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

[blackswan]

Posting answers from Q&A so far:

[11:38] <labcoin_dev> Let's start with the Q/A session. I'm a member of the chinese staff
[11:38] <labcoin_dev> colleague of H.Zhenhua

[11:43] <labcoin_dev> Alright,the 130nm IC is designed to work at about 200 Mhz for core, with a total consumption of 0.8W per core, hashing performances of about 200 mhash per core, total speed will depend  on the overall output grade

[11:44] <labcoin_dev> the IC covers an area of 6.5mm x 6.5mm and it has been designed following ideas similar to those employed in the bitfury ASIC

[11:45] <labcoin_dev> detailed specs will be available as soon as we receive the first sample chips
[11:45] <labcoin_dev> and we can do extensive testing

[11:46] <labcoin_dev> the first test run is already out to fab
[11:47] <labcoin_dev> we're waiting for the test chips, one moment i gather the info you requested

[11:53] <+labcoin_dev> Chip frequency : 300Mhz, Process : 130nm CMOS, Die size: 4160,0000um2,    VDD : 1.2-1.5 V adjustable

[11:54] <+labcoin_dev> estimate date for receiving sample chip, one week later, if there are no delays, the plan is having boards produced within the first week of september

[11:55] <+labcoin_dev> we will focus on deploying internal hash power initially and won't ship USB miners yet, time is tigh

[11:55] <tucenaber> is this chip the same design as the 180nm?
[11:55] <tucenaber> or a completely new one?
[11:56] <+labcoin_dev> it's based on similar design choices,but it's indeed different
[11:56] <+labcoin_dev> as it's using a different library,different logic blocks  layout

[11:56] <tucenaber> how can you fit 16 cores on 6.5x6.5 ?
[11:57] <+labcoin_dev> the cores we have fit are not classical "unrolled cores",the cores as we mean them are the result of our engineering effort

[11:57] <zefy> So you've arranged them to fit more on the same size?
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> we adopt a "sea-of-hashers" approach
[11:58] <dexX7> from vbs: "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..."
[11:58] <+labcoin_dev> i remind you guys that the bitfury chip has up to 750 cores
[11:59] <+labcoin_dev> they also use the same approach, we chose this design because one of our guys was close to bitfury developments 2 months ago

[12:00] <+labcoin_dev> i think we already uploaded photos of our lab,  our testing environment
[12:01] <+labcoin_dev> and our chip images aren't available yet, we don't have chip in hands yet
[12:01] <epk> Mr. Dev - I dont think there have been any pictures at least from what I have looked for
[12:01] <+labcoin_dev> elk, there are  many, including those of the de2 board+wr703N

[12:02] <dexX7> labcoin seems almost small now in the light of new competitors like btcgarden, hashfast, actm, terrahash.. do you think you can keep up?
[12:02] <+labcoin_dev> btcgarden?
[12:02] <+labcoin_dev> well, guys, i would do a reality check before saying such things
[12:03] <dexX7> please elaborate, i'm curious
[12:03] <+labcoin_dev> undoubtedly ASICMINER, AVALON and maybe BFL have some kind of advantage
[12:03] <+labcoin_dev> but  we don't see how we are inferior to those vaporware companies
[12:04] <+labcoin_dev> what in their announcement makes them more convincing than us?
[12:05] <+labcoin_dev> i for one,do not think we're going to see 28nm chips in September, i do not think we'll be going to see any btcgarden chip

[12:06] <ThickAsThieves> 2. How will you show transparency with the 75% retained shares?
[12:06] <+labcoin_dev> 75% of shares are locked
[12:07] <ThickAsThieves> Can you prove it?
[12:07] <+labcoin_dev> locked in the account by burnside, i don't think we can sell them
[12:07] <ThickAsThieves> We need two things:
[12:07] <+labcoin_dev> i need to ask the management, how would you like it proved?
[12:07] <ThickAsThieves> 1. Evidence the shares are still held
[12:07] <ThickAsThieves> 2. Testimony from Burnside they are locked

[12:07] <@San1ty_> labcoin_dev: Sorry to insist but when asked if you can prove you weren't vaporware, you mostly replied in terms of competitors and why they are. What about you?
[12:08] <+labcoin_dev> right, as said, we're on the same boat
[12:08] <epk> if Burnside can also comment on the locked shares that will definitely help
[12:08] <+labcoin_dev> time will tell and the sheer of technical details we have provided is not trivial
[12:08] <+labcoin_dev> it's very unlikely we are making everything up
[12:08] <ThickAsThieves> lol
[12:08] <Rulother__> We can't just take your word for it

[12:09] <epk> 13. So if everything goes as planned - we'll see Labcoin start hashing in the first week of September? Can you please confirm?
[12:09] <+labcoin_dev> confirm, hashing with moderate speed and testing
[12:09] <+labcoin_dev> and within the end of the month, we'll have the full speed online
[12:09] <epk> as in TH deployment?
[12:09] <+labcoin_dev> well not 30-50 TH
[12:10] <+labcoin_dev> not sure what will be the yield of the test-run but it's in the thousands ICs
[12:10] <epk> that knowledge will be known as soon as you get the chips, correct?
[12:10] <@San1ty_> so how many TH's will be hashing in September?
[12:10] <epk> well I mean after the testing of course
[12:10] <+labcoin_dev> correct, also,next week we'll have the next batch going out
[12:10] <+labcoin_dev> out to fab*
[12:11] <+labcoin_dev> in september we may have a few TH
[12:11] <+labcoin_dev> i can't give exact figures, by the end of Sept, initial week of october we'll have the full speed online

[12:13] <+labcoin_dev> theSeven is the same guy as the one in FPGA development, correct
[12:14] <+labcoin_dev> yes theSeven is working on a sophisticated interface for the 65nm version

[12:13] <ThickAsThieves> 6. How is it possible to create chips with a such much better performance than the competitors?
[12:14] <+labcoin_dev> ThickAsThieves, rolled cores instead of unrolled, sea-of-hashers approach
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> as in sea-of-gates
[12:15] <+labcoin_dev> you can google this term and find out more about what it means technically

[12:17] <tucenaber> what are the chances that the chips won't work? can you guestimate?
[12:17] <+labcoin_dev> tucenaber there's a small chance that the chip won't work, but very very small
[12:18] <+labcoin_dev> it's much more common to get slightly underperforming chips rather than completely dead ones
[12:18] <tucenaber> more like, some percentage will be defective?
[12:18] <+labcoin_dev> yes, and some percentage will underperform

[12:20] <dexX7> labcoin_dev: so the chips are ready soon. how's the status of the boards?
[12:21] <+labcoin_dev> The boards are near their design completion and will be tested as soon as we have the chips
[12:21] <+labcoin_dev> we'll post pictures of the boards very soon

12:22] <Hollywood> <Hollywood> tricone developed sea of hashers idea for MMQ FPGA - is tricone involved?
[12:22] <+labcoin_dev> he's not

[12:22] <@San1ty_> labcoin_dev: How many boards do you have ready for testing when the chips arrive? How long will it take after testing to get all the board you need, set them up with chips and get them hashing?
[12:23] <+labcoin_dev> it will take about   7-10 days to get all the boards up and running probably
[12:23] <+labcoin_dev> and, for the first run, we have 500 boards on order,

[12:23] <userioao> labcoin_Dev: what  tools do you use for simulation, debug and synthesis
[12:24] <+labcoin_dev> we use  Mentor
[12:24] <+labcoin_dev> mostly, and its suite

[12:23] <@San1ty_> labcoin_dev: Do you still depend on suppliers or do you have everything in stock?
[12:24] <+labcoin_dev> we still depend on suppliers but we're closing in the gap
[12:25] <+labcoin_dev> we'll be ordering components  according to the volume needed to avoid bottlenecks

[12:24] <userioao> labcoin_dev: what date was the tape-out?
[12:25] <+labcoin_dev> 24july first one

[12:25] <marco__> where is the lab?Shenzhen or Hongkong? Can we have a chance to visit? When if not now?
[12:26] <+labcoin_dev> lab is located in SZ, at the university facility, we'll be moving shorty to another office
[12:26] <+labcoin_dev> we'll be inviting selected investors to visit our datacenter in september

[12:26] <peter123_> http://www.labcoin.com/presentation.html    are these photos of the real where u r working in?
[12:26] <+labcoin_dev> yes,they are real
[12:26] <+labcoin_dev> it's the university i mentioned

[12:30] <whoiswho> how long did it take for your team to finish the chip design?
[12:31] <+labcoin_dev> about  4 months of work totally

[12:31] <generatorpop> I only have one question for labcoin staff, is there a projection or estimate for how many Bitcoins labcoin's mining effort can generate the first month factoring in the difficulty? Or is such a forecast impossible?
[12:33] <+labcoin_dev> generatorpop: it's kind of hard, but we estimate something like 5000-6000 bitcoin in october if the difficulty will be around 80 millions
[12:34] <+labcoin_dev> i'm going out on a limb, just an estimation, very rough

[12:39] <tucenaber> labcoin_dev: what is the biggest risk?
[12:40] <+labcoin_dev> delays in  production and difficulty rising too much, but we don't expect these issues now
[12:41] <tucenaber> are there any reasons to expect delays in production?
[12:42] <tucenaber> what i mean is is there a significant risk?
[12:42] <+labcoin_dev> tucenaber : the risk is present but not significant, we are in Shenzhen and we know the market  deeply

[12:43] <zefy> Do you have a plan in place should something happen? Natural disaster/ etc
[12:43] <zefy> Do you have another manufacturer as a contingency?
[12:44] <+labcoin_dev> yes,   we have financial resources to move everything to another supplier, and we have a list of them

[12:44] <Cryptoquo> labcoin_dev: you mentioned 50 TH by end of Sept. - begin of Oct. Any further deployment plan following that?
[12:46] <+labcoin_dev> of course, after the first 50 TH we'll continue deploying more

[12:49] <whoiswho> how large is the labcoin team? how many engineers, management and staff?
[12:49] <zefy> +1
[12:49] <+labcoin_dev> 6 people at the moment
[12:49] <arandomp> can you specify their rolls and expertise (of the ones we haven't heard about)
[12:49] <arandomp> roles
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> Fabrizio Tatti
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Founder and sole owner of iTec-pro Ltd
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Brief CV : http://cn.linkedin.com/in/fabriziotatti
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev>  
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> Samuel Noi
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Nominee Director of iTec-Pro Ltd and PR representative for Labcoin.
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev>  
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> Howard Wang
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Team Leader at Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Master's, Electronic Science and Technology Tsinghua University in Integrated Circuits & Systems
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Bachelor's, Electronic and Information Engineering Beijing University Aeronautics and Astronautics
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev>  
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> Michael Sparmann (theSeven)
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Bitcoin expert, contributor for Open-Source FPGA Bitcoin miner
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Generalist software developer, touched most layers from electronics to web development
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Background on low level software (down to the hardware interface, bare-metal software, operating systems, kernel, etc. )
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev>  
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> Daniel Larsson (TheSwede75)
[12:51] <+labcoin_dev> - Marketer, member of Bitcointalk, group-buy manager and bitcoin enthusiast. Acting as communications assistant with Labcoin.com in IPO and marketing.

[12:50] <+labcoin_dev> i want to say once again, we're a large-scale mining operation, we will have power in the tunes of tens of TH within october, and we will be paying dividends

[12:55] <dexX7> are you going to implement a way to allow overclocking the final units?
[12:55] <+labcoin_dev> dexX7 probably the clock generator will be an adjustable one

[12:55] <whyman9> Not technical no, but i want to ask, what was the last major hurdle in development, that Labcoin overcame?
[12:57] <+labcoin_dev> whyman9 : implementing the sea-of-gates approach and translating it to the physical layer, doing the place and route task
[12:58] <+labcoin_dev> whyman9 : next hurdle will be getting the boards to work, but seriously a minor hurdle

[12:58] <Korbman> labcoin_dev: just so I have it straight, test chips will be available to you guys in September?
[12:58] <+labcoin_dev> regarding the chips, before September we'll have test chips

[12:59] <whoiswho> which foundry do you work with?
[13:00] <+labcoin_dev> we work with TMSC through SZICC

[12:59] <+labcoin_dev> if there  are delays, it will slide to September
[13:00] <+labcoin_dev> fab delays only
[13:01] <+labcoin_dev> well there would be a slight delay in finalizing the boards
[13:02] <+labcoin_dev> but we're definitely still on track for september/october even if there's a small delay with test chips

[13:02] <+labcoin_dev> we actually think about setting up a laboratory to study 3D printed electronic circuits
[13:03] <+labcoin_dev> we're focusing on this area  of research lately
[13:03] <arandomp> will this be done under labcoin or other entity the "shareholders" aren't part of?
[13:03] <+labcoin_dev> this shall be decided
[13:03] <+labcoin_dev> i don't know about this, and i'm only an employee as said
[13:03] <+labcoin_dev> this is a question for management

[13:04] <Rulother__> Can we get a management Q&A as well?
[13:04] <userioao> we're getting it
[13:05] <+labcoin_dev> of course, probably tomorrow the founder will be online

[13:05] <tucenaber> perhaps not technical, but how will you choose between selling chips vs mining yourself?
[13:06] <+labcoin_dev> according to how fast the difficulty is rising, number of competitors, specs  of competing products
[13:06] <+labcoin_dev> we'll conduct an evaluation of the expected revenues with both business models
[13:07] <+labcoin_dev> taking into account bitcoin price possibility to rise a lot, we may choose as well to do both in the worst case

EDIT (1pm EST):  Well I've got some work to do, so I won't be monitoring the IRC any longer.  But I'm sure TAT will keep everyone updated in his post below.

[ThickAsThieves]

1. Please give us a detailed specification of the chip and its current status. What is the power efficiency?
Alright,the 130nm IC is designed to work at about 200 Mhz for core, with a total consumption of 0.8W per core, hashing performances of about 200 mhash per core, total speed will depend  on the overall output grade.
The IC covers an area of 6.5mm x 6.5mm and it has been designed following ideas similar to those employed in the bitfury ASIC.

2. How will you show transparency with the 75% retained shares?
the IPO manager will arrange some kind of way for burnside to release that information

3. Are your first run ASICs in production?
the first test run is already out to fab

4. How many chips do you expect to get out of the first batch? When will you have sample chips?
estimate date for receiving sample chip, one week later, if there are no delays, the plan is having boards produced within the first week of september

5. How is it possible to create chips with a such much better performance than the competitors. You've arranged them to fit more on the same size? 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...
rolled cores instead of unrolled, sea-of-hashers approach. as in sea-of-gates. you can google this term and find out more about what it means technically. i remind you guys that the bitfury chip has up to 750 cores. they also use the same approach, we chose this design because one of our guys was close to bitfury developments 2 months ago

6. What is the software used for mining, protocol development ? I am assuming Theseven will be doing the firmware part?
yes theSeven is working on a sophisticated interface for the 65nm version

7. Is Labcoin a hardware sales or mining co?
We will focus on deploying internal hash power initially and won't ship USB miners yet, time is tight

8. How many wafers? How many TH's will be hashing in September? That knowledge will be known as soon as you get the chips, correct?
well not 30-50 TH. not sure what will be the yield of the test-run but it's in the thousands ICs. correct, also,next week we'll have the next batch going out to fab
in september we may have a few TH. i can't give exact figures, by the end of Sept, initial week of october we'll have the full speed online.

9. Is this chip the same design as the 180nm? or a completely new one?
 it's based on similar design choices,but it's indeed different, as it's using a different library,different logic blocks  layout

10. How can you fit 16 cores on 6.5x6.5 ? How many cores on average per chip, what is your assumption
 The cores we have fit are not classical "unrolled cores",the cores as we mean them are the result of our engineering effort. i'll  pass the questions i can't reply to the lead developer

11. Labcoin seems almost small now in the light of new competitors like btcgarden, hashfast, actm, terrahash.. do you think you can keep up?
btcgarden? Well, guys, i would do a reality check before saying such things. Undoubtedly ASICMINER, AVALON and maybe BFL have some kind of advantage. But we don't see how we are inferior to those vaporware companies. What in their announcement makes them more convincing than us? time will tell and the sheer of technical details we have provided is not trivial. it's very unlikely we are making everything up

12. So if everything goes as planned - we'll see Labcoin start hashing in the first week of September? Can you please confirm?
confirm, hashing with moderate speed and testing and within the end of the month, we'll have the full speed online

13. What are the chances that the chips won't work? can you guestimate?
we're not worried about this, as soon as the hashing power comes up, the price will go the right route. there's a small chance that the chip won't work, but very very small. it's much more common to get slightly underperforming chips rather than completely dead ones

14. Who is Samuel Noi?
Sam is our nominee director, Fabrizio is the founder

15. What's the status of the boards? How long will it take after testing to get all the board you need, set them up with chips and get them hashing?
The boards are near their design completion and will be tested as soon as we have the chips. we'll post pictures of the boards very soon.  it will take about 7-10 days to get all the boards up and running probablyand, for the first run, we have 500 boards on order

16. Do you still depend on suppliers or do you have everything in stock? and what tools for p&r, sta, layout
we use  Mentor mostly, and its suite. we still depend on suppliers but we're closing in the gap. we'll be ordering components  according to the volume needed to avoid bottlenecks. 24july first one

17. Where is the lab? Shenzhen or Hongkong? Can we have a chance to visit? When if not now?
lab is located in SZ, at the university facility, we'll be moving shorty to another office. we'll be inviting selected investors to visit our datacenter in september

18. http://www.labcoin.com/presentation.html    are these photos of the real where u r working in?
yes,they are real. it's the university i mentioned

[twentyseventy]

Thanks blackswan and TAT; the transcriptions are appreciated  . I'm at work now and can't be watching the Q&A

[LordMeowMeow]

Thanks for the transcripts. Labcoin seems confident and transparent but they're not overselling it either. I think that is a good sign but, of course, time will tell and, in the end, only results and their timely delivery truly matter to investors and Labcoin. It will be interesting to see how this develops, especially given this "sea-of-hashers" tactic. Does anyone know more about this approach in regards to bitcoins?

[Bitcycle]

Looks like a minor price boost post-Q&A.

Good to see!

[boyohi]

Thanks for posting the Q&A. Can anyone elaborate on what they mean about btcgarden?

[TheSwede75]

UPDATE:

I hope you felt that the Q/A session was informative. I will also, since he is an Authority that carries a fair amount of 'weight' in the forum make sure to ask TheSeven to take a more active role in the forum and our updates. As you have probably learned by now I am myself not an engineer or involved in development so the process of me asking Labcoin questions and them passing the answers to the forum via myself isn't the best route for technical discussion.

Once again: I expect the team to take a more active role when bitcointalk accounts has been white-listed.

Thank you again!

[TheSwede75]

For those trying to put a value on the project, I would just like to note that if goals are reached even with a 'worst case scenario' of 100 million diff October (perpetual 20% aggregated Diff increase for 60 days) dividends for first month alone would give a roughly 25-30% ROI at current share price. I believe this may answer why the core team are not interested in selling shares.  

I would like to note that this is actually the first estimate of dividends on the hashing I have heard and I am thoroughly impressed with TheSeven's ballparking of income.

Obvious disclaimer: I do not provide financial advice, I do not make promises and I do not advice for or against the possible purchase of shares. Basically I am just glad to see the forum get confirmation from the development team that things are on-track.

[Mabsark]

http://rghost.ru/47985105
labcoin_scam_part1.pdf   

The scam being you trying to infect peoples computers? How about you post the text here instead.

[zefyr0s]

Right? I don't want no Reamde on my PC!

[canth]

http://rghost.fuckthat!/47986259
labcoin_scam_part1.pdf  

Yeah...I'm going to download a pdf from a .ru file hosting service. Sure I am - after all, Adobe products have never had any vulnerabilities, right?

[TheSwede75]

http://rghost.ru/47986259
labcoin_scam_part1.pdf  

Send possible trojan to people with a high likelihood of storing large amounts of BTC on their computers. Yeah, you can prob make a buck or two on this. Too bad mods aren't handing out scammer tags anymore, you could have gotten one of those for free as well!

[dvdrewritable]

Send possible trojan to people with a high likelihood of storing large amounts of BTC on their computers. Yeah, you can prob make a buck or two on this. Too bad mods aren't handing out scammer tags anymore, you could have gotten one of those for free as well!

do you know what is sandbox, google docs  you should be getting scammer tag for involvement

[TheSwede75]

Send possible trojan to people with a high likelihood of storing large amounts of BTC on their computers. Yeah, you can prob make a buck or two on this. Too bad mods aren't handing out scammer tags anymore, you could have gotten one of those for free as well!

do you know what is sandbox, google docs   you should be getting scammer tag for involvement

Was it a scam when you were trying to buy shares in the IPO as well, or is it some form of new revelation you have had? I guess I am just curious.

[damiano]

If this thing was a whole scam then why didn't they run off with our 7k BTC and dissappear after the IPO?

Why would they go through the trouble of hosting a Q & A?

Why would TheSwede75 still be here posting?

[TheSwede75]

If this thing was a whole scam then why didn't they run off with our 7k BTC and dissappear after the IPO?

Why would they go through the trouble of hosting a Q & A?

Why would TheSwede75 still be here posting?

I think an even more interesting question is: If Labcoin wanted to scam anyone, why did Sam decide to keep the 0.001 IPO price when they could have filled the IPO at prob double or triple that? Why did the Labcoin core group voluntarily lock in their shares for 12 months? Also of course, everything above.

Maybe most curious. If Labcoin is a scam, and OP was 'blinded by greed' why isn't he just selling a TON of put options and making major bank? Out of the goodness of his heart no doubt.

[San1ty]

If this thing was a whole scam then why didn't they run off with our 7k BTC and dissappear after the IPO?

Why would they go through the trouble of hosting a Q & A?

Why would TheSwede75 still be here posting?

Some people are beyond help dude, just let him be...

[damiano]

If this thing was a whole scam then why didn't they run off with our 7k BTC and dissappear after the IPO?

Why would they go through the trouble of hosting a Q & A?

Why would TheSwede75 still be here posting?

I think an even more interesting question is: If Labcoin wanted to scam anyone, why did Sam decide to keep the 0.001 IPO price when they could have filled the IPO at prob double or triple that? Why did the Labcoin core group voluntarily lock in their shares for 12 months? Also of course, everything above.

Your right and that does say a lot about his character.

[Mabsark]

Was it a scam when you were trying to buy shares in the IPO as well, or is it some form of new revelation you have had? I guess I am just curious.

it's a scam all along, i was just blinded by greed; same story for you and any others who try and brush the bullshit under the rug

Well, if you don't want this "scam" brushed under the rug, why don't you post the contents of the pdf here like I asked?

If you don't do this, then you're basically admitting that the file contains an exploit.

[TheSwede75]

Well, if you don't want this "scam" brushed under the rug, why don't you post the contents of the pdf here like I asked?

If you don't do this, then you're basically admitting that the file contains an exploit.

just for you

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7zur7xeBuaVRXFjOEFGTDkxNmM/edit?usp=sharing

If this thing was a whole scam then why didn't they run off with our 7k BTC and dissappear after the IPO?

Why would they go through the trouble of hosting a Q & A?

Why would TheSwede75 still be here posting?

read history of all other scams

Still curious why you aren't short selling or selling sale options if it's a scam. Did you get 'un-greedy' in the last week?