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

[JimiQ84]

I was aiming to buy 500 shares, so I doubled my bid and ended with 394. Still pretty nice.

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[AngelSky]

A lot of people were here for the pump and dump thing but maybe some of them will realize that labcoin could become more than that. Why not hold 1-2 weeks and see what happens.

[San1ty]

A lot of people were here for the pump and dump thing but maybe some of them will realize that labcoin could become more than that. Why not hold 1-2 weeks and see what happens.

Agreed, but at this moment Labcoin still has a lot to prove.
Currently those shares are worth nothing. That's 0.003 BTC for Air.

[AngelSky]

yep but when they will, air will be expensive

[eastpk]

Any chance of an update Swede? Just eagerly waiting some news!

[Vbs]

Now that the heat is down, can we actually discuss the real stuff?

@TheSwede75

As the person in charge of PR/communication at the moment, can you please address the following posts? They are important claims/questions that need to be answered so that possible investors can get a better sense of the potential of your venture.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS (needs to be addressed by a dev):

If those are the correct specs, then I'm sorry but... LOL!!!

For that to be possible, not only each Labcoin core would have to be ~42% smaller [65/130*(6.5^2)/(7.1^2)] than each BFL core but also the Labcoin chip would magically operate at a higher frequency (300MHz vs 250MHz) while keeping the same power draw...


Since there are several new companies going for the 130nm route with the excuse that manufacturing costs are much cheaper, might as well burst that bubble too: It's not. Nothing beats going 28nm now, except for the fact that the upfront NRE cost is much higher.

ACTM wait up to six months. . LOL. . . Time is money

It is of course up to all investors to draw their own conclusions and believe what they want regarding what density (130, 110, 65, 55 or 28 nm) deliver the best ROI over time.

labcoin has made the choice to go with 130 nm as gen 1 and 65 nm as gen 2 for several reasons. Some of these reasons are NRE costs, fabrication costs, available developer resources, capital procurement and availability of Foundry shuttles and production slots.

We are certainly not claiming that 28 nm is a "bad choice" by default, but for a smaller project not wanting to be forced to raise millions of dollars and bet "everything" on a single development project or risk total failure (Bitfury did this, and it seems they were lucky enough to actually come out with positive results). Then staying with lesser density that is cheaper and offer far more flexible production options just makes sense.

Maybe worth pointing out that the graph you pasted has almost no relation to ANY ASIC manufacturer as it refers to large scale generalized production of IC. As as much as I would like to think that Labcoin shortly will be ordering $100 million dollar IC production runs I doubt that is very closely connected with reality.

The cost of a 28nm wafer is more or less the same as a 130nm wafer. The only real difference is NRE cost and having the expertise to develop on 28nm, that's the real bet.

Bitfury went full-custom standard cell and it worked OK for them, but that's the risk of going full-custom at first. You have the same risk, since your 130nm chip has a lot of sketchy specs. I would rather you commented on those, especially on the part where you claim to develop a faster and more power efficient chip than BFL (also standard cell) with transistors that have DOUBLE the size (130nm vs 65nm) and require much higher voltages (power consumption scales with the square of voltage).

The graph above is for ANY ASIC manufacturer, as it compares a Normalized Transistor Cost (wafer cost + packaging + etc) to a timeline, based on yields/wafer, die sizes and wafer cost. The production costs on new die sizes quickly go down after some time.

TIME FRAME:

Is your 130nm chip set to being finished in Q4 2013? If so, do you plan on rolling out mining hardware from other manufacturers in the mean time (as ACTM is doing)?

And you make a valid point, really. The question is timing. Look at BFL and potentially KnC. Avalon and ASICMiner went with the larger die size. ASICMiner deployed en mass first. Avalon shipped their miners first. Sure, go for the 28 nm but if it takes you 2-4 months longer to receive and deploy, do you still have the advantage? Those that chose the larger die have been mining and now have funds for more R & D. Pick your poison.

Indeed, time to market is very important (especially with bigger dies), but their 130nm delivery estimates are on Q4 2013, right where every 28nm chip maker is also going also...

The last months of 2013 are going to be pretty interesting indeed.

http://labcoin.com/docs/2.jpg

[piecinitup]

Now that the heat is down, can we actually discuss the real stuff?

@TheSwede75

As the person in charge of PR/communication at the moment, can you please address the following posts? They are important claims/questions that need to be answered so that possible investors can get a better sense of the potential of your venture.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS (needs to be addressed by a dev):

If those are the correct specs, then I'm sorry but... LOL!!!

For that to be possible, not only each Labcoin core would have to be ~42% smaller [65/130*(6.5^2)/(7.1^2)] than each BFL core but also the Labcoin chip would magically operate at a higher frequency (300MHz vs 250MHz) while keeping the same power draw...


Since there are several new companies going for the 130nm route with the excuse that manufacturing costs are much cheaper, might as well burst that bubble too: It's not. Nothing beats going 28nm now, except for the fact that the upfront NRE cost is much higher.

ACTM wait up to six months. . LOL. . . Time is money

It is of course up to all investors to draw their own conclusions and believe what they want regarding what density (130, 110, 65, 55 or 28 nm) deliver the best ROI over time.

labcoin has made the choice to go with 130 nm as gen 1 and 65 nm as gen 2 for several reasons. Some of these reasons are NRE costs, fabrication costs, available developer resources, capital procurement and availability of Foundry shuttles and production slots.

We are certainly not claiming that 28 nm is a "bad choice" by default, but for a smaller project not wanting to be forced to raise millions of dollars and bet "everything" on a single development project or risk total failure (Bitfury did this, and it seems they were lucky enough to actually come out with positive results). Then staying with lesser density that is cheaper and offer far more flexible production options just makes sense.

Maybe worth pointing out that the graph you pasted has almost no relation to ANY ASIC manufacturer as it refers to large scale generalized production of IC. As as much as I would like to think that Labcoin shortly will be ordering $100 million dollar IC production runs I doubt that is very closely connected with reality.

The cost of a 28nm wafer is more or less the same as a 130nm wafer. The only real difference is NRE cost and having the expertise to develop on 28nm, that's the real bet.

Bitfury went full-custom standard cell and it worked OK for them, but that's the risk of going full-custom at first. You have the same risk, since your 130nm chip has a lot of sketchy specs. I would rather you commented on those, especially on the part where you claim to develop a faster and more power efficient chip than BFL (also standard cell) with transistors that have DOUBLE the size (130nm vs 65nm) and require much higher voltages (power consumption scales with the square of voltage).

The graph above is for ANY ASIC manufacturer, as it compares a Normalized Transistor Cost (wafer cost + packaging + etc) to a timeline, based on yields/wafer, die sizes and wafer cost. The production costs on new die sizes quickly go down after some time.

TIME FRAME:

Is your 130nm chip set to being finished in Q4 2013? If so, do you plan on rolling out mining hardware from other manufacturers in the mean time (as ACTM is doing)?

And you make a valid point, really. The question is timing. Look at BFL and potentially KnC. Avalon and ASICMiner went with the larger die size. ASICMiner deployed en mass first. Avalon shipped their miners first. Sure, go for the 28 nm but if it takes you 2-4 months longer to receive and deploy, do you still have the advantage? Those that chose the larger die have been mining and now have funds for more R & D. Pick your poison.

Indeed, time to market is very important (especially with bigger dies), but their 130nm delivery estimates are on Q4 2013, right where every 28nm chip maker is also going also...

The last months of 2013 are going to be pretty interesting indeed.

http://labcoin.com/docs/2.jpg

THIS! +1

[vlaoou321]

Is there any update?

[AstroBoy]

Now that the heat is down, can we actually discuss the real stuff?

@TheSwede75

As the person in charge of PR/communication at the moment, can you please address the following posts? They are important claims/questions that need to be answered so that possible investors can get a better sense of the potential of your venture.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS (needs to be addressed by a dev):

If those are the correct specs, then I'm sorry but... LOL!!!

For that to be possible, not only each Labcoin core would have to be ~42% smaller [65/130*(6.5^2)/(7.1^2)] than each BFL core but also the Labcoin chip would magically operate at a higher frequency (300MHz vs 250MHz) while keeping the same power draw...


Since there are several new companies going for the 130nm route with the excuse that manufacturing costs are much cheaper, might as well burst that bubble too: It's not. Nothing beats going 28nm now, except for the fact that the upfront NRE cost is much higher.

http://www.abload.de/img/nv-pres309ke0.jpg

ACTM wait up to six months. . LOL. . . Time is money

It is of course up to all investors to draw their own conclusions and believe what they want regarding what density (130, 110, 65, 55 or 28 nm) deliver the best ROI over time.

labcoin has made the choice to go with 130 nm as gen 1 and 65 nm as gen 2 for several reasons. Some of these reasons are NRE costs, fabrication costs, available developer resources, capital procurement and availability of Foundry shuttles and production slots.

We are certainly not claiming that 28 nm is a "bad choice" by default, but for a smaller project not wanting to be forced to raise millions of dollars and bet "everything" on a single development project or risk total failure (Bitfury did this, and it seems they were lucky enough to actually come out with positive results). Then staying with lesser density that is cheaper and offer far more flexible production options just makes sense.

Maybe worth pointing out that the graph you pasted has almost no relation to ANY ASIC manufacturer as it refers to large scale generalized production of IC. As as much as I would like to think that Labcoin shortly will be ordering $100 million dollar IC production runs I doubt that is very closely connected with reality.

The cost of a 28nm wafer is more or less the same as a 130nm wafer. The only real difference is NRE cost and having the expertise to develop on 28nm, that's the real bet.

Bitfury went full-custom standard cell and it worked OK for them, but that's the risk of going full-custom at first. You have the same risk, since your 130nm chip has a lot of sketchy specs. I would rather you commented on those, especially on the part where you claim to develop a faster and more power efficient chip than BFL (also standard cell) with transistors that have DOUBLE the size (130nm vs 65nm) and require much higher voltages (power consumption scales with the square of voltage).

The graph above is for ANY ASIC manufacturer, as it compares a Normalized Transistor Cost (wafer cost + packaging + etc) to a timeline, based on yields/wafer, die sizes and wafer cost. The production costs on new die sizes quickly go down after some time.

TIME FRAME:

Is your 130nm chip set to being finished in Q4 2013? If so, do you plan on rolling out mining hardware from other manufacturers in the mean time (as ACTM is doing)?

And you make a valid point, really. The question is timing. Look at BFL and potentially KnC. Avalon and ASICMiner went with the larger die size. ASICMiner deployed en mass first. Avalon shipped their miners first. Sure, go for the 28 nm but if it takes you 2-4 months longer to receive and deploy, do you still have the advantage? Those that chose the larger die have been mining and now have funds for more R & D. Pick your poison.

Indeed, time to market is very important (especially with bigger dies), but their 130nm delivery estimates are on Q4 2013, right where every 28nm chip maker is also going also...

The last months of 2013 are going to be pretty interesting indeed.

http://labcoin.com/docs/2.jpg
http://labcoin.com/docs/2.jpg

THIS! +1

The biggest quote ever! BFL made some mistakes in their design IMHO.  So BFL probably isn't the best product to compare it to.  That said, it does look like labcoin is HIGHLY exaggerating what their chip will be capable of doing.  Since people will keep using bitcoin miners until they only breakeven, the lowest power consumption will win in the long run and at this point that is looking like go 28nm or go home.  Since KNC is a  full custom ASIC chip (standard cell) if it works it will have the best power to hash rate efficiency.  However, they are rushing it out the door really, really fast with minimal testing, so it could also be a total dud.  ActiveMining is using a structured cell ASIC which gives them shorter time to market (within a couple weeks of KNC I think), the advantage here is that they don't need to do as much testing as 98% of the chip is pre-engineered and they can migrate over to a "standard cell" design ~6 months from now since they are working with eASIC, however out of the gate their chip won't be quite as fast or efficient as a standard cell ASIC could be.

[Vbs]

The biggest quote ever! BFL made some mistakes in their design IMHO.  So BFL probably isn't the best product to compare it to.  That said, it does look like labcoin is HIGHLY exaggerating what their chip will be capable of doing.  Since people will keep using bitcoin miners until they only breakeven, the lowest power consumption will win in the long run and at this point that is looking like go 28nm or go home.  Since KNC is a  full custom ASIC chip (standard cell) if it works it will have the best power to hash rate efficiency.  However, they are rushing it out the door really, really fast with minimal testing, so it could also be a total dud.  ActiveMining is using a structured cell ASIC which gives them shorter time to market (within a couple weeks of KNC I think), the advantage here is that they don't need to do as much testing as 98% of the chip is pre-engineered and they can migrate over to a "standard cell" design ~6 months from now since they are working with eASIC, however out of the gate their chip won't be quite as fast or efficient as a standard cell ASIC could be.

Unrelated to the current thread, but just to clarify, eASIC allows for both the structured asic and standard cell to be developed by them in parallel, and this is what ActiveMining is probably going to do: http://www.easic.com/migration-to-cell-based-asic/migration-to-cell-based-asic-simple-design-flow/

But let's discuss Labcoin here please.

[4ju5tice]

To be honest, they're both overvalued right now. BTC markets are very bullish. And these companies have nothing to show for themselves other than promises.

And I've believed in promises too many times.  She never came back.

[San1ty]

To be honest, they're both overvalued right now. BTC markets are very bullish. And these companies have nothing to show for themselves other than promises.

And I've believed in promises too many times.  She never came back.

Totally right, Everyone seems to be on the Choo Choo IPO train that they forget they are actually buying nothing.
I wonder how many tears we'll see when the train crashes...

Disclaimer: I do sincerely hope Labcoin succeeds, My remark is just about the current pricing of shares.

[AngelSky]

And I've believed in promises too many times.  She never came back.

I think a lot of people will recognize themselves here 

[TheSwede75]

UPDATE:

I have taken the longest nap of my life and will be communicating with the Labcoin team today. Before anything I figured I would to the best of my ability answer a few questions that have come in from PM. So here we go!

Q: Can we expect regular updates on less than weekly basis?
A: Yes and No. I think weekly updates is what can be expected on average. I will attempt to keep up with the thread and answer the questions I can as they come in. Obviously there will be periods (first-run, production start etc.) that will be very update intensive, and other periods (prob the next few days) that will have less 'news' as things happen behind the scenes (BTC - FIAT conversion for first run, management projects etc.)

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: I am not privy to the exact nature of this but I can say that the BTC will be sold outside of the open market in China. I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. I believe the reason for the Chinese sale is that not only would it be somewhat cumbersome to move a large amount of fiat between western exchanges and Chinese accounts, but also the fact that Bitcoin (don't quote me on this) actually is quite a bit more valuable on average in China then on many US exchanges.

Q: Please send a dev over to discuss the technical questions about the chip specifications?
A: This is going to happen shortly (I am guessing after the weekend, early/mid next week). I have already talked to Sam about someone from the Development team doing a Q/A session and also for Founder Fabrizio to visit the forum and take questions.

I will be visiting this thread at least once every day (unless I am without computer. Yes it happens that I go fishing or something 'out of range') to check in on the discussion and answer the questions I can.
Here is to everyone having a great end of the week, and a fantastic weekend.

[scrybe]

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: ... I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. ...

Please establish and communicate a policy around this ASAP. I do NOT like to see investor funds being used for dividend payments, the money is there to grow your business, not to placate the shareholders.

[Vbs]

TheSwede75,

Thanks for the update. Leaving aside the specific hardware questions, can you elaborate on the foundry estimated chip delivery of Q4 2013?

[E.Sam]

Q: Please send a dev over to discuss the technical questions about the chip specifications?
A: This is going to happen shortly (I am guessing after the weekend, early/mid next week). I have already talked to Sam about someone from the Development team doing a Q/A session and also for Founder Fabrizio to visit the forum and take questions.

Good news. I think this is has to happen ASAP so as to get technical questions answered and put investors at ease.

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: ... I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. ...

Please establish and communicate a policy around this ASAP. I do NOT like to see investor funds being used for dividend payments, the money is there to grow your business, not to placate the shareholders.

+1

[str4wm4n]

well, I'm out thanks for the quick double up

[TheSwede75]

Q: How do you plan to convert 7000 Bitcoin into fiat? No need for full disclosure, but this question is critical.
A: ... I do believe there is still some discussion around if ALL 7k should be sold ASAP or if a portion should be held for dividend payments etc. ...

Please establish and communicate a policy around this ASAP. I do NOT like to see investor funds being used for dividend payments, the money is there to grow your business, not to placate the shareholders.

I am sorry if I made it unclear. Holding a small portion of Bitcoin would NOT be to pay dividends out of 'thin air' of course. This would simply be a small buffer to use for dividends if say Fiat payments are made for bulk chips or miners from customers and BTC is hard to 'come by'. I will pose this question more clearly to the Labcoin team, but rest assured this is NOT a large amount of Bitcoin we are talking about and of course no coin will be held at all if needed to grow the project or pay for Chips/Hardware/Dev etc.

[Ytterbium]

I am sorry if I made it unclear. Holding a small portion of Bitcoin would NOT be to pay dividends out of 'thin air' of course. This would simply be a small buffer to use for dividends if say Fiat payments are made for bulk chips or miners from customers and BTC is hard to 'come by'. I will pose this question more clearly to the Labcoin team, but rest assured this is NOT a large amount of Bitcoin we are talking about and of course no coin will be held at all if needed to grow the project or pay for Chips/Hardware/Dev etc.

How far along are you on the rest of the hardware design?  i.e. boards for the chips to go on, as well as drivers to operate them? That stuff all needs to be done in parallel so it's 100% ready when the chips arrive.

If you guys could release some more details stuff (pin outs, circuit board designs, etc) would probably do a lot to boost "investor confidence" (i.e. share price )

EDIT: Actually I looked back at your page in more detail and I see the chips have a built-in 2-pin serial link which can link to a USB chip.  So, for the 130nm design building the hardware should be quite straightforward.

Still, with KnC set to hit by the (end?) of October, etc it would be helpful to see more technical details about how you're going to move forward fast and get the hashing power online once everything gets rolling.