KNCMiner and their 'magic' SHA256 alogorithm

[brontosaurus]

Knew I'd find this eventually:

"An ASIC Design for a High Speed Implementation of the Hash Function SHA256 (384, 512)", Dadda, Machetti, Owen (2004)

These guys came up with a re-timing pipeline which increases Maximum Clock Speed on a regular SHA engine by 36%. No new algorithm - you cannot 'improve' the existing one, this is simply an exercise to reduce critical path delay on an ASIC (not an FPGA)

So to any of you that are prepared to swallow the shite that KNC put out: Beware.

I'm not saying they are scammers, but they are dishonest with their information, to put it mildly.

Read into that what you will.

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[peter79]

It is simple magic, accept it

[brontosaurus]

Hi Peter, silly me. I'm just too old and cynical. Thanks for setting me straight.

[ranlo]

Knew I'd find this eventually:

"An ASIC Design for a High Speed Implementation of the Hash Function SHA256 (384, 512)", Dadda, Machetti, Owen (2004)

These guys came up with a re-timing pipeline which increases Maximum Clock Speed on a regular SHA engine by 36%. No new algorithm - you cannot 'improve' the existing one, this is simply an exercise to reduce critical path delay on an ASIC (not an FPGA)

So to any of you that are prepared to swallow the shite that KNC put out: Beware.

I'm not saying they are scammers, but they are dishonest with their information, to put it mildly.

Read into that what you will.

Forgive me for my newbiness but... I'm lost as to how this makes KNCMiner look bad?

[brontosaurus]

It's called trying to inflate the actual performance of your product and/or design knowledge. If your product is good, quote firm numbers based on hard, verifiable FACTS rather than allude to 'improvements' to a mathematical process which has data dependencies which cannot be changed or improved.

The academics who wrote the paper quoted are experts in their field - Dadda has an adder type named after him - and designed a method of reducing delay paths on an actual asic. They did'nt change or say they could change an algorithm. KNC claim to have an 'improved' algorithm, and that is just plain rubbish. Ask any mathematician.

Any respectable company would not make such ridiculous claims, if KNC have indeed used the methods from this paper in their design,then they should acknowledge it. Hence my annoyance.

Incidentally, Dadda and co. got their SHA256 engine to run at 'a clock speed of well over 1Ghz' on a 130nm process.

[Xuesheng]

I'm not at all familiar with the underlying algorithms. What in that statement says dishonest? Maybe just a link to reading about algos so I can figure it out myself?

[Xuesheng]

Sorry your last post wasn't there yet when I posted my question.

[pylon]

yes what is wrong with what they claimed? It sounds like they're basically just saying that they have a fast implementation of the SHA256 algorithm which is fair

[CharlesWinfrey]

Wow nice !!!

[ranlo]

It's called trying to inflate the actual performance of your product and/or design knowledge. If your product is good, quote firm numbers based on hard, verifiable FACTS rather than allude to 'improvements' to a mathematical process which has data dependencies which cannot be changed or improved.

The academics who wrote the paper quoted are experts in their field - Dadda has an adder type named after him - and designed a method of reducing delay paths on an actual asic. They did'nt change or say they could change an algorithm. KNC claim to have an 'improved' algorithm, and that is just plain rubbish. Ask any mathematician.

Any respectable company would not make such ridiculous claims, if KNC have indeed used the methods from this paper in their design,then they should acknowledge it. Hence my annoyance.

Incidentally, Dadda and co. got their SHA256 engine to run at 'a clock speed of well over 1Ghz' on a 130nm process.

I meant... you should refer to what parts you're saying KNCMiner is lying about, :p. Especially in a newbie area, most people will have no idea what KNCMiner even is, much less what you're talking about.

So what you're saying is they are overexaggerating the ability of the chips/miners they are supposedly creating?

[PeterB]

Interesting

[k9quaint]

No new algorithm - you cannot 'improve' the existing one, this is simply an exercise to reduce critical path delay on an ASIC (not an FPGA)

You cannot "improve" SHA-256. You can however, improve the Bitcoin hashing algorithm. How is this possible? Look at the ZTEX FPGAMiner.
Also, there are many ways to implement SHA-256 in silicon & FPGA. How you construct your pipelines, loops, resets, etc, all matters.

At the end of the day, you cannot avoid most of the work done in the SHA-256 passes that Bitcoin uses, but you can make that work be done in a more efficient way.

[shapemaker]

So to any of you that are prepared to swallow the shite that KNC put out: Beware.

I'm not saying they are scammers, but they are dishonest with their information, to put it mildly.

While you may be right in saying this is the "magic" behind KnC:s algo, the way you express your thoughts reminds me of another forum dweller here...

Is that you, Josh?

[brontosaurus]

The real question to ask yourself is:

What do I think an improvement of x% to the SHA256 algorithm means?

Most everybody will think it means x% more hash rate, yes? Inferring that their SHA is better than others,
yes? So their product is superior?

You cannot change the SHA256 algorithm or it isn't SHA256 anymore. A hardware tweak which enables a higher clock rate has nothing to do with the algorithm itself, so why try to claim otherwise? I don't even know if KNC have used the methods in the paper - I doubt it - and they have given no details about their mathematical wizardry. I would, if I was them, there is no shame in being genuinely creative, like the
authors of the paper. But to use these tactics?

So I am very, very suspicious. If you read my other posts about them in the Newbies section then you will
see some other rather serious inconsistencies about their Mars machine that I picked up.

I have nothing against them or any other wanabee asic company, but when you want people to give you a
lot of money on trust, you MUST be honest and truthful.  

And speaking of said, here are some questions you shouldask anyone wanting your money up front for any asic product:

1. Who is the silicon foundry?
2. Are you using a Multi Project Wafer service or a full mask set?
3. What is the chip size?
4. How many pipelines does it have and what is the operating frequency?
5. What is the target package type?
6. If you are using a full mask set ($1.6 - $2.3 Million for 28nm) who or how are you financing it and what are your contingency plans if you need a respin?
7. To get '90 day' production you need a lot of chips, meaning you need several wafers (costing 15 - 30k dollars each in a small geometry). Refer to 6 above.
8. What software tools have you used for development and if they are commercial ones like Cadence, exactly how have you financed them up to now?
9. What happens to my money/order if you miss the 90 day target?
10. Will you publish an order backlog summary for purchasers to examine?
11. Will you publish the invoice for NRE for purchasers to see? (ie to see that it really is x nm)

Feel free to add your own. There is absolutely no reason for any company wanting your money NOT to answer these questions.

[brontosaurus]

No, this is'nt Josh, just a concerned citizen. I doubt that Josh has the time or inclination to worry about what KNC may or may not claim at present. In all fairness to him and BFL, they've never put out any technical misinformation about their products. 

[k9quaint]

The real question to ask yourself is:

What do I think an improvement of x% to the SHA256 algorithm means?

Most everybody will think it means x% more hash rate, yes? Inferring that their SHA is better than others,
yes? So their product is superior?

You cannot change the SHA256 algorithm or it isn't SHA256 anymore. A hardware tweak which enables a higher clock rate has nothing to do with the algorithm itself, so why try to claim otherwise? I don't even know if KNC have used the methods in the paper - I doubt it - and they have given no details about their mathematical wizardry. I would, if I was them, there is no shame in being genuinely creative, like the
authors of the paper. But to use these tactics?

I am sure KNC was talking about improvement to the Bitcoin hash algorithm as it pertains to mining not changing or breaking SHA-256. Improving the Bitcoin mining algorithm is possible, since you do not need to produce all 256 bits of the second SHA-256 hash. You only need to produce the part that is examined for difficulty. The ZTEX FPGA mining code has an example of this.

Also, they are talking about the algorithm as instantiated in silicon, not the SHA 256 pseudo-code algorithm. How many registers are used, how the adders are built and shared, how many loops are performed. There are endless possibilities for improving how SHA-256 is done in any language be it C, C++, Go, Verilog, or laid out in an ASIC.

[thomashrev89]

And speaking of said, here are some questions you shouldask anyone wanting your money up front for any asic product:

1. Who is the silicon foundry?
2. Are you using a Multi Project Wafer service or a full mask set?
3. What is the chip size?
4. How many pipelines does it have and what is the operating frequency?
5. What is the target package type?
6. If you are using a full mask set ($1.6 - $2.3 Million for 28nm) who or how are you financing it and what are your contingency plans if you need a respin?
7. To get '90 day' production you need a lot of chips, meaning you need several wafers (costing 15 - 30k dollars each in a small geometry). Refer to 6 above.
8. What software tools have you used for development and if they are commercial ones like Cadence, exactly how have you financed them up to now?
9. What happens to my money/order if you miss the 90 day target?
10. Will you publish an order backlog summary for purchasers to examine?
11. Will you publish the invoice for NRE for purchasers to see? (ie to see that it really is x nm)

Feel free to add your own. There is absolutely no reason for any company wanting your money NOT to answer these questions.

There has been 2 open days at KNCminer. They answered pretty much all the questions asked to them. You could have sendt your questions with someone attending.

[brontosaurus]

I am really not interested in Open Days, just plain old transparency. It works.

Got one on order, have you?

[FanDjangoBTC]

In addition to the previous arguments:

In an ASIC/FPGA it's not really only an algorithm, so another aspect comes into this: Creating a sufficiently optimal representation of the desired logic in VHDL/Verilog that lends itself well to chip layout / signal paths etc. -> This is what will allow you to either pack more parallelism into the chip real estate OR (tradeoff) utilize higher clocking. Layout and routing on the chip is nontrivial and using only the auto-functions of the design software might not give optimal results. If you are in a hurry to get a working chip in volume production, that's ok, but if you spend some more time on this, you might gain 15% or even much more in terms of attainable clock speed

Being able to clock 15% higher due to refinements in your chip design is a good thing, neh, if you can do it?

[RoadStress]

I am really not interested in Open Days, just plain old transparency. It works.

Got one on order, have you?

Date Registered:    June 02, 2013, 10:19:42 PM  OK!