Litecoin FPGA!

[crazy_rabbit]

I've spoken with http://enterpoint.co.uk/, and they have said they are thinking about developing a LTC FPGA miner. They mentioned that they won't start on it for another 2 or 3 months, but I suppose if the community were to give them input that there is indeed a market for this, they might start earlier. It would also be an advantage to have an established ASIC and FPGA producer with experience in developing a scrypt Miner.

So if you want a professional Litecoin FPGA (or perhaps even on day ASIC!) miner, drop their support a line to let them know the community will support them!

support@enterpoint.co.uk

[adpinbr]

I've spoken with http://enterpoint.co.uk/, and they have said they are thinking about developing a LTC FPGA miner. They mentioned that they won't start on it for another 2 or 3 months, but I suppose if the community were to give them input that there is indeed a market for this, they might start earlier. It would also be an advantage to have an established ASIC and FPGA producer with experience in developing a scrypt Miner.

So if you want a professional Litecoin FPGA (or perhaps even on day ASIC!) miner, drop their support a line to let them know the community will support them!

support@enterpoint.co.uk

way things are going I hope mining LTC will still be worth it:(

[The Koolio]

What do you mean? Prices change its not a problem, ltc has got so much more left in it

I've spoken with http://enterpoint.co.uk/, and they have said they are thinking about developing a LTC FPGA miner. They mentioned that they won't start on it for another 2 or 3 months, but I suppose if the community were to give them input that there is indeed a market for this, they might start earlier. It would also be an advantage to have an established ASIC and FPGA producer with experience in developing a scrypt Miner.

So if you want a professional Litecoin FPGA (or perhaps even on day ASIC!) miner, drop their support a line to let them know the community will support them!

support@enterpoint.co.uk

way things are going I hope mining LTC will still be worth it:(

[sterob]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

[crazy_rabbit]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

[anderl]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

DO they have any modules that have high amounts of SRAM or QDR?  If not then its not going to happen.

[matauc12]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

it is not "just needs to be programmed". Scrypt FPGA are physically different from sha FPGAs (or else you wouldn't even need enterpoint, just a programmer).

[503guy]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

it is not "just needs to be programmed". Scrypt FPGA are physically different from sha FPGAs (or else you wouldn't even need enterpoint, just a programmer).

Actually, crazy rabbit is correct you could use the same hardware, just needs to be programmed.  Several people have already produced some, but the hash rates achieved don't match a single GPU card.

[tom_o]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

it is not "just needs to be programmed". Scrypt FPGA are physically different from sha FPGAs (or else you wouldn't even need enterpoint, just a programmer).

Actually, crazy rabbit is correct you could use the same hardware, just needs to be programmed.  Several people have already produced some, but the hash rates achieved don't match a single GPU card.

But they build stuff like this already:




Yes that is 100 FPGA's on one board.

Im pretty confident in them!



As for the custom board thing. It probably would due to RAM interfacing, although one of their prototyping boards is probably ideal for this.

[crazy_rabbit]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

it is not "just needs to be programmed". Scrypt FPGA are physically different from sha FPGAs (or else you wouldn't even need enterpoint, just a programmer).

I don't think you understand what a FPGA is, FPGA's are reprogrammable logic arrays. They can be programmed to perform any particular task. They are like rewriteable ASICS.

Scrypt is just an algorithm, any general purpose computational device of sufficient power can be programmed to handle it. There are no "physical" requirements or differences between a FPGA that solves Scrypt or one that solves SHA.

As for additional ram, they have PCI-E mounted boards meaning you could just use the host machines memory. 

[anderl]

2-3 months for them to start thinking about making litecoin FPGA, then how long will it take for them to actually make a prototype? Soon as in BFL "soon"?

I don't know, probably not very long. They don't need to make a prototype, they already build FPGA modules and have lots of FPGA products. Nothing would need to be custom built for LTC, they would simply program it.

it is not "just needs to be programmed". Scrypt FPGA are physically different from sha FPGAs (or else you wouldn't even need enterpoint, just a programmer).

I don't think you understand what a FPGA is, FPGA's are reprogrammable logic arrays. They can be programmed to perform any particular task. They are like rewriteable ASICS.

Scrypt is just an algorithm, any general purpose computational device of sufficient power can be programmed to handle it. There are no "physical" requirements or differences between a FPGA that solves Scrypt or one that solves SHA.

As for additional ram, they have PCI-E mounted boards meaning you could just use the host machines memory. 

now we are getting into hyperbole.  can you make an FPGA for scrypt, yes.  Would you pay $300 for a unit that gets 100kHs, no.  It'sn not if it can but if anyone really woudl use them and if the cost to develop woudl return a profit.

Using system RAM is like flying to Idaho because you want french fries.  Or paris to buy a bottle of wine.  Why would you when there are places much closer that can get it for your faster and cheaper.  That is what GPUs were designed for.  They are built with ASICs that directly access high bandwidth DDR.  The demand for these boards is so high that they can make them in huge volume and keep costs down.  You wan tot reinvent the wheel.

Now it is possible to build an FPGA for scrypt mining.  But it wont use system RAM or DDR. I've seen the prototype in a demonstration with a scrypt like algorithm on an Altera board.  But the cost puts it on par with a GPU.  But it is an undertaking and to hire a team of developers and build them out makes the profit marginal.  Now with LTC less profitable than BTC to mine and with the low market cap of the market is it really worth it?

[oatmo]

I'm not sure how many standard pinouts the FPGAs have, but I think they are all different. If one of the FPGAs that they use happens to be optimal for litecoin mining, and they really know their hardware design, then they can do it. You need the maximal memory to minimal logic to do scrypt. No FPGA has nearly enough memory bandwidth to do the algorithm (which is why GPUs are so good at the algorithm).

BTW, in general, companies that do a lot of FPGA design have no idea how to do ASICs, and vice-versa. This is my explanation for BFL. Looking at them, they just look like they are running into what all new ASIC design companies run into. They are in over their head, and we'll see how they get out. An ASIC for scrypt would be very easy to design, but I'm not sure the ROI is there to make up for the design and tapeout costs.

I did some back of the envelop calculations myself, and while I think that scrypt can be done in a FPGA are a 2:1 cost advantage over GPUs, I'm not sure what the power will be, so I'd have to do a prototype on a development board. Not sure I want to spend all that time without knowing that a lot of people would buy it.

So, how many people would pay $1500 for a 7MH/s scrypt miner, which ran in say 500 watts? The power is just a swag. I'm pretty sure I could outdo a GPU by 2:1, just not sure if I can get it to 10:1.

Oatmo

BTW: My backgroud, I've been designing bleeding edge chips for 20 years, including the CPUs (Intel), memory controller, networking routers and switches (which coincidentally included a SHA256 accelerator in 2001), and now I work for one of the major GPU vendors designing GPUs.

[rammy2k2]

enterpoint.co.uk is a very respected company in UK, if they say they will do it ... they will sure will

[digitalindustry]

now we are getting into hyperbole.  can you make an FPGA for scrypt, yes.  Would you pay $300 for a unit that gets 100kHs, no.  It'sn not if it can but if anyone really woudl use them and if the cost to develop woudl return a profit.

Using system RAM is like flying to Idaho because you want french fries.  Or paris to buy a bottle of wine.  Why would you when there are places much closer that can get it for your faster and cheaper.  That is what GPUs were designed for.  They are built with ASICs that directly access high bandwidth DDR.  The demand for these boards is so high that they can make them in huge volume and keep costs down.  You wan tot reinvent the wheel.

Now it is possible to build an FPGA for scrypt mining.  But it wont use system RAM or DDR. I've seen the prototype in a demonstration with a scrypt like algorithm on an Altera board.  But the cost puts it on par with a GPU.  But it is an undertaking and to hire a team of developers and build them out makes the profit marginal.  Now with LTC less profitable than BTC to mine and with the low market cap of the market is it really worth it?

^^^^^All of that - i was going to say someone has underestimated the Bandwidth issue.

so someone will have to keep dreaming of a way for the market to drive diff higher - probably when ASIC take over BTC driving its diff to retard levels. - but then, ah - that's a diff problem < you see what i did there ?   : D

[digitalindustry]

enterpoint.co.uk is a very respected company in UK, if they say they will do it ... they will sure will

and i'm sure they will have lots of fun,  generate lots of heat and maybe light - also a few K # and never sell a device,  when the ATI 8x series come out with DDROVER9000

and the new Quantum GPU they are working on. , that will sell at Walmart for $199 -

[broken_pixel]

Pop, pop, pop. 

[mmitech]

I love the fact that when you mention FPGA or ASIC chips for LTC, most members of the forum become Engineers, I wonder if I edit the content in Wikipedia to " FPGA uses the fuck bandwith to calculate salsa..."  what forum members would wirte? maybe the same words in wikipedia ? what do you think ?

 

[rbdrbd]

So, how many people would pay $1500 for a 7MH/s scrypt miner, which ran in say 500 watts? The power is just a swag. I'm pretty sure I could outdo a GPU by 2:1, just not sure if I can get it to 10:1.

If you really had something like that working ($1500 for 7MH), I'd buy a few dozen of them off you, after field testing one. I'm sure there would be a good sized line of similar individuals as well.

The big question you should be asking is... at $1500 a pop for 7MH, what would your profit margins be?

[broken_pixel]

So, how many people would pay $1500 for a 7MH/s scrypt miner, which ran in say 500 watts? The power is just a swag. I'm pretty sure I could outdo a GPU by 2:1, just not sure if I can get it to 10:1.

If you really had something like that working ($1500 for 7MH), I'd buy a few dozen of them off you, after field testing one. I'm sure there would be a good sized line of similar individuals as well.

The big question you should be asking is... at $1500 a pop for 7MH, what would your profit margins be?

It will depend on there TPG, scrypt uses KH/s not MH/s.

7,000KH/s @ 500 watts

Profit         BTC           LTC             USD          Cost    Profit
Per Day    0.2013 BTC   9.6767 LTC    $20.56      $1.44     $19.12

[rbdrbd]

So, how many people would pay $1500 for a 7MH/s scrypt miner, which ran in say 500 watts? The power is just a swag. I'm pretty sure I could outdo a GPU by 2:1, just not sure if I can get it to 10:1.

If you really had something like that working ($1500 for 7MH), I'd buy a few dozen of them off you, after field testing one. I'm sure there would be a good sized line of similar individuals as well.

The big question you should be asking is... at $1500 a pop for 7MH, what would your profit margins be?

It will depend on there TPG, scrypt uses KH/s not MH/s.

7,000KH/s @ 500 watts

Profit         BTC           LTC             USD          Cost    Profit
Per Day    0.2013 BTC   9.6767 LTC    $20.56      $1.44     $19.12

By profit margins I was actually meaning more oatmo's margins for selling the devices (if that's what he did, rather than opensourcing the design from the start). For 7MH, you could sell it at 3K a pop and still have people line up, since you're still readily beating the price:performance of a GPU rig.