[UPDATE] BFL ASIC Status (May 23 2013)

[jayeeyee]

Taken from: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-3.html#post34766

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BFL Josh:
Progress has not stopped here at the labs while we attended the 2013 Bitcoin Conference. We demonstrated a 5 GH/s, a 25 GH/s and a 50 GH/s miner at the conference that people could see, touch, stroke and pet, all while they were mining on an Android tablet. It was a good conference and we were glad that we could demonstrate working units and meet many of our customers and fellow bitcoiners. It was a pleasure meeting many of you.

We have resolved the issues with the long boards and are making some tweaks to the 5 GH/s boards that may reduce power consumption but will almost certainly reduce heat output. With that in mind, we should be getting about 200 5 GH/s boards on Friday, and we'll be shipping those out on Friday and Saturday.

As a term/jargon/technical note, here is the informal and/or official designations here at BFL:

Short Board = ~92mm x 92mm board that contains up to 8 chips and powers the 5 GH/s miner, typically with just 1 or 2 chips.
Long Board = The board that powers the Little Single, Single and Minirig and can contain up to 16 chips in two banks of 8.
Jalapeno is now called the 5 GH/s miner and is synonymous.
The Minirig is now a 500 GH/s unit.

Our chips consume about 3 - 3.5w per GH/s at the chip level, so there is some room for tweaking, which we will be focusing on as soon as we get the final rev out for the Long Boards. Speaking of Long Boards, we have what we are considering the last rev for shipment coming next Monday or Tuesday the 27th or 28th of May (they may even be done with manufacturing this Saturday the 25th) and we will continue to refine the firmware for that board until the final rev arrives in KC. Assuming no problems with it, we will be begin shipment shortly thereafter. The long boards will be powered by one or two PCIe style 6 pin Minifit Jr connectors. Please be aware that these connectors, while using the same form factor as PCIe connectors are not PCIe connectors, though they are electrically compatible with them (Meaning you can likely use an ATX PSU at your own discretion if you chose not to use our supplied power bricks). The Little Single and Single will have a 120mm fan at each end of the case in a push/pull configuration. Each bank of 8 chips will have a heatsink, heat baffle and 92mm fan on top of it. Cooling will not be an issue with these units and they will be fairly quiet to run if you are in a cool environment. The fan will scale up and down in speed as required due to heat. The units will be stackable and have a side to side or front to back airflow, depending on how you orient them.

We are expecting several thousand chips next week from our new packaging facility and expect to start shipping all product lines next week. Beyond that, we will be receiving thousands of chips per week at an ever increasing pace between now and until all of the remaining 68 wafers are used up. We have additional wafers on order and they should be ready about the time we've used up all 68 wafers should we need them. Soon after, we hope to have product on the shelf for immediate shipment, depending on how many orders come in between now and when we catch up the backlog.

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I see something wrong here.  BFL is expecting several thousand chips next week at their packaging facility as well as receiving the final rev. long boards for SC/Minirig around the same time.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say suppose all this actually happens next week without a hitch, are they seriously capable of maintaining such a large packaging and product line.. ALL in the same week?  Will they be able to uphold their claim regarding shipment of all products lines starting next week?  I swear if a SC or Minirig gets sent to another dev or some other PR-related recipient.. I'm going to give Josh more Quarters he can handle.

[erk]

Thanks for the update, I can't be bothered registering on the BFL forums. It's good to see they are getting chips soon in the thousands rather than the hundreds.

I guess the one or two chips per 5GH/s unit, must be due to some variation, perhaps they have to use two chips lower clocked to hit the 5GH/s target?

[autonomous42]

Yeah I thought that was strange that they can't decide whether the Jalapeno will use one or two chips. And the Minirig is shrinking by two thirds? Wow. I hope those who ordered 1,500 T#/s are compensated with three units. How can the power port look like PCIe, fit a PCIe, be "electrically compatible" with PCIe, but not be PCIe?

Honestly these had better be the best goddamned ICs ever made. From what I understand they're essentially working on revision 2+ SHA-ASIC chips while Avalon and ASICMiner are on revision 1.

PS nothing is happening Monday the 27th... It's memorial day in the US and everything is closed (except movie theatres)

[tvbcof]

Taken from: https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status-3.html#post34766

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BFL Josh:
... meet many of our customers and fellow bitcoiners. It was a pleasure meeting many of you.

I guess I'm not one of them.  The two victims he was scamming when I spotted him stepped aside long enough for me to get a good look at him when I gave him a big 'Hi-ya Josh' and a friendly (if devious) grin.  He tried to pretend he didn't see me.  Eyes down and no response.  I being a fairly muscular 200lb'er with a 47 inch chest might have thrown him off a bit.  I didn't stick around long after it was clear there would be no contact...the poor little fella looked like he might be about to pee himself.

We have resolved the issues with the long boards and are making some tweaks to the 5 GH/s boards that may reduce power consumption but will almost certainly reduce heat output. ...

I guess Josh played hookie in his high school physics class.

[erk]

Yeah I thought that was strange that they can't decide whether the Jalapeno will use one or two chips. And the Minirig is shrinking by two thirds? Wow. I hope those who ordered 1,500 T#/s are compensated with three units. How can the power port look like PCIe, fit a PCIe, be "electrically compatible" with PCIe, but not be PCIe?

Honestly these had better be the best goddamned ICs ever made. From what I understand they're essentially working on revision 2+ SHA-ASIC chips while Avalon and ASICMiner are on revision 1.

PS nothing is happening Monday the 27th... It's memorial day in the US and everything is closed (except movie theatres)

I guess people who ordered the Minirig are not stressed by size and power consumption, they just want enormous hashing power. Personally I don't think the Minirig should exist, it's too much concentration of hashing, not good for the concept of the bitcoin net. I think Minirigs should be rationed. eg. for every TH/s of Minirig sold 2 TH/s of the smaller 5-50Gh/s units have also to be sold.

[Frizz23]

Our chips consume about 3 - 3.5w per GH/s at the chip level, ...

The devices use 6 Watt per GH/s (according to kano).

For a 50GH/s units that's 300 Watt. 150 Watt for the chips (according to Joshs numbers) and 150 Watt for "the rest" of the circuitry.

The heatsink sits directly in the chips - so they should be fine.

But "the rest" will be a problem: Dissipating 150 Watt of heat with no heatsink mounted will definitely cause problems.

Cooling will not be an issue with these units and they will be fairly quiet to run if you are in a cool environment.

Not a problem? I guess Josh is right here, because the day we'll receive our BFL units is when Hell freezes over ("in two weeks"®).

[autonomous42]

Not a problem? I guess Josh is right here, because the day we'll receive our BFL units is when Hell freezes over ("in two weeks"®).

ZING!

[smoothie]

Thanks for the update, I can't be bothered registering on the BFL forums. It's good to see they are them talk about getting chips soon in the thousands rather than the hundreds.

I guess the one or two chips per 5GH/s unit, must be due to some variation, perhaps they have to use two chips lower clocked to hit the 5GH/s target?

FTFY. Hasn't materialized yet. No proof, hasn't happened. All talk.

[JimiQ84]

This would be actually awesome update... if it came out in october 2012... what a shame.

[smoothie]

This would be actually awesome update... if it came out in october 2012... what a shame.

Dont get your hopes up. It so far is just talk.

Pretty much all that BFL has been doing since October 2012.

No change here.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I sure hope BFL allowed time in that tight schedule for FCC and URL inspections.

FYI: Every dorm room in America requires ALL electrical appliances to be URL approved. Reason? Fires. Fires caused by electrical equipment built by redneck cowboys.

Imagine the Headline: 22 Students Killed When Bitcoin Miner Burned Down Dorm

...

Acme News caught up with the frail looking COO, Josh Zerlan. When asked for a comment, he replied, "The cocksuckers weren't suppose to turn it on!" Then he gave each of us a quarter.

...

The names of the deceased are...

[Red_Evil]

Ooh...

We need few days delay plz ... 30 Days for Celebrate our first Birthday 11 Month since Preorder now shipped "next week" from now ... now .. no .. n ..   ...

[Wayne_Chang]

I only concern when they can ship my Jala. As they already made some workable Jala, what the hell they are waiting for?

[dan99]

they have been repeating this claims for ages ..more bs to come

[smoothie]

I sure hope BFL allowed time in that tight schedule for FCC and URL inspections.

FYI: Every dorm room in America requires ALL electrical appliances to be URL approved. Reason? Fires. Fires caused by electrical equipment built by redneck cowboys.

Imagine the Headline: 22 Students Killed When Bitcoin Miner Burned Down Dorm

...

Acme News caught up with the frail looking COO, Josh Zerlan. When asked for a comment, he replied, "The cocksuckers weren't suppose to turn it on!" Then he gave each of us a quarter.

...

The names of the deceased are...

LOLz that was funny. Hopefully that does not happen.

[JimiQ84]

This would be actually awesome update... if it came out in october 2012... what a shame.

Dont get your hopes up. It so far is just talk.

Pretty much all that BFL has been doing since October 2012.

No change here.

Actually, my hopes are that they never ship, I am in asicminer.

[erk]

This would be actually awesome update... if it came out in october 2012... what a shame.

Dont get your hopes up. It so far is just talk.

Pretty much all that BFL has been doing since October 2012.

No change here.

Actually, my hopes are that they never ship, I am in asicminer.

Most smear campaigns have some commercial interest, it's just a fact of life.

[Syke]

Our chips consume about 3 - 3.5w per GH/s at the chip level, ...

The devices use 6 Watt per GH/s (according to kano).

For a 50GH/s units that's 300 Watt. 150 Watt for the chips (according to Joshs numbers) and 150 Watt for "the rest" of the circuitry.

So the new minirig at 500 GH/s would draw 3000 watts. That will require a 40A/110V circuit!

[Xian01]

Fires early, unhappy, and vocal customer, announces full production following week.

*Checks cupboard to ensure popcorn stocks are at a plentiful level*

This I just gotta see.

[testerx]

Our chips consume about 3 - 3.5w per GH/s at the chip level, ...

The devices use 6 Watt per GH/s (according to kano).

For a 50GH/s units that's 300 Watt. 150 Watt for the chips (according to Joshs numbers) and 150 Watt for "the rest" of the circuitry.

So the new minirig at 500 GH/s would draw 3000 watts. That will require a 40A/110V circuit!

I'm pretty sure the new minirigs are going to require 220V at this point to power them.  But to be honest I kinda figured all along that the minirigs wouldn't even ship until months after the Singles did, given how much trouble they had shipping the FPGA version of the minirig.

Speaking of which, that FPGA minirig was probably the best investment of all since someone mining with that since the middle of last year would have had ample time to make a ridiculous amount of money with just one unit.