BFL silent these past days?

[REF]

Anyone know what the warranty was for the FPGA single? I emailed them about mine on Tuesday this week, the power supply died. Haven't received any helpful information at all in the forums either. Plus finding out I can't do an upgrade any more makes it even more of a facepalm for me. I received it on November 2nd 2012 I believe... warranty has to be good still right? 

FPGAs use to have a 6month warranty. Future asic products are lifetime. Im not sure if the fpga warrarnty has changed since they were first released but im positive it use to be 6 months.

[1714140204]

1714140204

[Phinnaeus Gage]

6,000 sq/ft facility, 22+ (and growing) employees, and one bathroom.

[jspielberg]

I cancelled my order with BFL when Avalon put out batch 3 orders... but could the silence be that they are preparing to ship? 

Reverse psychology perhaps? 

When they have absolutely nothing, they are updating like crazy about all their progress.  Now that they are updating nothing... maybe they are actually making progress?  It seems like we are starting to see some suspicious activity on Josh's Pool and then there is Luke's development miner on eligius.

I guess either way it doesn't really matter... but seems like as good a way as any to pass the time until Avalon start shipping out their next two batches.

[repentance]

I think I read they have at least 85000 asic --- the asic works ok but use more power than expected --- they need to find a easy design solution to the problem --- note these asic use less than 50% power  of avalon (bfl asic will be better in long term - less power ) --- so design may end up in a much larger case with bigger power supply

Nope.  Their entire gen 1 first run was supposed to total 75,000 chips.  They split the first batch of 12,000 into 2 and had 6 wafers delivered while the last few layers of the 2nd 6 were held back in case they ran into problems.  The bulk order of 63,000 was supposed to go into production a few weeks after the whole 12 wafers from batch 1 were delivered but there's been no confirmation that order has gone ahead. 

It looks like they're going to use what's already in production to fill early orders and that the bulk order will now be use for a revised design.

[Cablez]

So what are they going to do with the second set of wafers then considering they ran into rather large issues? Would that be a scrap?

[CoinHoarder]

I stopped by the BFL office unannounced on Friday with my video camera to record the details.

It seems they were on break time.. I must say I am disturbed at what I saw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78LAgl90UyM

[repentance]

So what are they going to do with the second set of wafers then considering they ran into rather large issues? Would that be a scrap?

No-one knows.

The 5,000 chips they have on hand (suspected to be 4,000 now because wafer 2 is the one which returned the crappy power results) won't fill very many orders.  The next 6 wafers were supposed to be completed once testing was completed on the first 6 but no-one seems to be talking about when they'll be completed any more (it was supposed to be only a few weeks after the first 6 wafers were done).

Perhaps more importantly, no-one's talking about the bulk order for 63,000 chips - from which the majority of pre-orders were likely going to be filled.

This leaves a lot of uncertainty about when customers who ordered after August can expect delivery because it doesn't sound like they're going to have the chips on hand to fill those orders any time soon even if they can manage to get sub-spec units out to June/July pre-orders in the next month.

I think people who are hanging in hoping that BFL will ship "soon" are assuming that once they start shipping everything will be fine.  But BFL has actually said nothing recently which suggests that they have enough components on hand to fill anything except the very early pre-orders.  Those with orders placed after August really need to start asking questions about what's happening with the bulk chips because delivery of their orders could still be months away even if June/July orders get filled soon.

They should also know with absolute certainty by now how many of each unit they are going to produce from batch 1 (which affects the likelihood of a particular order being filled from batch 1 because of their stupid 1/3 shipping plan), but that's something else they're not disclosing.

[Cablez]

These guys really are a pair of clown shoes.

[pheaonix]

i really wish bfl didn't lie so much.

if they didn't have these "ship dates" then tom might not have given up and we might've been able to get a good product from him.

[hardpick]

I think I read they have at least 85000 asic --- the asic works ok but use more power than expected --- they need to find a easy design solution to the problem --- note these asic use less than 50% power  of avalon (bfl asic will be better in long term - less power ) --- so design may end up in a much larger case with bigger power supply

Nope.  Their entire gen 1 first run was supposed to total 75,000 chips.  They split the first batch of 12,000 into 2 and had 6 wafers delivered while the last few layers of the 2nd 6 were held back in case they ran into problems.  The bulk order of 63,000 was supposed to go into production a few weeks after the whole 12 wafers from batch 1 were delivered but there's been no confirmation that order has gone ahead. 

It looks like they're going to use what's already in production to fill early orders and that the bulk order will now be use for a revised design.

Thanks for clearing that up

[mezzomix]

if they didn't have these "ship dates" then tom might not have given up and we might've been able to get a good product from him.

I don't think so. I finally received my refund, but the way Tom handled this project I doubt that we would have seen a working miner anytime soon.

[cdog]

We will hear something this week I am predicting, and its likely to even have an effect on BTC price if the news is positive.

[Bitsaurus]

Silence is Golden (for Avalon owners and ASICMiner share holders).

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I am so stupid! I just realized why we didn't see 22+ people in the video. The film crew was only there for the first shift, thus two more videos are expected from Camp BFL, depicting the going-ons during the second and third shift.

Today's riddle:

What does Josh say first thing in the morning went he greets the assemblers?
Hola.
What is he thinking when he says it?
Hijos de puta.

[Logik]

We will hear something this week I am predicting, and its likely to even have an effect on BTC price if the news is positive.

We've been hearing something 'good' every week since January.

I suspect that we will continue to hear good things in all the following weeks from now.

I don't think we'll see any actual progress apart from more prototyping 

[creativex]

We've I've been hearing something 'good' every week since January.

I suspect that we will continue to hear good things in all the following weeks from now.

I don't think we'll see any actual progress apart from more prototyping  

FTFY

We've been hearing good things about this project since last June.

[mezzomix]

Unfortunately I did not pay money to hear things from BFL but to receive a product.

[repentance]

We will hear something this week I am predicting, and its likely to even have an effect on BTC price if the news is positive.

The same amount of BTC are mined every day regardless of whether they're mined with ASICs or not and regardless of difficulty.  BFL (or any other ASIC vendor) delivering in quantity will increase the overall network hashrate and reduce the profitability of existing hardware, but it's not going to affect the overall supply of BTC or demand for them.

[Gator-hex]

Cute, that is the single in the back row: Two mini single connected together with a water block  

The dual waterblock unit is 2 FPGA's sandwiched together,not ASIC's.The one with the black"clamp" thing on it may be an ASIC,can't see from this angle.

God,I hope they ship soon  

For those that don't know, the image is a screen grab from the, Butterfly Labs Company Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSu5Yyc1bEM

[yxt]

silent --> huge unresolvable problems ...