I've finally got a chance to read the forum in detail after leaving for awhile, now ( around 3am), before having to catch a flight around 7am in the morning. I must say the FUD surrounding the current state of ASICs is unbelievable.
I think the next official update is us shipping out a device. needless to say, we are at the end and is pretty busy at the moment, soon major team members are actually going to stay and live in the factory housing for a few days to make sure everything works out smoothly.
I do not think we will be providing any power consumption/hashrate prior to shipping the units because we will be tweaking the numbers until we feel it's ready. Soon as we ship everything will become clear.
I've began to question the literacy of the people in this forum. I left a clear message in the Avalon thread. I quote, "team members are going to stay and live in the factories to make sure everything work out smoothly". I, ngzhang and others then left to commit to work whilst giving everyone a
clear countdown timer to the
exact scheduled shipping date. What do I see in the Avalon thread when I come back?
FUD.In addition, I've also stated "we will not be providing any information until we ship" simply because we feel the strongest argument is an
demonstration by a third-party customer, it doesn't even take the intelligence of a three year old to question the legitimacy of any pictures we provide; real or not, (
maybe the same reason BFL_Josh said why he couldn't take any photos to the packaging facility he visited this month) and frankly speaking, I do not have any time to play babysitter like Inaba from BFL coaxing the community telling them
"next week(s)" or by downplaying the direness of their situation in December and then proceed to have the audacity to announce a month later in January the fact that they switched from QFN packaging to BGA. It is important to know that is
not possible to switch packaging
after you have tape-out the chip.
Maybe Inaba; you were being left in the dark about all this. Since often you are waiting for a third-party to provide you "fuzzy" dates, from a foundry no less; any respectable foundry will give you an projection date and a expected date with difference not greater than a few days, because making ASCIs are pretty much an exact science. Just like the fact you didn't know the
die photo you posted was blacken-out rather than it being
"dense", it is not like it takes a genius to figure out BFL's 16 hashcore pipeline design. I wish you the best of luck Josh, for that moment when another third-party tells you another "fuzzy" date or an actual delay: You will be taking the blame, despite of being a good secretary and is in fact not guilty.
Anyways, the real question I wish to raise to the community is the following
What constitute the difference between a delay and fraud. When does a delay or the failure to meet expectations cross the line into a scam?
Delays are a common occurrence in start-ups. As frequent backer on Kickstarter and a project manager I experience delays first hand. When does a delay become an fraudulent event however is not defined clearly in an especially time sensitives market such as ASIC mining equipment? Is it one month? two, three, or even four month? what type of delay hold their merit? Chinese New Year, Custom Import problems, Chip testing and configuration, assembly time; All these are real and
possible problems one may face in electronics manufacturing. Where do we draw the line? When is "few weeks later" not good enough?
Let's then look at performance. Where is the line there? History has shown BFL was not labeled as fraud when they failed to reach their advertised FPGA of 1000Mh/s & 20W release, but instead a 830Mh/s & 80w. Does this mean Avalon can release a product with 50Gh/s and not be a scam? Does it mean BFL can continue this trend and continue to release products with higher power consumption than advertised?
What does the community think?
