Klondike - 16 chip ASIC Open Source Board - Preliminary

[pinkfloyd11]

Hello
I have just finish to redesign K1 schematic for made it more clear to read.
But I need some help, so someone know how to contact
  Chris Savery
  Kano
  Steamboat

Thanks

[zipiju]

Just an update, still working on it. I've removed all the ASICs. The short is no longer present, so now I have to solder the spares back on.
Hopefully, it will be completed tomorrow (I'm leaving to work in about 45 minutes, so can't work on it now).
I also have modified firmware in hand, so I'll be able to test it right away

[QualitySeeds]

Just an update, still working on it. I've removed all the ASICs. The short is no longer present, so now I have to solder the spares back on.
Hopefully, it will be completed tomorrow (I'm leaving to work in about 45 minutes, so can't work on it now).
I also have modified firmware in hand, so I'll be able to test it right away

Thanks for the update hope it will work our :-) and can we speak sometime want to ask you a couple of questions PM or skype or other methods are welcome

[pinkfloyd11]

Hi
Have someone already successfully
tested nano board or K16 board?

About skype is a good idea because we could chat togheter and after post a summary on forum

[cardcomm]

Hello
I have just finish to redesign K1 schematic for made it more clear to read.
But I need some help, so someone know how to contact
  Chris Savery
  Kano
  Steamboat

Thanks

Kano is active here on the forum.

Chris and Steve (Steamboat), not so much. Although Steamboat has promised to begin our assembly refunds this week, so I'm holding my breath for him to show up 

[cdragon]

Just an update, still working on it. I've removed all the ASICs. The short is no longer present, so now I have to solder the spares back on.
Hopefully, it will be completed tomorrow (I'm leaving to work in about 45 minutes, so can't work on it now).
I also have modified firmware in hand, so I'll be able to test it right away

@zipiju

I have made two PCB(ver. K16s-1.0.1)

https://i.imgur.com/kjsifR1.jpg

I found mismatch Schematic and Partlist.
There are some errors in the Partlist.


 Part       Schematic  PartList
------------------------------
 R21        10K          390R
 R45,R46  390R         10K
 R22        100R         49K9
 R24,R25  1K            2K2
------------------------------

[zipiju]

Just an update, still working on it. I've removed all the ASICs. The short is no longer present, so now I have to solder the spares back on.
Hopefully, it will be completed tomorrow (I'm leaving to work in about 45 minutes, so can't work on it now).
I also have modified firmware in hand, so I'll be able to test it right away

@zipiju

I have made two PCB(ver. K16s-1.0.1)



I found mismatch Schematic and Partlist.
There are some errors in the Partlist.


 Part       Schematic  PartList
------------------------------
 R21        10K          390R
 R45,R46  390R         10K
 R22        100R         49K9
 R24,R25  1K            2K2
------------------------------

R45,46 should be 390R. R24,25 should be 1K. R22 should be 100R and the R21 should be 10K. Basically, always look on the schematics, because BOM can be wrong.

And is it working? I mean no magic smoke escaping? I'll upload the modified firmware to the Git in a while tomorrow morning (in about 8 hours).

BTW, I wanted to finish mine today, but 2 hours that I had free today wasn't enough to do so. It wil l be the same tomorrow and friday too. I'm really sorry, but nothing I can do about this. I will have to wait till the weekend to finally complete it.

[zipiju]

So, the updated firmware is at https://github.com/zipiju/klondike/tree/master/firmware/K16/v1.0.
You have to change two lines in CGM driver - driver-klondike.c lines:

419: (unsigned int)K_NONCE(kline->wr.nonce) - 0x180);
861: uint32_t nonce = K_NONCE(kline->wr.nonce) - 0x180;

I was talking to Kano the other day, and there are plans to include those changes to the upstream CGM. But I need a little more time to do that. And also, the firmware will have to be slightly changed again, because now the new K16 is recognized as the old one.

[zipiju]

So, the updated firmware is at https://github.com/zipiju/klondike/tree/master/firmware/K16/v1.0.
You have to change two lines in CGM driver - driver-klondike.c lines:

419: (unsigned int)K_NONCE(kline->wr.nonce) - 0x180);
861: uint32_t nonce = K_NONCE(kline->wr.nonce) - 0x180;

I was talking to Kano the other day, and there are plans to include those changes to the upstream CGM. But I need a little more time to do that. And also, the firmware will have to be slightly changed again, because now the new K16 is recognized as the old one.

And one more thing, in driver-klondike.c change line 86 to #define LATE_UPDATE_MS ((int)(1 * 1000))

And do not use klondike-options in cgminer.conf for now.
Also, you can change the freq. in klondike.h firmware file. There is the DEFAULT_HASHCLOCK value, you can change that one down to 600. It is possible, that core regs will be shutting down when freq. will be set to 900 because of the power draw.
I'll be back in about 11 hours. Bye.

[justroll]

board is built (1 hour part preperation time; 4h30 picking parts and reflowing)

when powering up the board I got the same problem as zipiju reported (3.3V short)

using flux i scanned all the asic's ; and noticed some shorts ; fixed!

power up the board ; RED led powered up ; bank 0 power rails OK ; bank 1 power rail  1V not ok (0V)

refluxed asics on bank 1 ; problem is that power rail 1V is NOT stable and asics run SUPER hot! (also the IR and the power inductor) ; anyone got any idea why or where to look ? )

[pinkfloyd11]

Just a trick

before start to solder components apply 15v at max A between every Power line and gnd.
This operation fuse all short!

[AtomSea]

Question:

Is it possible for a benevolent manufacturer, or manufacturers (even better), to come out with a 28 nm (or smaller nm) chip that works on these boards?

And if so, how do we make that happen?

I feel that the "for the people" aspect of Bitcoin is dependent on these types of open-source projects.

Is there an open-source asic chip yet?

When you read Satoshi's white paper, it is clear that it was to be "one cpu on vote." Asics and other things changed this, but if we can at least get high power asics to the people, we can do our best to empower as many people as possible to get as close to this ideal as we can.  The more people that have powerful asics, the more sway they have on the system.
We do not want huge data farms to control the destiny of Bitcoin.



(edit - i must point out that it gives me great joy to see the work you guys are putting into this project - I am ridiculously impressed)

[cp1]

No open source chip that I've seen, but there's the wasp project that is also similar to the Klondike.

[Bicknellski]

NanoFury is more like the Klondike. Wasp is slightly varied from Nano and Klondike in that we are a collective of designers and fund projects together unlike NanoFury or Klondike that relied mostly on BKKCoins and VS3 to fund most of the project to completion. We are keen on an Open Source ASIC chip but that would require a massive collective effort of 100s of people.

[trojanguys]

Question i have searched the forum but cat seem to find an answer as to updating k16 firmware, would i need a PICkit3 or is there a usb boot loader? also i am a noob so don't let my knlowdge of info up top deceive ya.

[jasinlee]

Question i have searched the forum but cat seem to find an answer as to updating k16 firmware, would i need a PICkit3 or is there a usb boot loader? also i am a noob so don't let my knlowdge of info up top deceive ya.

Bkkcoins has the bootloader but never released it based on his post iirc.

[trojanguys]

iirc? then can you point me in the right direction for using the picket 3 and possibly info on over clocking. I'm using bfgminer but have been reading that cgminer may be best.

[jasinlee]

http://projectklondike.org is the best resource.

[Biomech]

NanoFury is more like the Klondike. Wasp is slightly varied from Nano and Klondike in that we are a collective of designers and fund projects together unlike NanoFury or Klondike that relied mostly on BKKCoins and VS3 to fund most of the project to completion. We are keen on an Open Source ASIC chip but that would require a massive collective effort of 100s of people.

I need to preface this with the unfortunate fact that my knowledge of ASIC design, or any chip design at the silicon level, is woefully inadequate. So if my question comes off as stupid, don't behead me

Does the project currently have people capable of designing an ASIC from beginning to end?

If so, what kind of costs would be likely (Best/Worst case?)

I can think of lots more, but it's kind of offtopic. Depending on the answers I get, I might start a new thread on the subject, or perhaps try to help organize such a project. Given the unreliability and in many cases downright shady actions of most current ASIC companies, I think the market would easily bear such a project.

[jasinlee]

NanoFury is more like the Klondike. Wasp is slightly varied from Nano and Klondike in that we are a collective of designers and fund projects together unlike NanoFury or Klondike that relied mostly on BKKCoins and VS3 to fund most of the project to completion. We are keen on an Open Source ASIC chip but that would require a massive collective effort of 100s of people.

I need to preface this with the unfortunate fact that my knowledge of ASIC design, or any chip design at the silicon level, is woefully inadequate. So if my question comes off as stupid, don't behead me

Does the project currently have people capable of designing an ASIC from beginning to end?

If so, what kind of costs would be likely (Best/Worst case?)

I can think of lots more, but it's kind of offtopic. Depending on the answers I get, I might start a new thread on the subject, or perhaps try to help organize such a project. Given the unreliability and in many cases downright shady actions of most current ASIC companies, I think the market would easily bear such a project.

https://litecointalk.org/index.php?topic=12567.0 That may be more of what you are looking for then.