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

[San1ty]

Discuss... how was I wrong?

Well, "slow drop to IPO" was wrong, because we didn't see the IPO price again. "Towards IPO" would have been correct.

"I'll be right on the 0.0015 being a correct value for now" is your opinion but, at the time of typing, it's an opinion with which the market disagrees (price is currently > .0015, closer to .0016).

So pretty much wrong.

- Price has touched IPO even if it was briefly, and it definitely went towards IPO (Right on that regard)
- I am saying correct price right now is .0015, even if the market is currently .0016 that is great but that just makes it .0001 overpriced at the moment. (If you see big volume closer to .0020 you can call me wrong, otherwise I was Right)

I notice a lot of jelly for my toasty!

[1714322348]

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[damiano]

.0014-.0016 is fair for what we are working with right now.

As better news spills out we will slowly creep higher.  Late August/Early September is when things will get interesting.

[Vbs]

Any news on the hardware/logistics front?

1. Chip specifications

There are substantial differences in the way  the BFL chip is produced. They do employ a standard cell ASIC, while we went for a custom design with a focus on performances, achieved via a complex place & route procedure, which took our team almost one full-immersion month of work to complete.
We do confirm that we're expecting to obtain the initially declared performances with the 130nm round, but we will wait for the ICs to be ready, to better assess the yield quality in terms of chip grades.

2. 130 nm vs. newer technology

While 28nm technology is indeed superior, if fully taken advantage of, the NRE costs are enormously different, and so are the skills needed to design a working chip. We don't have the required resources, and we do not think the results obtainable are worth the costs right now, this is a strategy we will explore in the future.
We are happy with the obtained high performances and low consumptions with 130nm and we will show another breaktru' when the 65nm design is ready.

3. ETA

130nm IC is estimated to be delivered in early September and to be mining 7-10 days later.
65nm IC is still under development and no ETA is available yet.

4. General timeline

The following days we will focus on Q/A session and on the normal activities pertaining to our project.
As per your request of more pictures, here are some images of our test environment, with the WR703N router working as real world interface for the simulated IC running on the fpga.

Please provide detailed chip specs. Remember you are stating that you are able to get chips working at 4.8GH/s on a 130nm node (that's the equivalent of ~17 Avalon chips, which are built on a smaller die size of 110nm), using minimal power. What is the process? Die size? Voltages? Frequency? Etc?

I'm sure you already have most of these specs set in stone since you are aiming for an early September delivery. Has the order been done with TSMC already?

Please also show a pic/video of the prototype FPGA hashing at 4.8GH/s.

Example of detailed chip specs:

Avalon chip
Technology Summary:
   TSMC 0.11- micron G process
       5 Metal
Core Voltage: 1.2 V
I/O Voltage: 3.3 V
Core Frequency: 256+ MHz
Number of Pads: 48
   8 Data
   40+1 Power
Package Type: QFN48 -0.5 Pitch
Packaged Chip Size: 7 mm x 7 mm

Chip Interface
Data Pins (8 in total):
Clock                     i
Serial Data In  [2]       i
Serial Data Out [2]       o
Serial Data Bypass [2]    o
Reserved    [1]    -

Chip power efficienty: 6.6W/GHs @ 1.15 V

[tucenaber]

I agree with Vbs. Please give some details.
Let me also repeat my earlier question. Today is 5 August. Have production started?

Further elaborating, there's a TSMC Shuttle for 130nm on 5 August.

NRE costs for a full-mask at 130nm are affordable enough to be crowfunded, and the cost of full wafers are affordable as well. This is probably ASICMINER secret.

Chip output would be of about 1500 chips for each full wafer.

Estimate delivery of the already packaged chips would be around mid September.

[mpr20rt]

I agree with Vbs. Please give some details.
Let me also repeat my earlier question. Today is 5 August. Have production started?

Further elaborating, there's a TSMC Shuttle for 130nm on 5 August.

NRE costs for a full-mask at 130nm are affordable enough to be crowfunded, and the cost of full wafers are affordable as well. This is probably ASICMINER secret.

Chip output would be of about 1500 chips for each full wafer.

Estimate delivery of the already packaged chips would be around mid September.

ditto

[twentyseventy]

Bring on the news! 

[Exocyst]

I agree with Vbs. Please give some details.
Let me also repeat my earlier question. Today is 5 August. Have production started?

Further elaborating, there's a TSMC Shuttle for 130nm on 5 August.

NRE costs for a full-mask at 130nm are affordable enough to be crowfunded, and the cost of full wafers are affordable as well. This is probably ASICMINER secret.

Chip output would be of about 1500 chips for each full wafer.

Estimate delivery of the already packaged chips would be around mid September.

ditto

The information sure did come a lot faster before they got all the BTC's. I am not saying I agree with Mircea, but the burgeoning silence does resonate with his accusations. http://trilema.com/2013/the-anatomy-of-a-scam/. I genuinely hope for Labcoin investors' sake he isn't right. Now would be a good time to get cracking on communicating meaningful information (See Vbs request above) with shareholders.

[Ytterbium]

So the questions should be:

1) Are your first run ASICs in production?
2) How many wafers?
3) How many chips are you expecting to get out of the first run?  (at some point someone said about 1-1.5k, but it would take 10x to get to 30Thash)

Also, if you're confident in your chip design, are you sure it's a good idea to wait until your first run is finished before ordering a second run? If the difficulty keeps rising at the rate it is, getting 480Thash/s a month and a half earlier could have a huge impact on profitability.

Example of detailed chip specs:

Avalon chip
Technology Summary:
   TSMC 0.11- micron G process
       5 Metal
Core Voltage: 1.2 V
I/O Voltage: 3.3 V
Core Frequency: 256+ MHz
Number of Pads: 48
   8 Data
   40+1 Power
Package Type: QFN48 -0.5 Pitch
Packaged Chip Size: 7 mm x 7 mm

Chip Interface
Data Pins (8 in total):
Clock                     i
Serial Data In  [2]       i
Serial Data Out [2]       o
Serial Data Bypass [2]    o
Reserved    [1]    -

Chip power efficienty: 6.6W/GHs @ 1.15 V

They won't have exact specs until after the chip if finished and tested.  However, their website does list the old expected specs at 180nm:

Feature size : 180nm
Core voltage : 1.8V
I/O voltage : 3.3V
Core Frequency: 250 Mhz - vdd 1.8~1.85V
Number of Pads : 44
Package : LQFP or equivalent
Chip size : 5mm x 5mm
Power consumption (variable) : 1.4~1.8W
Hashing power (variable): 220~280 MH/second
I/O interface : USB / Serial
Estimated tape-out : Within the first half of July

And they have a pin-out for the chip as well, which will use serial IO:

[tucenaber]

The information sure did come a lot faster before they got all the BTC's. I am not saying I agree with Mircea, but the burgeoning silence does resonate with his accusations. http://trilema.com/2013/the-anatomy-of-a-scam/. I genuinely hope for Labcoin investors' sake he isn't right. Now would be a good time to get cracking on communicating meaningful information (See Vbs request above) with shareholders.

And what's the proof? A perceived pattern in registration dates. That's it. Personally I'd take the judgement of TheSven before MBOE any day. He doesn't think it's a scam and I don't either.

[Exocyst]

The information sure did come a lot faster before they got all the BTC's. I am not saying I agree with Mircea, but the burgeoning silence does resonate with his accusations. http://trilema.com/2013/the-anatomy-of-a-scam/. I genuinely hope for Labcoin investors' sake he isn't right. Now would be a good time to get cracking on communicating meaningful information (See Vbs request above) with shareholders.

And what's the proof? A perceived pattern in registration dates. That's it. Personally I'd take the judgement of TheSven before MBOE any day. He doesn't think it's a scam and I don't either.

I genuinely hope your assertions are correct, and I agree that Mircea's argument is not conclusive.

[freedomno1]

Fake news first THAILAND now this sigh I'm starting to not trust the news when it comes to bitcoin.

[freedomno1]

A notification has been posted to LABCOIN. You have received this email
because you own shares of LABCOIN.

-----
Regarding shares owned by the Labcoin founders and developers.

News



Regarding shares owned by the Labcoin founders and developers.



Due to inquiries LABCOIN has received from investors, the founders and developers involved in the LABCOIN project has decided to voluntarily lock in 75% of all shares owned by the LABCOIN core team for 12-months.



This means that no founder or developer owning shares in LABCOIN will sell an excess of 25% of their shares for at least 365 days from today's date.



This is being publicly announced to set to rest any concern that the LABCOIN team has any interest in liquidating their holdings in the project.



Q: Why not lock in 100%?

A: Simply because we feel that it is only fair to allow the members of the LABCOIN team that wishes to sell smaller portions of their ownership should they need some Bitcoin for any unforeseen expense during the first year of operations.



-----

Thank you for using BTC-TC

[tucenaber]

The information sure did come a lot faster before they got all the BTC's. I am not saying I agree with Mircea, but the burgeoning silence does resonate with his accusations. http://trilema.com/2013/the-anatomy-of-a-scam/. I genuinely hope for Labcoin investors' sake he isn't right. Now would be a good time to get cracking on communicating meaningful information (See Vbs request above) with shareholders.

And what's the proof? A perceived pattern in registration dates. That's it. Personally I'd take the judgement of TheSven before MBOE any day. He doesn't think it's a scam and I don't either.

I genuinely hope your assertions are correct, and I agree that Mircea's argument is not conclusive.

There is a word for it: FUD

[Ytterbium]

The information sure did come a lot faster before they got all the BTC's. I am not saying I agree with Mircea, but the burgeoning silence does resonate with his accusations. http://trilema.com/2013/the-anatomy-of-a-scam/. I genuinely hope for Labcoin investors' sake he isn't right. Now would be a good time to get cracking on communicating meaningful information (See Vbs request above) with shareholders.

And what's the proof? A perceived pattern in registration dates. That's it. Personally I'd take the judgement of TheSven before MBOE any day. He doesn't think it's a scam and I don't either.

Well, given the fact that guy lists me personally as a shill/fake account, it's kind of hard to take him seriously. Of course that wouldn't apply to all the people he didn't list. In any event, He seems like a total nutter to me.

I think people need to be a little more patient, I would hope these guys are spending their time working on getting designed and produced, as opposed to sitting on a forum.

[ThickAsThieves]

Can you post the public links to the core team's BTCT portfolios to prove that they have held the shares and will continue to?

[Rulother]

Can you post the public links to the core team's BTCT portfolios to prove that they have held the shares and will continue to?

I'm all for this.

[Ytterbium]

Can you post the public links to the core team's BTCT portfolios to prove that they have held the shares and will continue to?

If burnside says it's locked then presumably it's actually locked. As in, unable to be sold using the system.

[afrotec]

Posted on BTCT:

Regarding shares owned by the Labcoin founders and developers. Posted: 9 minutes ago
News

Regarding shares owned by the Labcoin founders and developers.

Due to inquiries LABCOIN has received from investors, the founders and developers involved in the LABCOIN project has decided to voluntarily lock in 75% of all shares owned by the LABCOIN core team for 12-months.

This means that no founder or developer owning shares in LABCOIN will sell an excess of 25% of their shares for at least 365 days from today's date.

This is being publicly announced to set to rest any concern that the LABCOIN team has any interest in liquidating their holdings in the project.

Q: Why not lock in 100%?
A: Simply because we feel that it is only fair to allow the members of the LABCOIN team that wishes to sell smaller portions of their ownership should they need some Bitcoin for any unforeseen expense during the first year of operations.

[ThickAsThieves]

Can you post the public links to the core team's BTCT portfolios to prove that they have held the shares and will continue to?

If burnside says it's locked then presumably it's actually locked. As in, unable to be sold using the system.

There's no such thing as a "lock" feature for shares, nor did Burnside say he has manually locked anything. Or did I miss something?

[weaknesswaran]

Can you post the public links to the core team's BTCT portfolios to prove that they have held the shares and will continue to?

If burnside says it's locked then presumably it's actually locked. As in, unable to be sold using the system.

There's no such thing as a "lock" feature for shares, nor did Burnside say he has manually locked anything. Or did I miss something?

Some pages before he told he could lock them on request.