Any update on these FPGA boards?

[Ruxum]

What do you think the cost to develop a commercial FPGA and/or ASIC solution would cost? Perhaps some engineers should put their heads together and come up with realistic specs, an open source design, and the software to run it. I don't see that happening, and unless someone decides to invest a few hundred thousand dollars into specialized equipment, and the time to sell specialty FPGA and/or ASIC Mining devices, I don't think it's going to happen.

Once a fully working and bug free FPGA design is ready it will take this to move to full ASIC production.  (from what I understand about it so far).

cost - $200k - $1.5MM
time - 6 - 18 months

So you have to find an investor who believes in Bitcoin enough to trust your estimates for difficulty in 6-18 months, and you'd have to ensure that you weren't late to market with a unit or units that were already behind the curve, right?

If Bitcoin continues down the road it's on, then yes - there will be dedicated ASIC bitmining units sold commercially. However, it's a long road from here to there.

Yes, it would be a risky investment of capital and time for sure.   

[||bit]

Um I haven't done any math yet. I'm just thinking in concepts. Long term, obviously, efficiency is gonna trump raw hashing power. The less efficient miners are gonna start dropping out.

Can I copy what you came up with? That's good.

I'm not an FPGA person, but have a few questions that might help get a trajectory on all this...
Are logic cells and LUT's equivalent in quanity? That is, do they come one for one within an FPGA board?
What number of logic cells do you think is need to acquire 100MH/s?

Finally...

Do you have any idea's on the actual costs of these below items? To include the super cluster?
I can not find any pricing information:

http://www.picocomputing.com/ex_series.html

http://www.linera.com.tr/temsilcilikler/pico-computing

BTW: I think you made a very valid point earlier about the fact that even though the boards would cost more, that you could run them with less hardware. Many USB ports can be run from one computer (even with a GPU or two on the MoBo  ). The extra cost may be saved, in part at least, by the non need to purchase extra fans, larger power supplies, mother boards....etc... not to mention the power savings with FPGA. A comprehensive cost analysis would be beneficial. Knowing what hidden costs might exist in scaling would be interesting. For example, any costs to modify electrical or coolings systems for expanding to more GPU rigs.

[newMeat1]

Yes, it would be a risky investment of capital and time for sure.   

Yeah, ASIC would probably be pretty steep. I don't have any experience with it, but I imagine...

FPGA is really cheap to get going, on the other hand, if you have the skills. The first prototype is gonna cost me $500. I'm soldering it in a $30 dollar toaster oven    And I plan on selling small batches, maybe 5-6 a week, just to make a modest profit. Someday maybe it will be bigger than that, we'll see.

I may be looking for some help with this, down the road. This might be too early to even think about, but I'm gonna be busy soon.  So, if it works and takes off, I could use some assembly help

[Jonathan Ryan Owens]

Yes, it would be a risky investment of capital and time for sure.  

Yeah, ASIC would probably be pretty steep. I don't have any experience with it, but I imagine...

FPGA is really cheap to get going, on the other hand, if you have the skills. The first prototype is gonna cost me $500. I'm soldering it in a $30 dollar toaster oven    And I plan on selling small batches, maybe 5-6 a week, just to make a modest profit. Someday maybe it will be bigger than that, we'll see

What are the specs of your first prototype? What do you see the specs of your 5-6 a week being, and at what cost? Would a larger upfront purchase of parts yield you a significant cost savings?

[||bit]

What do you think the cost to develop a commercial FPGA and/or ASIC solution would cost? Perhaps some engineers should put their heads together and come up with realistic specs, an open source design, and the software to run it. I don't see that happening, and unless someone decides to invest a few hundred thousand dollars into specialized equipment, and the time to sell specialty FPGA and/or ASIC Mining devices, I don't think it's going to happen.

Once a fully working and bug free FPGA design is ready it will take this to move to full ASIC production.  (from what I understand about it so far).

cost - $200k - $1.5MM
time - 6 - 18 months

So you have to find an investor who believes in Bitcoin enough to trust your estimates for difficulty in 6-18 months, and you'd have to ensure that you weren't late to market with a unit or units that were already behind the curve, right?

If Bitcoin continues down the road it's on, then yes - there will be dedicated ASIC bitmining units sold commercially. However, it's a long road from here to there.

Regarding being behind the curve. If the design was compact, efficient, and modular for scalability, then it seems it wouldn't be a major concern about subsequent designs or technology (except maybe quantum computers  ).  As I understand it, the FPGA circuits would all be executing the same process in many parallel paths within the circuitry anyway. Scaling it simply by some modular means seems most attainable from a layman's viewpoint.

[Gregers]

You can also get FPGAs mounted on boards with all kinds of interface options, USB and whatnot, ready-made from the manufacturers and those are really easy to program if you want to do it yourself. They're more expensive, though, since you're paying for all the extra hardware as well as the FPGA, but updating and sharing the algorithm would be a walk in the park. Should be great for people who already own an FPGA board, or people who want to get one anyway for the reprogrammability.

[Roodemol]

Hi,

has already someone spent some time to create a list with the various FPGA boards that are available, the cost of the board and the maximum hash hash rate?

[Asymptote]

Has anyone started a company to professionally produce these? Not like a huge mega venture but just something small and professional?

[nmat]

Has anyone started a company to professionally produce these? Not like a huge mega venture but just something small and professional?

See here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=37904.0

[Entropia]

Has anyone started a company to professionally produce these? Not like a huge mega venture but just something small and professional?

I don't think that's going to happen very soon... Individuals may order batches of even tens of mining boards but a whole company? That sounds too risky to me, atleast.

[Roodemol]

Has anyone started a company to professionally produce these? Not like a huge mega venture but just something small and professional?

I don't think that's going to happen very soon... Individuals may order batches of even tens of mining boards but a whole company? That sounds too risky to me, atleast.

The market is to small for a dedicatet commercial "FPGA mining board".