Hello everyone,
We called Metabank again today, and had a long list of questions but didn't have much luck with the person answering the phone as they couldn't answer the vast majority of them, but we did manage to get *some* useful information.
Q1: At which stage of development is the Metabank mining equipment? Has the PCB design been completed? Are you testing final PCB yet? What can you share?
A1: I believe the PCB design is finished and sent off to various (PCB) factories, but not sure if agreement with one of them is finalized.
NOTE: If we look at Bitfury's recent post
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=254996.msg2717867#msg2717867, we see a brand new design for a Bitfury PCB. I have confirmation from a 3rd source that this is indeed MetaBank's PCB. I was told it is 8 layers. Below is a picture of it. Given Metabank sold 120GH units, we can assume they will hopefully be targeting 2.5GH/chip as there are 48 chips on the board (2.5x48=120). We believe 2.5GH should be do-able so long as proper cooling is provided. Also, another guy in a forum post elsewhere here managed to achieve 3.4GH/s, but only with a huge heat sink connected to the chip.
Given each chip is 7mm x 7mm, if you slap a ruler to your computer monitor (as I did
![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
), then you can see this image appears to be to scale. With this, we can easily measure the board dimensions being aprox: (23cm tall x 32.5 cm wide) or ( 9.1" x 12.8" )
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FJwLADgP.png&t=665&c=_CVNv3qsctNxCA)
So, assuming the design is finished, and assuming there are no design flaws, and assuming the PCB manufacturing process as well as the assembly process proceeds without flaws, and they have already picked out their external box CNC milling etc, etc. Also typically, you first print & assemble a prototype board, then test it extensively, if all goes well, you give the order to mass produce. So it does seem indeed that an end of August delivery date *may* be possible under best case scenario; however, when there are complex boards involved, it is not uncommon to experience delays for one reason or another, so I don't want to get everyone's hopes up, but it does appear at least to be within the realm of possibility. When we asked them directly, this is what we got:
Q2: Can you give us any more precise date on when the boards will be ready for customers?
A2: It is still too early to say the exact date, as there are many steps left, so we can still only say Aug-Oct; however, maybe if you call towards end of this month we might have a better idea.
That's about all we got out of them, all our other questions they couldn't answer, but suggested we write them via email. We are going to do that in Russian (real Russian, not google's comedic transliterate). As soon as we get a reply, I will post answers - that said, we have written them a few times before, and maybe 1/3 times we get a response. Questions are mostly of technical nature, so you guys can prepare and know what to expect. Here's some of the questions we had prepared:
1.Will there be a power supply capable of 110/220v?
2. Will there be an external case?
3. What is the targeted Watt power draw of the entire unit?
4. Can you guys start providing status updates on your website so everyone doesnt have to call you?
5. Will there be a box provided for the product that can be shipped internationally?
6. Will your device be CE, UL and RoHS certified?
7. Which software will come with your board? (i.e. cgminer?), if not, will it have an English interface?
8. Which communication method(s) will the board have: Wifi, USB or Ethernet ?
Lastly, if you guys have any other specific questions you want to ask, maybe list them here, and we can try to ask them for the next time we call them / email them.
Cheers!
Luis