Butterfly Labs Announces Bulk Chip Sales

[SebastianJu]

So one chip has 180MH/s. 14 engines per chip means $89/chip. $89000 per 10k. -10% means $80100 for 10k chips. Avalon charges 782.1BTC * $128 = $100109. Doesnt sound bad. But avalons chips have 282MH/s standard. So the GH costs $3.55 for avalon and $4.45 for BFL. The half power usage doesnt mean much at the current time. And isnt it still open if that is true at the end?

Then 100 days mean 14,28 weeks. Avalon claims to need 9-10 weeks only.

So im not sure if BFL will make a fortune with this... but... when i think about it... i believe most BFL customers will happily get their chips instead nothing. At least they know the chips are working. Even when this means they have to wait some time to have a working miner... its still more reliable to wait for someone in the community to build a miner.

Maybe some people will prefer to buy BFL chips too instead having to trust a groupbuy. Its a good move to lower the minimum amount of chips needed to order.

Something wrong with my calculations?

Yes there is something wrong there. As soon as I saw this chip sales I did the math on it.

$89 per chip x 10k chips is $890,000 -10% for $801,000. When Avalon sold chips in april (when most of us bought chips) it was about $80,000 for 10k chips. So you get about 10x the number of chips from Avalon as you do from BFL.

This is important to note because 10x the speed of an Avalon chip is 2.8Gh and thats just under what a BFL chip can do. Its about more than just delivery times and speed. Avalon pcbs are hard enough for us to sort out. Trust me, Im working on it and its not easy.

Just imagine how hard it will be to get the BFL pcb straight and working perfect compared to the Avalon pcb we are still sorting out. Not only that but the cost and time to assemble these boards vs Avalon pcbs could make it even worse. You end up with a BFL unit that costs way more in time and money to finish. If you ever get your chips that is.

Ouw... big mistake... but i think its not as bad as you wrote... according to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=222983.msg2344464#msg2344464 a jalapeno has 2 chips and 28 engines. That would mean half the price you mentioned. But when i read that post again... he wrote that an engine alone has 180MH/s. That would mean when a jalapeno with 5GH only has 2 chips then each chip would have 2500MH/s... can this be? If thats true the BFL-Asics would be way cheaper per GH than avalons... but maybe im too tired yet...

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[papamoi]

I Thought one of their chips were hashing at 5 gigahash/sec

so why the different prices?

[Bicknellski]

No thanks.

[erk]

I Thought one of their chips were hashing at 5 gigahash/sec

so why the different prices?

Chips vary, they are graded into different bins depending on how many "engines" are working, ever wondered why there are so many Intel/AMD versions for each CPU? Not all make the designed target.

Yes each BFL chip has 10 times the transistors and 10 times the hashrate of the avalon chips. Could be a game changer if they can deliver.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120184.msg1402474#msg1402474

The main advantage of the BFL chips is a lower parts count and simplified board design, the boards you see in their 5GH/s units are designed to take 8 chips, and support components. If you designed one from scratch to take only 1 or 2 chips it would be far simpler.

I would like to see someone design a 10Gh/s unit. I feel the BFL 5GH/s  Jalapeno was fine for the time when it was announced a year ago, but the mining difficulty has gone up so much you really need 10Gh/s to get the same result.

[Bicknellski]

They are unproven... and likely never ship in time.

Thanks no.

[SebastianJu]

So one chip has 180MH/s. 14 engines per chip means $89/chip. $89000 per 10k. -10% means $80100 for 10k chips. Avalon charges 782.1BTC * $128 = $100109. Doesnt sound bad. But avalons chips have 282MH/s standard. So the GH costs $3.55 for avalon and $4.45 for BFL. The half power usage doesnt mean much at the current time. And isnt it still open if that is true at the end?

Then 100 days mean 14,28 weeks. Avalon claims to need 9-10 weeks only.

So im not sure if BFL will make a fortune with this... but... when i think about it... i believe most BFL customers will happily get their chips instead nothing. At least they know the chips are working. Even when this means they have to wait some time to have a working miner... its still more reliable to wait for someone in the community to build a miner.

Maybe some people will prefer to buy BFL chips too instead having to trust a groupbuy. Its a good move to lower the minimum amount of chips needed to order.

Something wrong with my calculations?

Yes there is something wrong there. As soon as I saw this chip sales I did the math on it.

$89 per chip x 10k chips is $890,000 -10% for $801,000. When Avalon sold chips in april (when most of us bought chips) it was about $80,000 for 10k chips. So you get about 10x the number of chips from Avalon as you do from BFL.

This is important to note because 10x the speed of an Avalon chip is 2.8Gh and thats just under what a BFL chip can do. Its about more than just delivery times and speed. Avalon pcbs are hard enough for us to sort out. Trust me, Im working on it and its not easy.

Just imagine how hard it will be to get the BFL pcb straight and working perfect compared to the Avalon pcb we are still sorting out. Not only that but the cost and time to assemble these boards vs Avalon pcbs could make it even worse. You end up with a BFL unit that costs way more in time and money to finish. If you ever get your chips that is.

I think you are confusing chips with engines.

The  $97 BFL "chip" has 16 engines that each get 180 mh/sec for a total of 2.88 GH per chip (after all doesn't the Jalpeno have 2 chips?)

The $107 Avalon chip gets only 282 mh/sec

So the BFL hashrate is 13 times cheaper than Avalon's.



Each BFL chip has 10 times the transistors and 10 times the hashrate of the avalon chips. Could be a game changer if they can deliver.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120184.msg1402474#msg1402474

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally...
For me it looks like BFL might chose the price by looking at avalon and underbidding them a little bit. In fact they made their MH/s 5.13% less costly. Im not sure that its less enough to invest. At least with the longer waiting time and no miner available. But maybe this will change soon.

They are unproven... and likely never ship in time.

Thanks no.

The chips are proved to work as far as i know. Jalapenos are working already. So buying these chips would be a relatively safe bet.

[Exoskeleton]

I think you are confusing chips with engines.

The  $97 BFL "chip" has 16 engines that each get 180 mh/sec for a total of 2.88 GH per chip (after all doesn't the Jalpeno have 2 chips?)

The $107 Avalon chip gets only 282 mh/sec

So the BFL hashrate is 13 times cheaper than Avalon's.

This is bad math again.

If you purchased Avalon chip when bitcoin was $110 (which was the price multiple time in april, when it even fell below $90 around april 30th) then you paid ~$9 per chip. That $9 per 282Mh or $90 for 2.8Gh.

[CanaryInTheMine]

I think what's going on is that BFL can not order chips in large enough quantities to fullfil their orders... they just order a certain amount at a time and their product is just trickling out.

now if they have a way to raise a gazzilion dollars again (let's sell chips!!) then they could place very large orders of chips.

then they will use the chips received to fullfil the orders while those who ordered chips will wait again...

Let's rob Peter to rob pay Paul.

[Exoskeleton]

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally...

Thats about what I got. Its almost 1:1. With no real big power savings either 

Its getting the PCBs made for these things and then getting them assembled that scares me. Not that I ever expect these to show up in quantitys. The thing that amazes me is that they are offering a 20% discount on orders over 10,000 chips. Like anyone will be spending $8,000,000 on chips alone. Do you think they could deliver 10,000+ of these in the next 100 days? Its just like the miners where they are taking as many pre-orders as they can, and they will quickly get in over their heads on this as well.

[jspielberg]

I guess now Yifu can now check to see if BFL's chips really are 65nm if he gets in on a group buy of 100.

$100 is cheaper than ponying up one of those 6GH/s development boxes.

[ionstorm]

im in for 10 chips, lets get the pre-order started

[erk]

I think what's going on is that BFL can not order chips in large enough quantities to fullfil their orders... they just order a certain amount at a time and their product is just trickling out.

now if they have a way to raise a gazzilion dollars again (let's sell chips!!) then they could place very large orders of chips.

then they will use the chips received to fullfil the orders while those who ordered chips will wait again...

Let's rob Peter to rob pay Paul.

If you have looked at the photos of the BFL wafers you will see that there is like 1,000 chips per wafer and they had 65 wafers left last week, BLF also mentioned they had already placed order for another batch of wafers. There are long lead times on these things. They obviously don't want to dig into the existing wafer stock to supply chip only sales.

[PeZ]

im in for 10 chips, lets get the pre-order started

Take them to Las Vegas and see if they'll accept it at a casino?

[dwdoc]

So one chip has 180MH/s. 14 engines per chip means $89/chip. $89000 per 10k. -10% means $80100 for 10k chips. Avalon charges 782.1BTC * $128 = $100109. Doesnt sound bad. But avalons chips have 282MH/s standard. So the GH costs $3.55 for avalon and $4.45 for BFL. The half power usage doesnt mean much at the current time. And isnt it still open if that is true at the end?

Then 100 days mean 14,28 weeks. Avalon claims to need 9-10 weeks only.

So im not sure if BFL will make a fortune with this... but... when i think about it... i believe most BFL customers will happily get their chips instead nothing. At least they know the chips are working. Even when this means they have to wait some time to have a working miner... its still more reliable to wait for someone in the community to build a miner.

Maybe some people will prefer to buy BFL chips too instead having to trust a groupbuy. Its a good move to lower the minimum amount of chips needed to order.

Something wrong with my calculations?

Yes there is something wrong there. As soon as I saw this chip sales I did the math on it.

$89 per chip x 10k chips is $890,000 -10% for $801,000. When Avalon sold chips in april (when most of us bought chips) it was about $80,000 for 10k chips. So you get about 10x the number of chips from Avalon as you do from BFL.

This is important to note because 10x the speed of an Avalon chip is 2.8Gh and thats just under what a BFL chip can do. Its about more than just delivery times and speed. Avalon pcbs are hard enough for us to sort out. Trust me, Im working on it and its not easy.

Just imagine how hard it will be to get the BFL pcb straight and working perfect compared to the Avalon pcb we are still sorting out. Not only that but the cost and time to assemble these boards vs Avalon pcbs could make it even worse. You end up with a BFL unit that costs way more in time and money to finish. If you ever get your chips that is.

I think you are confusing chips with engines.

The  $97 BFL "chip" has 16 engines that each get 180 mh/sec for a total of 2.88 GH per chip (after all doesn't the Jalpeno have 2 chips?)

The $107 Avalon chip gets only 282 mh/sec

So the BFL hashrate is 13 times cheaper than Avalon's.



Each BFL chip has 10 times the transistors and 10 times the hashrate of the avalon chips. Could be a game changer if they can deliver.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=120184.msg1402474#msg1402474

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally...
For me it looks like BFL might chose the price by looking at avalon and underbidding them a little bit. In fact they made their MH/s 5.13% less costly. Im not sure that its less enough to invest. At least with the longer waiting time and no miner available. But maybe this will change soon.

They are unproven... and likely never ship in time.

Thanks no.

The chips are proved to work as far as i know. Jalapenos are working already. So buying these chips would be a relatively safe bet.

So sorry your math is correct. I was using .83btc instead of .083btc for price of each avalon chip.
I have 27.7 mh per dollar for Avalon. 29.7 mh per dollar for BFL. 1:1.1

[PuertoLibre]

I think what's going on is that BFL can not order chips in large enough quantities to fullfil their orders... they just order a certain amount at a time and their product is just trickling out.

now if they have a way to raise a gazzilion dollars again (let's sell chips!!) then they could place very large orders of chips.

then they will use the chips received to fullfil the orders while those who ordered chips will wait again...

Let's rob Peter to rob pay Paul.

Bingo, that my reasoning and speculation as well...

[PuertoLibre]

One avalon chip costs $10.0109. If one $97 with 16 engines has 2880MH/s and one chip of avalon has 282MH/s then the MH/s for avalon would cost: $0.0355 and bfl's MH/s $0.03368. Man i hope thats correct finally...

Thats about what I got. Its almost 1:1. With no real big power savings either 

Its getting the PCBs made for these things and then getting them assembled that scares me. Not that I ever expect these to show up in quantitys. The thing that amazes me is that they are offering a 20% discount on orders over 10,000 chips. Like anyone will be spending $8,000,000 on chips alone. Do you think they could deliver 10,000+ of these in the next 100 days? Its just like the miners where they are taking as many pre-orders as they can, and they will quickly get in over their heads on this as well.

Gotta power the next die shrink...though honestly, if they are getting 110nm performance at 65nm with their designs...I doubt a die shrink will do them much good.

[seleme]

YCNMIU 

[AdamKD]

Makes absolutely no sense in buying BFL chips over Avalon chips - presently.

Looking / reading through the docs it doesn't seem like BFL will release PCB schematics.  I looks like they are only willing to release the ASIC reference material / schematics?

Most of the people ordering ASICs are hobbyists trying to launch 'companies' and being a bit bold.  Very few of the orders are for 'non-hobbyists' (as in people doing this full-time and getting paid to do only this fulltime).

The only way buying BFL chips would make sense if somehow bitcoin value would go up through the roof and Avalon chips would become overly expensive.  Another thing is unless someone starts doing open-source PCB design for a BFL chip I don't believe they'll get large interest from the community.

The reason that Avalon chips have been a hit is primarily because of the mostly complete miner designs being released.  It isn't just because chip sales started happening.  It's more 'hack n slash outfits' buying the Avalon chips than 'full time PCB/ASIC design outfits'.

[ecliptic]

Love how they don't specify their hashing rate, wattage, etc.

[ooeygooeygold]

What a joke.