.  Taiwan if I'm not mistaken and that's where most of them are.  You can probably count the number of high end and/or custom chip manufacturing plants in the world on 2 hands.  It's just that they sell to one company that sells to another that sells to another that sells to BFL.  The same goes for Marvell and Phision and SiS and even Samsung for example.  I think maybe Nvidia owns their own chip fab plant but I wouldn't be surprised if they actually didn't.

Maybe the 2nd gen ASIC's will be "more" custom then these first gen.

You typically don't have another generation unless you screw up. That's the point of ASICs. You hard wire everything within, create the masks and manufacturer processes and then you have incredibly complex chips that have a sizable upfront cost but very low production cost. Contrary to what a lot of people thing you can design ASICs to accept some parameters, which makes them in a way re-programmable (this is bounded by what you design into them though). It's also quite popular to include in the ASIC a processor like an Arm8 or something. (I don't think BFL is doing this based upon looking over the layout they released a couple weeks back).

Not so much difficult.  Expense largely in size of die and count of layers.  Many runs of small size that use netlist can share common layers and only etch custom code in one layer.

Mask much simpler this way.  I do not think any of current makers have sales to do any method other than this.

This is most common of ways of making ASIC from FPGA prototype.  I do not think there has been enough time to create four or five layer mask just for mining bitcoins.  Is too expensive in start up costs to go that way.

Could be wrong.  It happen once before. 

[Inaba]

The probability is exactly zero that anyone but BFL is using our chips, since ours are 100% original proprietary IP.

[Testit]

Yes of course they are using different chips/pcb design. Why do you think all the hush hush is all about.

[psilan]

The probability is exactly zero that anyone but BFL is using our chips, since ours are 100% original proprietary IP.

100%? :-)

Yea, it is China...

[Inaba]

Yes, 100%

[Inaba]

Well, I guess that depends on what your definition of "all" is ... But for the commonly accepted definition of 100% original IP, I would say yes.