[In Dev] 28nm mining FPGA (Amateur)

[gmaxwell]

Avalon is selling chips in bulk at much cheaper prices.
It seems the only benefit of FPGA, for now, is that it can be re-used for other applications, and thus have resale value (whereas ASIC's will be trash if faced with some kind of catastrophic failure of bitcoin). Also, FPGA's delivery time might be better - shouldn't be too difficult to beat any of the ASIC developers at this time.

I can most likely have 1000 pcs of artix on my doorstep tomorrow morning. The same is not true for Avalon— AFAIK they've not given much in the way of dates, but it looks like their pipeline is a couple months long (though hopefully shortening).  Re-usability is a benefit. It's not the only one.

[||bit]

Avalon is selling chips in bulk at much cheaper prices.
It seems the only benefit of FPGA, for now, is that it can be re-used for other applications, and thus have resale value (whereas ASIC's will be trash if faced with some kind of catastrophic failure of bitcoin). Also, FPGA's delivery time might be better - shouldn't be too difficult to beat any of the ASIC developers at this time.

I can most likely have 1000 pcs of artix on my doorstep tomorrow morning. The same is not true for Avalon— AFAIK they've not given much in the way of dates, but it looks like their pipeline is a couple months long (though hopefully shortening).  Re-usability is a benefit. It's not the only one.

What I think will be great is if chip makers were to make FPGA's super cheap. Perhaps, there are some technologies on the horizon that will enable them to do that. I'd love to see a paradigm shift back to FPGA. Paradigm shifts are entertaining to watch unfold.

[Epicblood]

Avalon is selling chips in bulk at much cheaper prices.
It seems the only benefit of FPGA, for now, is that it can be re-used for other applications, and thus have resale value (whereas ASIC's will be trash if faced with some kind of catastrophic failure of bitcoin). Also, FPGA's delivery time might be better - shouldn't be too difficult to beat any of the ASIC developers at this time.

I can most likely have 1000 pcs of artix on my doorstep tomorrow morning. The same is not true for Avalon— AFAIK they've not given much in the way of dates, but it looks like their pipeline is a couple months long (though hopefully shortening).  Re-usability is a benefit. It's not the only one.

What I think will be great is if chip makers were to make FPGA's super cheap. Perhaps, there are some technologies on the horizon that will enable them to do that. I'd love to see a paradigm shift back to FPGA. Paradigm shifts are entertaining to watch unfold.

well, in theory, I can get xilinx chips at about half price (free if only a few)
So I could make this fairly cheap, probably still not cheap enough to beat ASIC however.
Also, on a related note, what sort of software is out there to design a case?

[pheaonix]

epic is lucky cause he has the fpga hook up.

fpgas normally aren't in cases. harder to cool.

[meowmeowbrowncow]

If memory serves me I believe Xilinx offers an 'Easy Path' program that would hardwire the bitstream and lower per chip cost.  Turn around time is 2 months.

But re-usability is lost.

[phk]

Also, on a related note, what sort of software is out there to design a case?

I realize you're doing it for fun, but better to devote your energies elsewhere.
Just buy a standard case.  Mouser has a pretty good selection.

[6135870]

@Epicblood I'm selling my gpu rig, I feel its obsolete and inefficient. If you are producing a cost-effective fpga unit, I'm interested.

EDIT:how can asics be more cost affective then fpga? I'd rather spend ~$400 on a 1Gh/s fpga miner than 5K asic.

[chrisp]

I've taken a look at compiling the Hashvoodoo and similar bitstreams on Kintex/Artix platforms.  I'm relatively less known on this forum so take from it what you will.  Even if you assume a 3-4X speed-up which I haven't been able to obtain with some knowledgable effort, it would be difficult to equal the Avalon effort.

For quotes with the spartan-6 largest part, a quote for ~100 parts would obtain a roughly ~1/2 - 2/3 price discount from digikey/avnet(150-160/unit) prices.  For 1000, you can expect a roughly 1/3 price discount.  So despite a 1/3 discount you are still looking at a price roughly 10X the price of a similar Avalon chip (even from a bulk order with resale.)  Obtaining a ~1-2 million dollar quote price may drop you into the teens, but at that point developing an asic yourself is a better idea.

Easypath devices require a 300k upfront investment, which is relatively unlikely / unprofitable for an FPGA based solution at this point.

Assuming similar bulk pricing for a kintex/artix, you are still looking at a ~50$/part sale for a device providing ~500-750 Mh/s, not exactly competitive.  This also accompanies higher board cost for a higher pincount part, as well as higher power consumption necessitating increased power supply on the PCB.

Sadly it is difficult to say FPGAs will be profitable in the long-term for new buyers.  Short-term however, it all depends on the ability of Avalon / BFL to deliver on said chips.

[fpgaminer]

Sadly it is difficult to say FPGAs will be profitable in the long-term for new buyers.  Short-term however, it all depends on the ability of Avalon / BFL to deliver on said chips.

I completely agree that FPGAs will never rival ASICs in terms of profitability.  Even when FPGA miners were being sold, their up-front costs were higher than GPU rigs.  However, the most important role Bitcoin miners play in this world, above all else, is securing the network.  The entire Bitcoin ecosystem will collapse without a hardy foundation of mining equipment and miners.  Personally, I don't want the future of Bitcoin to be held only in the hands of a few companies that manufacturer mining ASICs, regardless of their intentions.  Having FPGA-based mining software and hardware available is, as I see it, at least a "plan B."  Diversity is a good thing.

[chrisp]

I completely agree with you, especially regards to diversifying the network, but this is a similar paradigm shift.  At the current point you would be hard pressed to find someone encouraging CPU mining to secure the network.

Assuming you can take a Kintex-7 from Xilinx.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/XC7K160T-2FBG484C/122-1842-ND/3911021 - current price 227.50.

Let's assume you can get it for a 1/10 price discount in volume of many 10's of 1000.00s
~23$

Let's say you dedicate 300,000 dollars to develop an easy path device and eliminate 30% of costs.

~15$

Let's then assume you can tweak the bitstream to get 500 Mh/s (highly optimistic)

You are still looking at 30$/Ghash compared to ~5$/Ghash from a similar ASIC(avalon) system for the chip only.  Again, board costs will be higher.

You'll notice the bulk spartan 6 orders never went below ~200$/chip, even from established volume providers like Enterpoint.

I wish FPGAs were a good long-term option, I have many and love them!

[fpgaminer]

I wish FPGAs were a good long-term option, I have many and love them!

Yeah

You are still looking at 30$/Ghash compared to ~5$/Ghash from a similar ASIC(avalon) system for the chip only.

Hmm? At $70USD/BTC, Avalon's ASICs currently cost $19.85USD per GH/s, and require 3.63 chips per GH/s.  And to be honest, with some effort, I think we can squeeze 1GH/s out of an Artix-7 200.  Though Artix-7 aren't EasyPath chips ...

On the other hand, FPGAs will always use more power than ASICs, so they will lose that war regardless.

[Epicblood]

Seeing as I want to let people have the ability to recode/re-purpose their FPGAs I won't be using easypath.
But I appreciate all the input.

[chrisp]

I wish FPGAs were a good long-term option, I have many and love them!

Yeah

You are still looking at 30$/Ghash compared to ~5$/Ghash from a similar ASIC(avalon) system for the chip only.

Hmm? At $70USD/BTC, Avalon's ASICs currently cost $19.85USD per GH/s, and require 3.63 chips per GH/s.  And to be honest, with some effort, I think we can squeeze 1GH/s out of an Artix-7 200.  Though Artix-7 aren't EasyPath chips ...

On the other hand, FPGAs will always use more power than ASICs, so they will lose that war regardless.

Absolutely right!  You are looking at closer to 20$/Gh/s , my math error, instead of 5$/chip.

I would love to see 1Gh/sec out of the Artix 200K fpga!  Optimistically, from our experiences with the proprietary fastest bitstreams with isolated multiple hashers, I would say 600-700 Mhash/sec is the likely fastest we will see.  In the months it would likely take to develop a 1Ghash/sec bitstream we will likely continue to see ongoing asic shipments, the availability of Avalon chip only asics, and the likely shipment of a BFL device, and other competing hardware.

Tough war to win.  I still love my Spartan 3E-500 dev kit bitcoin aside   My cairnsmores are still happily churning away by the fireplace

[Epicblood]

I wish FPGAs were a good long-term option, I have many and love them!

Yeah

You are still looking at 30$/Ghash compared to ~5$/Ghash from a similar ASIC(avalon) system for the chip only.

Hmm? At $70USD/BTC, Avalon's ASICs currently cost $19.85USD per GH/s, and require 3.63 chips per GH/s.  And to be honest, with some effort, I think we can squeeze 1GH/s out of an Artix-7 200.  Though Artix-7 aren't EasyPath chips ...

On the other hand, FPGAs will always use more power than ASICs, so they will lose that war regardless.

Absolutely right!  You are looking at closer to 20$/Gh/s , my math error, instead of 5$/chip.

I would love to see 1Gh/sec out of the Artix 200K fpga!  Optimistically, from our experiences with the proprietary fastest bitstreams with isolated multiple hashers, I would say 600-700 Mhash/sec is the likely fastest we will see.  In the months it would likely take to develop a 1Ghash/sec bitstream we will likely continue to see ongoing asic shipments, the availability of Avaolon chip only asics, and the likely shipment of a BFL device, and other competing hardware.

Tough war to win.  I still love my Spartan 3E-500 dev kit bitcoin aside

the 1 GH/s is an estimate based on the numbers FPGAMiner posted (this FPGA is using 2 chips, not just one)

[spiccioli]

  My cairnsmores are still happily churning away by the fireplace

chrisp,

speaking of cairnsmores, did you succeed in running the tricone bitstream on them?

spiccioli

[Epicblood]

Updated with some estimates

[shibaji]

+1 watching

[alexuk]

+1 watching too

[evilscoop]

very interesting, another person watching here
can wait to see some prototypes

[E3V3A]

Pretty cool -- I'd love to see a walkthrough/narrative of what you've done (that is to say, once you've arrived where you want to) to get fpgaminer up and running on the ML605. I'd be keen on picking up one of those boards to muck around with, but would be a little more confident with a primer.

Double that!

@Epicblood:  Please post any relevant links to where we can get the parts needed to follow you on this project! Apicture or two of you current setup would also help.