[LABCOIN] IPO [BTCT.CO] - Details/FAQ and Discussion (ASIC dev/sales/mining)

[redbeans2012]

The lab was located in Hong Kong right?
Than don't be alarmed if they turn silent in the next coming days
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/typhoon-usagi-threatens-taiwan-hong-kong-20130919

No, typhoon will not affect the Internet. Moreover, there's no lab, but just one manager and a couple of part time engineers having their own day jobs.

Not sure how typhoons effect life there but I've been in my fair share of hurricanes and the power almost always goes out

[1714297438]

1714297438

[redbeans2012]

Been a while since the last deposit. No sign of the promised update. 

It just came in.  1.7BTC over 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Looks like you have a decimal point off

[utens]

Been a while since the last deposit. No sign of the promised update. 

It just came in.  1.7BTC over 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Looks like you have a decimal point off

17 btc!

[NineLives]

Been a while since the last deposit. No sign of the promised update. 

It just came in.  1.7BTC over 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Looks like you have a decimal point off

17 btc!

I've not been keeping up..

17BTC in 24hrs?

What address are you looking at?  And is this Labcoin's address?

[damiano]

it was

.17430599 BTC

If it was 17BTC the price would of soared by now

[Ytterbium]

But there doesn't seem to be much basis for saying that the process node needs to be fixed 9 months before chips finish.

All the evidence points in that direction, that especially for a small team it does take that much time.
Need one more ? Asicminer started their design in june  2012, selected the process and published preliminary specs in July,  taped out end of september, started hashing in February.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=91173.msg1003326#msg1003326

Friedcat is no idiot, wasnt underfunded, used an old "simple" process node,  but it took  8 months between selecting their process node and hashing. What basis do you have to assume labcoin could go so much faster?

You keep talking as if the feature size for all of these chips was set in stone as soon as they started design work.  In fact if you read that post it doesn't even sound like they had picked whether they were going to do 130 or 65 nm:

It is widely believed that the NRE cost of ASIC is very high, while the margin cost of mass ASIC production is very low. However, we happen to be in China, where the NRE cost is much more reasonable (~150k$ for 130nm, ~500k$ for 65nm, furthermore much less if you do a 1/N mask) than most people thought. And we are going to take well advantage of that.

It may also be possible to design a chip with die-size flexibility in mind.

You keep arguing this over and over again, claiming it takes a long time to design a chip.  No one is arguing with that. But you are presenting no evidence, and no real arguments for why it would be the case that feature size would need to be finalized early on in the design process.

All this despite the fact you've never actually designed and IC, or been involved in the process.  You're just pointing to various bitcoin chips you know about - except you don't know anything about when the feature size had to be finalized on those chips.

The evidence you're presenting is totally irrelevant to the actual claim you made.

[utens]

Been a while since the last deposit. No sign of the promised update. 

It just came in.  1.7BTC over 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Looks like you have a decimal point off

17 btc!

I've not been keeping up..

17BTC in 24hrs?

What address are you looking at?  And is this Labcoin's address?

The decimal point off was in the other direction!     this adress? 17psAW21J4twanAFWmbcd5WdX2pKeX3trm

[Ytterbium]

Been a while since the last deposit. No sign of the promised update.  

It just came in.  1.7BTC over 3 hours, 30 minutes.

Looks like you have a decimal point off

Lol, wishful thinking I guess. Obviously I meant .17  

[damiano]

Once again, here is Labcoin's address

Bookmark it

https://blockchain.info/address/17psAW21J4twanAFWmbcd5WdX2pKeX3trm

[radiumsoup]

TheSeven just clarifyied something via irc from the last chat, which was already pasted here
(timestamp below is US/Central)

[09-21 12:27:20] <TheSeven> let me quote sam (or whoever was using the skype account at that time): "they do but they will stop hashing after a few cycles and restart back" and "never showing the full hashing speed we have at any moment, i could show some mining address but that would not stop the FUD because of this"
[09-21 12:27:45] <TheSeven> and I haven't talked to them since a week, they're somewhat hard to reach. so I'm not involved with rev1 yet.
[09-21 12:28:20] <bobbabad> ok..
[09-21 12:28:21] <TheSeven> note that these quotes are also a week old, they might have made a lot of progress since then
...
[09-21 12:50:53] <TheSeven> sam explicitly confirmed that they were only restarting after several billion hashes
[09-21 12:50:59] <yttr> okay
[09-21 12:51:05] <yttr> several as in more then four?
[09-21 12:51:10] <TheSeven> yes
[09-21 12:51:12] <yttr> so more then a whole diff1 share
[09-21 12:51:21] <TheSeven> he basically said "every couple of diff1 shares"

[superduh]

keep the donations coming guys they'll be the dividends people will be receiving this upcoming week

[richard_dein]

TheSeven just clarifyied something via irc from the last chat, which was already pasted here
(timestamp below is US/Central)

[09-21 12:27:20] <TheSeven> let me quote sam (or whoever was using the skype account at that time): "they do but they will stop hashing after a few cycles and restart back" and "never showing the full hashing speed we have at any moment, i could show some mining address but that would not stop the FUD because of this"
[09-21 12:27:45] <TheSeven> and I haven't talked to them since a week, they're somewhat hard to reach. so I'm not involved with rev1 yet.
[09-21 12:28:20] <bobbabad> ok..
[09-21 12:28:21] <TheSeven> note that these quotes are also a week old, they might have made a lot of progress since then

I hope it it's just a software glitch, not the exposed heat pad issues catching them...
perhaps they can try to under-clock the chips and learn a lesson for their 65nm version.

[Puppet]

You keep talking as if the feature size for all of these chips was set in stone as soon as they started design work.  In fact if you read that post it doesn't even sound like they had picked whether they were going to do 130 or 65 nm:

Tthey signed an NDA with the fab and received the cell libraries in July. Its set in stone then. Still took >2 months to tape out and until february to hash. Note that these libraries are not only specific to a node size, but to a specific process at a specific fab. What friedcat did before that would have been process agnostic, but most likely with a process node size in mind. And yes you could pick one smaller of bigger at that point, that isnt the point. The point is the 2 months it took to implement the design for their chosen process and the 7-8 months it took after tape out. But you think its ludicrous to claim that this would likely take 6-9 months.  You tell Friedcat that. And Bitfury. And BFL. IOW, everyone who so far has brought a bitcoin asic to market and even most of the one's that havent done yet but already  believe they cant do it much faster, like black arrow and cointerra.

And yes it is possible to go faster, by implementing something like altera hardcopy,  easic's nextreme, etc which is really inbetween an FPGA and a custom cell based asic. Thats the route KnC most likely took and ActiveMining definitely took. Doing that makes the development cycle substantially shorter, and has a lower NRE, but you pay for that in higher unit prices, worse performance and worse power efficiency. On 28nm thats a good tradeoff right now. But not something you can afford on a 65nm process that wont arrive until next year.

The evidence you're presenting is totally irrelevant to the actual claim you made.

The evidence covers 100% of all other bitcoin asics. Whats your evidence it can be done substantially faster?

[Bitcycle]

Another payment in.

At this point, I'm willing to assume it's really Labcoin hashing, but at a very low rate.

[VolanicEruptor]

Another payment in.

At this point, I'm willing to assume it's really Labcoin hashing, but at a very low rate.

It's insignificant and shouldn't even be talked about.

[abuelau]

Given the last 24 hours, the hash rate is about 300Gh/s at the mo.

[cix888]

Another payment in.

At this point, I'm willing to assume it's really Labcoin hashing, but at a very low rate.

maybe that's only one address... If you trying to hash from 2TH to 500TH its probable that you mine with a few pools from the start and don't hold all your BTC in one place...

[Puppet]

And yes it is possible to go faster, by implementing something like altera hardcopy,  easic's nextreme, etc which is really inbetween an FPGA and a custom cell based asic. Thats the route KnC most likely took and ActiveMining definitely took.

KnC's chip is done by orsoc. I just checked their website:

"Retargeting of complex FPGA design from Xilinx Virtex5 into an Altera Hard Copy"

Bingo. Im willing to bet that is why KnC is moving so fast (and performing so poorly on GH/W). Its not a cell based custom asic, its an altera hardcopy V. Also explains why they dont feel a need to do wafer probe testing or even final package tests.

[VolanicEruptor]

Given the last 24 hours, the hash rate is about 300Gh/s at the mo.

It's insignificant and shouldn't be talked about.  That's what we refer to as "satoshi dust" after dividing it by 10,000,000 shares

[Ytterbium]

You keep talking as if the feature size for all of these chips was set in stone as soon as they started design work.  In fact if you read that post it doesn't even sound like they had picked whether they were going to do 130 or 65 nm:

Tthey signed an NDA with the fab and received the cell libraries in July. Its set in stone then. Still took >2 months to tape out and until february to hash. Note that these libraries are not only specific to a node size, but to a specific process at a specific fab.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any idea what people actually do with these cell libraries?  I don't mean "design the chip" but actually how they physically use them?  Because it doesn't sound like you actually have any idea.

The evidence you're presenting is totally irrelevant to the actual claim you made.

The evidence covers 100% of all other bitcoin asics. Whats your evidence it can be done substantially faster?

Again, all your claims are about how long it takes to go from the start of a design to finished silicon.  None of them have to do with how late in that process they could have finalized the hardware size.  The initial choices were likely made for financial reasons, and stuck with for the same reasons.

I don't know why you're hammering this point.  You said you didn't know what you're talking about, and obviously you haven't learned anything new in the past hour.

I also asked TheSeven about this in IRC:

[12:41] <TheSeven> HDL is fairly highlevel and doesn't care much about the node
...
[12:41] <TheSeven> however the synthesis, optimization and test of course isn't
...
[12:43] <TheSeven> the time from deciding on a process node and receiving chips in quantity highly depends on: the fab, the process node, how much you're willing to pay, and how much effort you want to put into optimization
...
[12:44] <TheSeven> if you have a deal with a university fab that gives you some spare space bi-weekly wafer runs, that will move a lot quicker than if you're a low priority customer on a shared wafer run of some fab
...
[12:44] <TheSeven> synthesis is automated, but you typically need to do it a few times if you want to reach high performance, tweaking some parameters

See that? synthesis is automated. The part that takes HDL describing the logic and generates a GDSII file containing the layers is done by computer.  If you want to generate at multiple node sizes, you can.  All you would need to do is get multiple cell libraries for different technologies, and synthesize in parallel.  It would mean less overall optimization, but you could maintain feature size flexibility up until tapeout, depending on your financial situation, since smaller nodes cost more.

This is how you actually figure things out, but the way.  If you don't know something you do research and find out.  You don't just randomly guess based on "common sense" and then argue that your random guess is correct without any evidence.