Can KNCMiner really deliver 28 nanometers?

[Anenome5]

If KNCMiner delivers 28 nm on the dates they've promised, I will buy a hat and eat it.
28 nm is state of the art for billion-dollar graphics card companies.

Thoughts?

It does seem awfully ambitious. Has Orsoc delivered 28 nm anything already?

[1715168068]

1715168068

[1715168068]

1715168068

[1715168068]

1715168068

[mat542]

Yes, it's true...we were abducted!!

Unsurprisingly none of us paid the random to the group of hot blondes so they were reluctant to let us go, as were we!

Seriously though, I was there for the best part of 5 hours and the others were there earlier than me.

So I now have some accomodation and have some wifi as I'm in a bar and hell no I'm by even going to start typing a report up on an iPhone!

That said, they were all consumate professionals and total geeks. To put you all out of your misery I cannot see any of the other companies having access to the level of knowledge these guys can tap into. ORSoC are a bunch of very smart cookies and btw Mars is 5.1 Gh/s stock, and was running at 6.8 Gh/s today after some additional tweaking...oh and that's stable at 6.8gh/s much to Daggeto's delight, as it was his wallet this was proven to...

I asked every question sent to me, regardless of whether we had discussed it as I wanted to ensure you all had the answers you wanted. I also expanded on then where necessary. I now regret this as it's going to be a total ball-ache to type up. Almost certainly a two day ball ache, which is like 10 years in bitcointalk forum time, so sit tight I'm afraid.

Long and short these guys are the real deal. Sam and Andreas are v.professional and have handled a mountain of administration to get this far. Sam is up 4.30am every morning. Marcus is a superstar, even if he's a pissed off superstar on camera. Super competitive, they want this, genuinely. I'll tell more later, but I won't make promises for them, all I will say is they really aim to over deliver and the only thing they want to be held to is;

28nm - 350gh/s, 175gh/s - September 2013.

In the meantime, it's another round of pear cider, skål!

Source

Even if they are not on-time, I feel like there will be no lies and that they will immediately explain why. Not like BFL that is continuously lying.

[Anenome5]

Yes, it's true...we were abducted!!

Unsurprisingly none of us paid the random to the group of hot blondes so they were reluctant to let us go, as were we!

Seriously though, I was there for the best part of 5 hours and the others were there earlier than me.

So I now have some accomodation and have some wifi as I'm in a bar and hell no I'm by even going to start typing a report up on an iPhone!

That said, they were all consumate professionals and total geeks. To put you all out of your misery I cannot see any of the other companies having access to the level of knowledge these guys can tap into. ORSoC are a bunch of very smart cookies and btw Mars is 5.1 Gh/s stock, and was running at 6.8 Gh/s today after some additional tweaking...oh and that's stable at 6.8gh/s much to Daggeto's delight, as it was his wallet this was proven to...

I asked every question sent to me, regardless of whether we had discussed it as I wanted to ensure you all had the answers you wanted. I also expanded on then where necessary. I now regret this as it's going to be a total ball-ache to type up. Almost certainly a two day ball ache, which is like 10 years in bitcointalk forum time, so sit tight I'm afraid.

Long and short these guys are the real deal. Sam and Andreas are v.professional and have handled a mountain of administration to get this far. Sam is up 4.30am every morning. Marcus is a superstar, even if he's a pissed off superstar on camera. Super competitive, they want this, genuinely. I'll tell more later, but I won't make promises for them, all I will say is they really aim to over deliver and the only thing they want to be held to is;

28nm - 350gh/s, 175gh/s - September 2013.

In the meantime, it's another round of pear cider, skål!

Source

Even if they are not on-time, I feel like there will be no lies and that they will immediately explain why. Not like BFL that is continuously lying.

Great, that was brilliant, informative, and prompt!

I know Avalon, ASICMiner, and BFL have intimated that ASICs in the 28nm range weren't likely to appear until late next year. KNC is upping the bar considerably.

[J35st3r]

But its been hinted that KNCMiner are doing a 28nM Structured ASIC, ie a HardCopy(tm) of an Altera FPGA design. That's much cheaper in up-front cost (the mask set is just the metalization/vias so much cheaper), but the per-unit cost is higher. It won't perform anything like a full custom ASIC.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228068.msg2433194#msg2433194 (and subsequent posts).

[suryc]

But its been hinted that KNCMiner are doing a 28nM Structured ASIC, ie a HardCopy(tm) of an Altera FPGA design. That's much cheaper in up-front cost (the mask set is just the metalization/vias so much cheaper), but the per-unit cost is higher. It won't perform anything like a full custom ASIC.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=228068.msg2433194#msg2433194 (and subsequent posts).

Yup, they've hinted that in the Open Days and it seems OrSoc has some experience with that:
http://opencores.org/forum,OpenRISC%20-%20ASIC%20Funding,0,5039

[sikman]

Personally don't care how small they get the chips down, I JUST WANT ONE NOW, even at 200nm, I need to mine before diff skyrockets...

[kevcoins]

Personally don't care how small they get the chips down, I JUST WANT ONE NOW, even at 200nm, I need to mine before diff skyrockets...

Sorry no next day delivery, I wish they were..

[blastbob]

For those who is interested.

[af_newbie]

Re: Can KNCMiner really deliver 28 nanometers?

Sure   They can even go pure-play while at it.

It is like learning computer programming for the first time; in binary 

Remember, first you have to walk before you run.

[GigaWave]

Personally don't care how small they get the chips down, I JUST WANT ONE NOW, even at 200nm, I need to mine before diff skyrockets...

You should know this by now, as the coming increase in difficulty has been covered quite extensively at this point and many new players have entered the game in the past 6 months. But I will digress. The Ship to give you a chance at looking like your avatar sailed about 7 months ago. At this point you will be lucky to break even within a year with likely any orders placed in the past few months.

[Syke]

If KNCMiner delivers 28 nm on the dates they've promised, I will buy a hat and eat it.
28 nm is state of the art for billion-dollar graphics card companies.

Thoughts?

It does seem awfully ambitious. Has Orsoc delivered 28 nm anything already?

There's no way they'll finish up a 28nm miner by September.

[MWNinja]

If they had chips in hand now (like bitfury does) then I would say they might have products ready to ship in September. My hunch is that it will be early next year before they have chips.

[J35st3r]

There's no way they'll finish up a 28nm miner by September.

Well, they might if they are going the HardCopy route (possibly intending to go full custom for second-gen). But that's been scotched by the email from Sam Cole posted above.

PS which "specific product" was he referring to? This might be a a little bit of fudge.

[DPoS]

There's no way they'll finish up a 28nm miner by September.

Well, they might if they are going the HardCopy route (possibly intending to go full custom for second-gen). But that's been scotched by the email from Sam Cole posted above.

PS which "specific product" was he referring to? This might be a a little bit of fudge.

what he said was that for jupiter/saturn they won't be using structured asic, this is a project to get out the door ASAP.

with all the great experts posting in these threads, I doubt you all even know all the ways to make an ASIC and the leadtimes.
I don't know either but I will guess that kncminer/orsoc does

Everyone has to stop thinking that BFL/Avalon were experts and ignore a lot of what they tripped on.

[J35st3r]

what he said was that for jupiter/saturn they won't be using structured asic, this is a project to get out the door ASAP.

with all the great experts posting in these threads, I doubt you all even know all the ways to make an ASIC and the leadtimes.
I don't know either but I will guess that kncminer/orsoc does

Yeah, I admit I'm not an expert, though I was in the biz around 20 years ago, so the terminology is not unfamiliar. But there are some real experts on the forum, so perhaps one will be along shortly to give an opinion.

BTW HardCopy is indeed a very good option to get a project "out the door ASAP".

[Anenome5]

If they had chips in hand now (like bitfury does) then I would say they might have products ready to ship in September. My hunch is that it will be early next year before they have chips.

Apparently the chips are in production right now. We know the design has been finalized. They then ship the chips to their PCB assembler and have lets say a few weeks to organize shipping. Seems doable. We're thinking in a time-frame that's likely much shorter than what these guys put together. They might've been working on this for a year and have long-range time commitments long-since setup, whereas we're only aware of the effort last few months tops, so it seems incredible that they're essentially pulling these out of a hat, but that may not be the case at all.

[af_newbie]

Apparently the chips are in production right now. We know the design has been finalized. They then ship the chips to their PCB assembler and ...

Go back and do it again?  Ask BFL how easy it is to go from FPGA to 65nm, so forget 28nm from KNC.

[k9quaint]

Apparently the chips are in production right now. We know the design has been finalized. They then ship the chips to their PCB assembler and ...

Go back and do it again?  Ask BFL how easy it is to go from FPGA to 65nm, so forget 28nm from KNC.

Ask http://orsoc.se/ how hard it is, apparently they have been working on it in parallel with KNCMiner developing the PCB and mining device.

[DPoS]

Apparently the chips are in production right now. We know the design has been finalized. They then ship the chips to their PCB assembler and ...

Go back and do it again?  Ask BFL how easy it is to go from FPGA to 65nm, so forget 28nm from KNC.

Ask http://orsoc.se/ how hard it is, apparently they have been working on it in parallel with KNCMiner developing the PCB and mining device.

this seems the path they took... I guess the easy button wasn't found by BFL

http://www.altera.com/devices/asic/hardcopy-asics/hardcopy-v/hcv-index.jsp

http://www.altera.com/devices/asic/hardcopy-asics/about/hrd-index.html

28nm was avilable in 2010 (probably more expensive than now)

[Anenome5]

Apparently the chips are in production right now. We know the design has been finalized. They then ship the chips to their PCB assembler and ...

Go back and do it again?  Ask BFL how easy it is to go from FPGA to 65nm, so forget 28nm from KNC.

You really think Orsoc is going to make rookie mistakes like that, like BFL made? Come on.