CoinTerra announces its first ASIC - Hash-Rate greater than 500 GH/s

[iCEBREAKER]

Actually, SHA-2 algorithms are not that difficult to write for hardware, they are very FPGA/ASIC friendly. Any graduate student in Electrical/Electronics Engineering could whip one out in about 3 months or so, I did so back in 2009. The problem that you are going to run into is designing/optimizing for maximum efficiency, and doing so requires additional time and effort. And I believe that Cointerra is 10 times more qualified to do so than I am.

However, I do agree with you that tape-out was expected in September and that did not happen. Now, tape-out might happen towards the end of October, and if it does, there is no way the December delivery is going to happen. Cointerra is going to have about a 65 day window to complete everything and have the hardware at your door step. Not to mention that Quality Assurance (QA) by itself takes a long time for the type of  hardware quality that they are aiming for. I would rather have them to be late than rush and lower their standards such as KnCMiner did. No, no, no, I would rather they delay by a couple of months and deliver high quality products.

The problem I see with Cointerra is not with their Engineering skills, they have the best team for designing Bitcoin mining hardware - their problem is KnCMiner. Why, because a lot of people would rather buy a higher priced miner today, than a lower priced one 3 months from now. They also want the ability to use Credit Cards, PayPal, and have refund options. KnCMiner has all of that going for them because the got in the market first and there was no real competition.

Cointerra started late and the pre-order well is running dry, the other manufactures who got in first drained it. They have to balance funding for research and development, and potential customer refund requests. So how do you deal with that without outright refusing refunds such as what Butterfly Labs and HashFast are doing? I do not know, but I believe this is their major problem. Refuse refunds, and you alienate a big pool of potential customers.

Please Conterra, just come out and say that you are going to be late for December delivery because you cannot rush perfection. Your team will gain more respect and bigger wallets down the road.

I never said SHA-2 algorithms are difficult to write. 

I did say Cointerra has ZERO EXPERIENCE designing a new chip from scratch and that will cause them problems.

SHA-2 is the easy part.  Managing the logic/power/heat of a giant chip with dozens of SHA2 cores is the hard part.


You have arrived at a contradiction:

1. Cointerra is a month late with their tape-out

2. Cointerra has "the best team for designing Bitcoin mining hardware"

Both of these statements cannot be true; one excludes the other.

You need to check your premises because one of them is demonstrably false.  Hint: it's not Number One.   

Now that Cointerra has botched their mock tape-out, it's time to stop assuming they are the ASIC Dream Team implied by their slick marketing and website.

Logic demands we judge Cointerra based on their demonstrated incompetence, not their fancy hagiographies/pedigrees/titles of nobility/etc.

[crumbs]

...I would rather have them to be late than rush and lower their standards such as KnCMiner did. No, no, no, I would rather they delay by a couple of months and deliver high quality products...

You're joking, right?  Would you also rather that KnC shipped a couple of months later, if you were a KnC customer now?

[Supercomputing]

...I would rather have them to be late than rush and lower their standards such as KnCMiner did. No, no, no, I would rather they delay by a couple of months and deliver high quality products...

You're joking, right?  Would you also rather that KnC shipped a couple of months later, if you were a KnC customer now?

Nope, I am not joking. I am very used to high quality hardware and I see no reason to lower my standards, but pricing of the hardware will be a factor. I plan on running the hardware for years.

[Supercomputing]

...
You have arrived at a contradiction:

1. Cointerra is a month late with their tape-out

2. Cointerra has "the best team for designing Bitcoin mining hardware"

Both of these statements cannot be true; one excludes the other.

You need to check your premises because one of them is demonstrably false.  Hint: it's not Number One.   

...

Those two statements are mutually exclusive. You can have the best design in the world, but not have to necessary funding to complete the tape-out.

[Stinky_Pete]

I plan on running the hardware for years.

For what purpose?

[iCEBREAKER]

...
You have arrived at a contradiction:

1. Cointerra is a month late with their tape-out

2. Cointerra has "the best team for designing Bitcoin mining hardware"

Both of these statements cannot be true; one excludes the other.

You need to check your premises because one of them is demonstrably false.  Hint: it's not Number One.   

...

Those two statements are mutually exclusive. You can have the best design in the world, but not have to necessary funding to complete the tape-out.

Depends on how broadly or narrowly you interpret the phrase "best team for designing Bitcoin mining hardware." 

Remember, we were talking about the "best team" not the "best design."

Broadly defined, the "best team" would include people responsible for financing the design process.

Narrowly defined, the "best team" would only refer to the chip architects.

The broader interpretation is more reasonable and thus superior, because it doesn't make sense to refer to three broke but brilliant RTL coders sitting in Mom's basement with no funding as the "best team."

Part of (actually the main constraint to, because SHA2 is trivial) being the "best team" is having people on the team who can get the NRE for tape-out and finance wafer production.

[Vagnavs]

...I would rather have them to be late than rush and lower their standards such as KnCMiner did. No, no, no, I would rather they delay by a couple of months and deliver high quality products...

You're joking, right?  Would you also rather that KnC shipped a couple of months later, if you were a KnC customer now?

Nope, I am not joking. I am very used to high quality hardware and I see no reason to lower my standards, but pricing of the hardware will be a factor. I plan on running the hardware for years.

that makes absolutely no sense.. What do you work for them? Don't insult our intelligence

[ralree]

Jummy!
http://mining.thegenesisblock.com/a/714ca786ef

just out of interest... do you think 117% monthly net difficulty rise is sustainable (and/or likely) for the entire year?

and have you tried running any and every miner through the same forecast assumptions?  (answer: using those assumptions, there is no miner available that you can buy today, that will do any better)

so the only question is, are those the right assumptions?

OMG you don't think difficulty will be 13,744,638,000,000 by next december?  OPTIMIST!

[ralree]

The broader interpretation is more reasonable and thus superior, because it doesn't make sense to refer to three broke but brilliant RTL coders sitting in Mom's basement with no funding as the "best team."

Sorry, it's just funny to see someone who consistently flames on bitcointalk to infer this.  You aren't in your Mom's basement, then, ICEBREAKER?  That ignore is getting nearly too dark to read.

[crumbs]

...I would rather have them to be late than rush and lower their standards such as KnCMiner did. No, no, no, I would rather they delay by a couple of months and deliver high quality products...

You're joking, right?  Would you also rather that KnC shipped a couple of months later, if you were a KnC customer now?

Nope, I am not joking. I am very used to high quality hardware and I see no reason to lower my standards, but pricing of the hardware will be a factor. I plan on running the hardware for years.

I don't think you understand how this whole mining thing works

[cointerra]

We are very much on track for our shipping schedule, production time involves a lot of factors outside of just tape-out and we have our supply chain set up to minimize lead time.

Our partners are all lined up to produce miners at peak capacity and all components for the TerraMiner series will be ready for assembly at high capacity with minimal build time for our shipments. 

[Supercomputing]

We are very much on track for our shipping schedule, production time involves a lot of factors outside of just tape-out and we have our supply chain set up to minimize lead time.

Our partners are all lined up to produce miners at peak capacity and all components for the TerraMiner series will be ready for assembly at high capacity with minimal build time for our shipments. 

That is very good to hear and I hope that you succeed.

However, this brings me to my first question.

I graduated with honors in mathematics, but there is one thing that I just cannot figure out. What am I missing?

Shipping/Delivery for late December (last day of 2013) = $14K per unit (2 TH/s)
Shipping/Delivery for early January (second day 2014) = $6K  per unit (2 TH/s)

But you can be up to 30 days late without penalty, which brings me to my second question.

Is your pricing for late December (2013) and early January (2014) now the same, and if not why?

[VolanicEruptor]

We are very much on track for our shipping schedule, production time involves a lot of factors outside of just tape-out and we have our supply chain set up to minimize lead time.

Our partners are all lined up to produce miners at peak capacity and all components for the TerraMiner series will be ready for assembly at high capacity with minimal build time for our shipments. 

That is very good to hear and I hope that you succeed.

However, this brings me to my first question.

I graduated with honors in mathematics, but there is one thing that I just cannot figure out. What am I missing?

Shipping/Delivery for late December (last day of 2013) = $14K per unit (2 TH/s)
Shipping/Delivery for early January (second day 2014) = $6K  per unit (2 TH/s)

But you can be up to 30 days late without penalty, which brings me to my second question.

Is your pricing for late December (2013) and early January (2014) now the same, and if not why?

Why would they be the same?  Nothing has changed since the pricing first took place..

[Supercomputing]

We are very much on track for our shipping schedule, production time involves a lot of factors outside of just tape-out and we have our supply chain set up to minimize lead time.

Our partners are all lined up to produce miners at peak capacity and all components for the TerraMiner series will be ready for assembly at high capacity with minimal build time for our shipments. 

That is very good to hear and I hope that you succeed.

However, this brings me to my first question.

I graduated with honors in mathematics, but there is one thing that I just cannot figure out. What am I missing?

Shipping/Delivery for late December (last day of 2013) = $14K per unit (2 TH/s)
Shipping/Delivery for early January (second day 2014) = $6K  per unit (2 TH/s)

But you can be up to 30 days late without penalty, which brings me to my second question.

Is your pricing for late December (2013) and early January (2014) now the same, and if not why?

Why would they be the same?  Nothing has changed since the pricing first took place..

Pricing has change, originally priced at $15,750 for 2TH/s
Tape-out did not happen on schedule, originally scheduled for September 2013.
Time passed between pricing for December 2013 and January 2014, pricing was not released on the same date.

[VolanicEruptor]

I still don't see why they should be the same price.  It wouldn't be fair to the batch #2 buyers who deliberately took a spot in line after batch #1 customers knowing they will get a better price for waiting.  If you were to make the prices they same, you would have January people cancelling out so that they can jump into the December queue.. that wouldn't make sense.

[Supercomputing]

I still don't see why they should be the same price.  It wouldn't be fair to the batch #2 buyers who deliberately took a spot in line after batch #1 customers knowing they will get a better price for waiting.  If you were to make the prices they same, you would have January people cancelling out so that they can jump into the December queue.. that wouldn't make sense.

I see your point if we were dealing with Butterfly Labs. But I am betting that Cointerra with their expertise, can assembly these units very fast when they get to that point and queue order will not mean much at that point.

How do you justify close to an $8,000 difference per unit for those who will receive their mining units literally days apart?

[Minor Miner]

I still don't see why they should be the same price.  It wouldn't be fair to the batch #2 buyers who deliberately took a spot in line after batch #1 customers knowing they will get a better price for waiting.  If you were to make the prices they same, you would have January people cancelling out so that they can jump into the December queue.. that wouldn't make sense.

I see your point if we were dealing with Butterfly Labs. But I am betting that Cointerra with their expertise, can assembly these units very fast when they get to that point and queue order will not mean much at that point.
How do you justify close to an $8,000 difference per unit for those who will receive their mining units literally days apart?

Because the early adopters get the privilege of knowing they helped crowdfund someone else's business.   The later adopters get closer to a true market price.   First batch people received the right to pay for all the fixed costs of the company.
That should make you feel good.

[DeathAndTaxes]

How do you justify close to an $8,000 difference per unit for those who will receive their mining units literally days apart?

What makes you think they will be days apart.

"late Dec" is planning to ship 31 DEC but that will become early Jan unless there is a significant delay.   
"Jan" means by Jan 31st which depending on how bad "Dec" slips could be Feb.

[VolanicEruptor]

I still don't see why they should be the same price.  It wouldn't be fair to the batch #2 buyers who deliberately took a spot in line after batch #1 customers knowing they will get a better price for waiting.  If you were to make the prices they same, you would have January people cancelling out so that they can jump into the December queue.. that wouldn't make sense.

I see your point if we were dealing with Butterfly Labs. But I am betting that Cointerra with their expertise, can assembly these units very fast when they get to that point and queue order will not mean much at that point.

How do you justify close to an $8,000 difference per unit for those who will receive their mining units literally days apart?

Fact is, we don't know who we are dealing with.  It could very well be another Butterfly Labs.  To assume the best is nothing more than blind faith.  When it comes to something that takes so much faith and patience, order in the queue does matter.  I have a January order for 2TH, but I would ask for a refund if all of a sudden December customers are paying the same price.  If I wanted to be higher up on the order list, I would have bought a December batch and pay the extra price.

[iCEBREAKER]

The broader interpretation is more reasonable and thus superior, because it doesn't make sense to refer to three broke but brilliant RTL coders sitting in Mom's basement with no funding as the "best team."

Sorry, it's just funny to see someone who consistently flames on bitcointalk to infer this.  You aren't in your Mom's basement, then, ICEBREAKER?  That ignore is getting nearly too dark to read.

It's funny you claim I "consistently" flame on bitointalk, yet the quote of mine in your own post is not a flame.

That word, consistently, doesn't mean what you think it means.

My post contributed 100% more on-topic content than your smug trollcop BS.

My Ignore button was shaded in by ActiveMining investors who didn't like me being right, profiting from their mistakes, and rubbing their faces in it.   

(Wandering back on topic)

Has Conterra's putative "best ASIC design team evar" finished fixing their mock tape-out problems yet?

Why is Conterra's putative "best ASIC design team evar" taking four times longer than Hashfast to go from mock to actual tape-out?

Will Conterra's putative "best ASIC design team evar" eventually tape-out?  Do they even have enough money to finish NRE and pay for a couple of wafers?

If I had been stupid enough to give my money to Conterra, I would be getting very antsy right now.