[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Development Status [Batch #1]

[BitSyncom]

If 2 of your main competitors, BFL and bASIC, are both far enough along into the process of getting ASICs into customers hands as they say they are, then what are your concerns about publicizing this information? It's too late in the game for them to really steal any ideas from you, isn't it?

If, then indeed. They are scheduled to ship before us anyways, I am fortunately enough to have the option to wait and see.

[loshia]

If 2 of your main competitors, BFL and bASIC, are both far enough along into the process of getting ASICs into customers hands as they say they are, then what are your concerns about publicizing this information? It's too late in the game for them to really steal any ideas from you, isn't it?

Who says so? You or them? It may turn out that they are far behind at the end. Please leave Avalon team to work and stop losing their time with pictures and stuff. A picture, 3d rendering does not prove anything at all at least for me

[bcpokey]

If 2 of your main competitors, BFL and bASIC, are both far enough along into the process of getting ASICs into customers hands as they say they are, then what are your concerns about publicizing this information? It's too late in the game for them to really steal any ideas from you, isn't it?

Who says so? You or them? It may turn out that they are far behind at the end. Please leave Avalon team to work and stop losing their time with pictures and stuff. A picture, 3d rendering does not prove anything at all at least for me

Takes like 20 minutes to take some good pictures, and provides people with days/weeks of things to talk about, drool over, and be satisfied with. I suppose in a perfect world everyone would both have the hype and high energy to throw thousands of dollars into an unknown pit, but also the calm and patience to not need any kind of reassurance that they didn't get ripped to kingdom come, but let's just deal with things as they are yes?

[Fcx35x10]

looking good, keep us posted. i can't wait to see actual hardware pictures when they ship out

[BitSyncom]

Takes like 20 minutes to take some good pictures, and provides people with days/weeks of things to talk about, drool over, and be satisfied with. I suppose in a perfect world everyone would both have the hype and high energy to throw thousands of dollars into an unknown pit, but also the calm and patience to not need any kind of reassurance that they didn't get ripped to kingdom come, but let's just deal with things as they are yes?

How can one be satisfied with something they don't even understand what they are looking at? I am personally being some what cautious of my competition because few oddities they have demonstrated...

[Aseras]

Would it be possible to get a pic or render of what the device is going to look like? Don't need anything fancy or details of the internals. Just how it looks on the outside so I can plan decorating my office with them

[abeaulieu]

Takes like 20 minutes to take some good pictures, and provides people with days/weeks of things to talk about, drool over, and be satisfied with. I suppose in a perfect world everyone would both have the hype and high energy to throw thousands of dollars into an unknown pit, but also the calm and patience to not need any kind of reassurance that they didn't get ripped to kingdom come, but let's just deal with things as they are yes?

How can one be satisfied with something they don't even understand what they are looking at? I am personally being some what cautious of my competition because few oddities they have demonstrated...

Oddities like power consumption figures?

[BitSyncom]

Would it be possible to get a pic or render of what the device is going to look like? Don't need anything fancy or details of the internals. Just how it looks on the outside so I can plan decorating my office with them

It's a metal box! 375 x 375 x 150mm like I mentioned in a earlier reply As for color and finish, we may do a vote in 1-2 weeks and let the community decide.

Oddities like power consumption figures?

Not exactly, I've previously stated in the AMA month ago, their numbers are achievable, I have no reason to doubt them. I simply dislike their marketing approach of reporting the numbers in the "best-possible" scenario as oppose to giving conservative estimates and work their way down via process of elimination and testing.

I must say, the following criticism is purely my personal opinion, and often at times I feel it is not my place as a competitor representative to point these things out as they will not be presented as intended. although in this case I'm sure others with knowledge of IC design will agree with the following musings.

Code:

bASIC had mentioned how they have the ASIC(chips) but do not have the PCB.

This is very odd to me, in IC design cycles, a Tapeout takes about 1~2 month, and during this time you can't do anything besides waiting for the foundry, usually you do everything else you can to get rest of the hardware ready so when you receive your chips you can finish your product immediately. Sure there maybe possible delays but bASIC has stated they have had the chips for quiet some time, how can PCB take so long?

Code:

BFL shows pictures of board, that seem is completed but won't do demonstrations, or invite Kano / Yochdog to the in house viewing

If you have everything why wouldn't you show off a working product, it is easiest way to convince the public and and future potential buyers. Does it mean it didn't work? Recently I also found out BFL had at least 1 revision of the chip. This raised a red flag right away, it means they had to either perform Metal Fix a, Gate Fix, or even worst a RTL Fix. This also means that there was a problem with the previous revision, and since BFL have yet to receive the new chips. We may never know if those chips on the pictures even worked.

This is why I said how can one be satisfied with something they don't even understand what they are looking at.

[punin]

Josh has stated on BFL forums that the chips in the pics were non-functional dummy chips.

[MrTeal]

Josh has stated on BFL forums that the chips in the pics were non-functional dummy chips.

According to Josh, they had some sort of issue with refraction on their first mask set.

[BitSyncom]

Josh has stated on BFL forums that the chips in the pics were non-functional dummy chips.

According to Josh, they had some sort of issue with refraction on their first mask set.

Source? I apologize if this was common knowledge, I was under the impression they were functional.

[MrTeal]

Josh has stated on BFL forums that the chips in the pics were non-functional dummy chips.

According to Josh, they had some sort of issue with refraction on their first mask set.

Source? I apologize if this was common knowledge, I was under the impression they were functional.

There is no visual difference between the Little Single and the Single. They are virtually the same except for the number of chips.

As for why the delay, if the November issue of Bitcoin Magazine would come out it would make a lot more sense.  Bottom line is, our chips are the most advanced chips by a wide, wide, margin compared to any other offering.  Because of that, the design has taken longer than expected.  Our process node also blows away any of the toy offerings from the other vendors and we had to deal with some unexpected refraction issues that needed to be addressed.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/showthread.php/251-More-Jalapeno-Pictures-amp-Shipping-Update?p=3906&viewfull=1#post3906

He's previously posted that the chips aren't functional on their forums, but it's getting hard to find anything there, the search function sucks.

[eldentyrell]

Hi, could you please post your die size so I can list your product's η-factor?  BFL has posted all the information needed to compute theirs.

Have you had a chance to post these figures?

[BitSyncom]

Hi, could you please post your die size so I can list your product's η-factor?  BFL has posted all the information needed to compute theirs.

Have you had a chance to post these figures?

Yes, awhile ago.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120184.msg1323704#msg1323704

[Mikej0h]

For anyone that's interested, it looks like there are 3 units left in the store that will ship with the first batch.

avalon-asic.com

I was one of the lucky bastards .
Bought last of shelf, however it could be more are coming if people not paying for their ASIC.

[BitSyncom]

Addressing the recent bASIC 33% performance increase and shipping delays:

For long we at Avalon have predicted the possibility of a price/hash war happening due to competition; after all, we fired the first shot by announce our device at 50% performance increase than the rest of the field initially.

If 2 of your main competitors, BFL and bASIC, are both far enough along into the process of getting ASICs into customers hands as they say they are, then what are your concerns about publicizing this information? It's too late in the game for them to really steal any ideas from you, isn't it?

If, then indeed. They are scheduled to ship before us anyways, I am fortunately enough to have the option to wait and see.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about, now bASIC has announced they are increasing the chip count on the board, and there is possibility the engineers have to redesign their board, so are they really far along the process? Like I previously mentioned,  I am fortunately enough to have the option to wait and see.

Disregard, this information no longer apply. To provide a better explanation, we used a modular design so the number of chips on the Unit is not yet final, we are still playing around the numbers to get the best power consumption vs. hash-rate.

I have also previously mentioned due to the nature of our unit design and the fact we are due to ship after our competitors, we have time to play around with our numbers. In fact, I particularly scheduled for if something like this to happen, we still have time and can ship without delays.

and Lastly, the following still holds true.

It sounds like you have a number of undisclosed features, correct?

This is correct.

[PuertoLibre]

Is it safe to say "the Avalon device is no where near its maximum performance at the current 66Gh/s"?

Is there still quite a lot of headroom to play with?

Any idea of when the next email update (#5)  may occur?

[BitSyncom]

Any idea of when the next email update (#5)  may occur?

Soon as in probably within the next week. we want to address some of the uncertainty when it comes to ASICs.

[BitSyncom]

No delays to see here.
 
To offer some more detail on the next update, we wish to address the uncertainty the community's been having about if the ASICs are even real, mostly due to our competition failing to meet the deadlines. Recently it has been happening more often in which I had to defend the Avalon image from general statements on ASICs are delayed again and other false accusations.

In this light, we have contacted our foundry, TSMC and Fujitsu who is handling our chip packaging to provide a copy of our original contracts with them to produce the Avalon ASICs. We hope this will provide some comfort and trust with our potential customers.

Again, the reason we do not wish to release pictures such as our board design and such is purely for competitive reasons, especially now that we known bASIC has yet to complete their board.

Our demonstration is still scheduled to happen around the end of the year, then soon 1-2 weeks after the demo, Shipping will begin.

[PuertoLibre]

Question:

Does your team [Avalon] currently possess a prototype that is currently functional at this time? (not a simulation, but a working prototype?)

Second Follow up Question:

If so, does the device work as expected? Are there any known flaws or issues with the underlying hardware at this time?