Incoming Avalon News 8/9/2013

[DPoS]

Next gen that comes from Avalon or BFL... BOYCOTT.

Here is your chance.  BFL just announced 28nm pre-orders.  I am sure Avalon will too eventually.

Interesting. You want to know what would help BFL right now? If they started to upgrade certain orders delivered a bit late. Like barely profitable or unprofitably late. Just an idea and it won't cost them any more unless they got the old chips stacked up.

Any links?

http://www.butterflylabs.com/

will need to put an entry into urban dictionary

lulz: http://www.butterflylabs.com/monarch/

[ProfMac]

For those of you who think it is easy to order chips and that YiFu could easily have done better and cheaper, I offer a challenge:

Make it so.

They had them in January ... so ... yeah send out an order for more of the same ... I guess that was beyond his abilities ...

I don't think I can produce a batch of ASICs.  If you can, then compete with him.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but my point is that I think Yifu has been unethical and needs to right his wrongs. I don't think the reason my chips haven't shipped have anything to do with how difficult it is to develop/produce/ship an ASIC. It has to do with him selling it to the highest bidder and not fulfilling his own plainly state "no bullshit" (should have been "loads of bullshit") terms of sale.

If he deliberately acted bad, it is pointless to try to do anything about it, you can't really force him.
If he did his best and was overwhelmed, adding more distractions will just make him more behind.

[cardcomm]

Do you understand what is involved with the manufacture of a modern integrated circuit? You are talking about one of the most complex manufacturing processes on earth. Yifu is clearly at fault for missing the deadlines he promised - but that does not change the fact that getting these chips manufactured is far more complex than sending TSMC a request for some more chips.

Why in the heck would it be MORE difficult than sending in another order? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's extremely complicated to design and manufacture a car. Yet if my local Toyota dealer needs more cars, they have only to order more. Yes, they DO need to consider lead time, but that's pretty much the extent of the "complexity".

Given that the manufacturing facility has obviously been set up already, what specifically is so complicated about placing additional orders for more of the same product?

We have a saying in America: "It's so easy a child could do it."
 

It makes no sense whatsoever because you do not understand what is involved.

Integrated circuits are manufactured starting from bare silicon substrates (wafers). They then go through a series of several hundred processing steps in multi-million dollar machines. These unit steps involve huge varieties of litho, etch, dep, strip/clean, and doping/implantation processes. The recipes, process parameters, and similar can change depending on how foundries are organizing their production flows, and how they are adding/removing/replacing processing tools. It is entirely possible that a wafer flow that was implemented successfully 6 months before is no longer possible because it's been replaced by something new. Furthermore, companies with much more influence than some kid (read: Yifu) may be utilizing 100% of the desired capacity for a specific process.

This isn't a turnkey business. Computer chips are not cars. Just because it was possible 6 months ago doesn't mean it is possible now, ESPECIALLY if you're a small customer. The fact that huge companies like AMD or Nvidia have issues with production at foundries should give you an idea of what it's like for Avalon.

Even if it WAS like cars, surely you can understand how a small customer might make an order for 10,000 cars and receive them as planned, because the manufacturing line is below capacity. But if Toyota comes along and asks for 1,000,000 units (I understand that car companies tend to own their factory - semiconductor companies usually do not), they might get shut out completely when they try to make their next order, because the manufacturing plant is at 100% capacity and cares far more about making Toyota happy than some punk with a 10,000-car special order.

If you could do this as a child, you should be a titan of industry by now.

Thanks for the refresher on IC manufacturing. I AM familiar with the process.

Perhaps YOU are aware that a modern automobile contains anywhere from a couple dozen to a couple hundred special purpose microprocessors. Many of these are "off the shelf" components, but a fair number are custom chips. One might even call them Application Specific Integrated Circuits.

Add to that the complexity of manufacturing a modern internal combustion engine to extremely close mechanical tolerances, sourcing thousands of parts from potentially hundreds of individual manufacturers from all over the world, and assembling them into a final working automobile.

Consider all these factors, and I think you'll have to agree that the design and production of a car is orders of magnitude more difficult than producing one custom IC. Yet my Toyota dealer can order one with relative ease, and get it here when promised.

I concede that my automotive analogy isn't perfect, but then analogies seldom are. I'll also concede that ordering chips is perhaps more complicated than a child could handle. That was obvious hyperbole.

But then, we don't really expect children to manage the pre-order and sale of products valued in the hundred of thousands of dollars, do we? Instead we depend on adults who should know enough about basic business operations to ensure the parts manufacturing contracts are in hand before taking pre-orders. If the proper contracts were in place as they should be, then ordering additional batches as specified by the contracts should be a very simple matter indeed!

[Vycid]

Do you understand what is involved with the manufacture of a modern integrated circuit? You are talking about one of the most complex manufacturing processes on earth. Yifu is clearly at fault for missing the deadlines he promised - but that does not change the fact that getting these chips manufactured is far more complex than sending TSMC a request for some more chips.

Why in the heck would it be MORE difficult than sending in another order? That makes no sense whatsoever. It's extremely complicated to design and manufacture a car. Yet if my local Toyota dealer needs more cars, they have only to order more. Yes, they DO need to consider lead time, but that's pretty much the extent of the "complexity".

Given that the manufacturing facility has obviously been set up already, what specifically is so complicated about placing additional orders for more of the same product?

We have a saying in America: "It's so easy a child could do it."
 

It makes no sense whatsoever because you do not understand what is involved.

Integrated circuits are manufactured starting from bare silicon substrates (wafers). They then go through a series of several hundred processing steps in multi-million dollar machines. These unit steps involve huge varieties of litho, etch, dep, strip/clean, and doping/implantation processes. The recipes, process parameters, and similar can change depending on how foundries are organizing their production flows, and how they are adding/removing/replacing processing tools. It is entirely possible that a wafer flow that was implemented successfully 6 months before is no longer possible because it's been replaced by something new. Furthermore, companies with much more influence than some kid (read: Yifu) may be utilizing 100% of the desired capacity for a specific process.

This isn't a turnkey business. Computer chips are not cars. Just because it was possible 6 months ago doesn't mean it is possible now, ESPECIALLY if you're a small customer. The fact that huge companies like AMD or Nvidia have issues with production at foundries should give you an idea of what it's like for Avalon.

Even if it WAS like cars, surely you can understand how a small customer might make an order for 10,000 cars and receive them as planned, because the manufacturing line is below capacity. But if Toyota comes along and asks for 1,000,000 units (I understand that car companies tend to own their factory - semiconductor companies usually do not), they might get shut out completely when they try to make their next order, because the manufacturing plant is at 100% capacity and cares far more about making Toyota happy than some punk with a 10,000-car special order.

If you could do this as a child, you should be a titan of industry by now.

Yet my Toyota dealer can order one with relative ease, and get it here when promised.

You're STILL not groking the concept here.

Your Toyota dealer is a franchise of a huge company, with tens of thousands of people employed in the supply chain alone. Their purchasing power is immense, and they actually OWN many of the factories that produce their goods. Similarly, if you want to buy some computer chips, Intel doesn't say "Oh, sure, we'll order up some more!" - no, their demand levels are so high they can manufacture at capacity all the time. Toyota NEVER stops making cars and car parts, so OF COURSE they can oblige when their dealers ask for more inventory.

Avalon doesn't work like that. They're a little tiny company by the standards of their industry. They order a one-off batch, and once that's done, there's no guarantee that their suppliers will be able to do it again.

Listen - I am a process engineer in the semiconductor industry, and I have previously worked in semi supply chain. I've got some actual insight here, and your appreciation of the difficulty of this task is immensely miscalculated.

I agree it is Yifu's fault for acting like 10 weeks was a sure thing. But it's not like he just failed to snap his fingers, like you seem to believe.

[dmcdad]

For those of you who think it is easy to order chips and that YiFu could easily have done better and cheaper, I offer a challenge:

Make it so.

They had them in January ... so ... yeah send out an order for more of the same ... I guess that was beyond his abilities ...

I don't think I can produce a batch of ASICs.  If you can, then compete with him.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but my point is that I think Yifu has been unethical and needs to right his wrongs. I don't think the reason my chips haven't shipped have anything to do with how difficult it is to develop/produce/ship an ASIC. It has to do with him selling it to the highest bidder and not fulfilling his own plainly state "no bullshit" (should have been "loads of bullshit") terms of sale.

If he deliberately acted bad, it is pointless to try to do anything about it, you can't really force him.
If he did his best and was overwhelmed, adding more distractions will just make him more behind.

That is just it -- I think it is a combination. I think he deliberately acted unethically and without honor by selling our chips to the highest bidder, BUT I think he was hoping to get another order of chips turned around quickly enough that our chips were just delayed by a few weeks and is failing miserably. It is still possible for him to right this wrong... but will he?

[ProfMac]

I agree it is Yifu's fault for acting like 10 weeks was a sure thing. But it's not like he just failed to snap his fingers, like you seem to believe.

Oh man.  He missed the part about clicking the ruby red shoes together 3 times. 

[kano]

I agree it is Yifu's fault for acting like 10 weeks was a sure thing. But it's not like he just failed to snap his fingers, like you seem to believe.

Oh man.  He missed the part about clicking the ruby red shoes together 3 times. 

Lulz, we have a thread full of lap dogs in here.
Trying to make up excuses why Avalon is late and effectively ripped everyone off by selling the chips to someone else.

Most excuse boil down to one of
1) They suck at doing their job ... that they did 2 or 3 times before already .. but screwed up this time - but that's OK be happy with that
2) TSMC looks down on them as a piss ant and don't care (What? You mean Avalon lied about their association?)
3) Anyone arguing against them should be doing the work or sucked in you have to put up with it without saying anything - Avalon is perfect, all the evidence and circumstantial evidence is fake, the sun shines out of Avalon's ass ...

OK for those supposed bright sparks who seem to think they brim with intelligence but lack noting the obvious flaws in their arguments about the difficulty of doing another run ...
When did batch #3 ship? ... need I say more? ...

[Vycid]

I agree it is Yifu's fault for acting like 10 weeks was a sure thing. But it's not like he just failed to snap his fingers, like you seem to believe.

Oh man.  He missed the part about clicking the ruby red shoes together 3 times.  

Lulz, we have a thread full of lap dogs in here.
Trying to make up excuses why Avalon is late and effectively ripped everyone off by selling the chips to someone else.

Most excuse boil down to one of
1) They suck at doing their job ... that they did 2 or 3 times before already .. but screwed up this time - but that's OK be happy with that
2) TSMC looks down on them as a piss ant and don't care (What? You mean Avalon lied about their association?)
3) Anyone arguing against them should be doing the work or sucked in you have to put up with it without saying anything - Avalon is perfect, all the evidence and circumstantial evidence is fake, the sun shines out of Avalon's ass ...

OK for those supposed bright sparks who seem to think they brim with intelligence but lack noting the obvious flaws in their arguments about the difficulty of doing another run ...
When did batch #3 ship? ... need I say more? ...

Nobody is making excuses. Avalon fucked up and that is fact.

The discussion here is "Is Yifu necessarily fraudulent for failing to deliver?". My argument is "no, not necessarily", because the product he is attempting to deliver is much more complicated to produce than people seem to believe. There's a lot of conspiracy theory going on, and I don't think we have the facts.

Yifu could very well be a con artist, but I frankly do not trust this community's assessments. I have observed the insane, near-murderous torch-and-pitchfork responses on these forums several times, and I've learned to place very little confidence in the scam proclamations of our fellow forum-goers.

[k9quaint]

Avalon didn't give me a free unit and I am still pissed about it.

Shouldn't you be in the BFL thread shilling the 600GH/s PCI card?

[Ytterbium]

Whether or not it is difficult or Avalon had some troubles that they didn't intend or couldn't foresee is completely irrelevant in the legal sense. They stated they would have the chips within a certain time-frame and they are obligated to that time-frame regardless of what mishaps or unforeseen circumstances transpired. We do not owe them sympathy or a break. If Avalon doesn't want to own up to the risk associated with delivering product on time based upon a contract then they need to get out of the business.

Are you a lawyer?  While I'm not trying to defend Avalon at all, from a legal standpoint simply being late with an order is not a big deal - unless you have a contract specifying exactly how much they're supposed to pay if they don't ship on time, it's unlikely you could win a lawsuit against a supplier simply for being late.

The reality is, people are late with orders all the time.  Normally it isn't nearly as big of a deal.  If normal chips are late by a few months, nothing major happens.  Worst case a new product launch has to be pushed back, and major companies actually plan extra time for delays in designing product schedules.

In the bitcoin world, it's a huge deal.  In the "real" world it's not a big deal and not a big deal legally either.

[kano]

Avalon ... lulz

Shouldn't I be street walking as a gay prostitute?

Shouldn't you be street walking as a gay prostitute?

[k9quaint]

Avalon didn't give me a free unit and I am still pissed about it.

Shouldn't you be in the BFL thread shilling the 600GH/s PCI card?

Shouldn't you be street walking as a gay prostitute?

Are you trying to say that you are in this thread looking for a gay prostitute?
Did Josh dump you or something?

[Xian01]

Avalon ... lulz

Shouldn't I be street walking as a gay prostitute?

Shouldn't you be street walking as a gay prostitute?

 Based on your prior behavior, he makes a fair point Kano.

 You're not coming off well acting in such a juvenile fashion.

 What's wrong with walking the streets as gay prostitutes ? It's less shameful than shilling for Butterfly Labs.

[alexKKK]

at the moment of writing, another 130k chips have gone out, and will proceed to ship more as we get them. ( and no, they are not samples.)

Hi Yifu,


I still not recieved 5 Avalon Units from Avalon batch 2
paid 75 btc for each

i have no information about delivery, about track number or even a response from you !

Can i get refund because of huge delay in delivery ?

I created a lot of tickets ( last one #1477)
and write a letter to your e-mail


Can you help with that ?


Best regards
Alexey   

[Vigil]

Whether or not it is difficult or Avalon had some troubles that they didn't intend or couldn't foresee is completely irrelevant in the legal sense. They stated they would have the chips within a certain time-frame and they are obligated to that time-frame regardless of what mishaps or unforeseen circumstances transpired. We do not owe them sympathy or a break. If Avalon doesn't want to own up to the risk associated with delivering product on time based upon a contract then they need to get out of the business.

Are you a lawyer?  While I'm not trying to defend Avalon at all, from a legal standpoint simply being late with an order is not a big deal - unless you have a contract specifying exactly how much they're supposed to pay if they don't ship on time, it's unlikely you could win a lawsuit against a supplier simply for being late.

The reality is, people are late with orders all the time.  Normally it isn't nearly as big of a deal.  If normal chips are late by a few months, nothing major happens.  Worst case a new product launch has to be pushed back, and major companies actually plan extra time for delays in designing product schedules.

In the bitcoin world, it's a huge deal.  In the "real" world it's not a big deal and not a big deal legally either.

You do not need a contract which stipulates exactly how much has to be paid. I already addressed this in another thread. You can absolutely win a lawsuit for them being late, especially if you can prove that you lost profit because of it. This is called "compensatory damages". In addition, the time-sensitive nature of Bitcoin mining also makes this very prime for delivery contract obligations. People are late with orders but both parties usually agree to deal with those delivery issues in some manner. But when money is on the line there are often lawsuits which attempt to claim the profit losses due to the productivity loss.

But normal chips are not time-sensitive. Regardless of how certain companies have or have not dealt with late deliveries, the fact remains that if you contract to deliver a product by a certain time you ARE obligated to that time, and the other party may be awarded damages regardless of the amount of time past the deadline.

Some of you kids just pull all sorts of supplicative shit out of your asses. Avalon either owes everyone a refund or they owe them for lost profit, i.e., compensatory damages. But only you all can make that happen.

[kano]

Avalon ... lulz

Shouldn't I be street walking as a gay prostitute?

Shouldn't you be street walking as a gay prostitute?

 Based on your prior behavior, he makes a fair point Kano.

 You're not coming off well acting in such a juvenile fashion.

 What's wrong with walking the streets as gay prostitutes ? It's less shameful than shilling for Butterfly Labs.

His fake quote of something I've never said deserves that reply.

[pleasuretek]

Whether or not it is difficult or Avalon had some troubles that they didn't intend or couldn't foresee is completely irrelevant in the legal sense. They stated they would have the chips within a certain time-frame and they are obligated to that time-frame regardless of what mishaps or unforeseen circumstances transpired. We do not owe them sympathy or a break. If Avalon doesn't want to own up to the risk associated with delivering product on time based upon a contract then they need to get out of the business.

Are you a lawyer?  While I'm not trying to defend Avalon at all, from a legal standpoint simply being late with an order is not a big deal - unless you have a contract specifying exactly how much they're supposed to pay if they don't ship on time, it's unlikely you could win a lawsuit against a supplier simply for being late.

The reality is, people are late with orders all the time.  Normally it isn't nearly as big of a deal.  If normal chips are late by a few months, nothing major happens.  Worst case a new product launch has to be pushed back, and major companies actually plan extra time for delays in designing product schedules.

In the bitcoin world, it's a huge deal.  In the "real" world it's not a big deal and not a big deal legally either.

Thank you for politely head checking this person. I have noticed that (s)he complains a lot and wants to spend more money on lawyers and court fees than helping the bitcoin community ( of which Yifu was a member long before whoever vigil is ). 
I have about 4k riding on this and I remain optomistic because I have been mining for years, and I invested in my ideals rather than to make a quick buck on something that seems to not make a person happy. The concepts behind bitcoin bring more joy and light into me and my thoughts of the future, and that is what I invested in. Not my bank account, not my furrows of worry, but simply to enjoy the ride, and show others that , 'hey this is just a ride, it was meant to be fun and exilerating, have its ups and downs loops and turns....but its just a ride'. I hope everyone that participates in the making or breaking of the bitcoin economy remembers - it's just a ride.


-And Yifu - huge thanks for all the hardWork(fishes)

[k9quaint]

His fake quote of something I've never said deserves that reply.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=142083.0
Not so fake.
Kano hates Avalon and for person reasons and was bought by BFL for the low price of 1 free Jalapeno.
He won't shill the BFL Monarch until they give him one. Rules are rules after all

[hoewer4what]

Do you understand what is involved with the manufacture of a modern integrated circuit? You are talking about one of the most complex manufacturing processes on earth. Yifu is clearly at fault for missing the deadlines he promised - but that does not change the fact that getting these chips manufactured is far more complex than sending TSMC a request for some more chips.

Yes I understand what is involved ... look at the last few orders he did, remember what he did, do it again so it arrives at the time he promised ... oh wait, I forgot to add, sell the chips to someone else and then run another order that will of course be late ...

This is speculation or reality?

[tiros]

For those of you who think it is easy to order chips and that YiFu could easily have done better and cheaper, I offer a challenge:

Make it so.

It doesnt sound as hard to collect money, find the people that are capable to develop it and build the product in foundry.

The point is. Yifu already did this several times. He knows exactly how long it takes to produce that exact chip. There are no vars in between so he was able to give a lead time of 9-10 weeks. After 5 weeks exactly the chip batches in shop were changed to "Chips ordered" which means to me he knows that the chip production takes 4 weeks from then.
And it looks there were a huge amount of such chips see the fotos of the boxes. They only didnt reach us.
I cant believe his story. 20 batches in customs for 2 weeks when they are 5 weeks late? First, 20 batches are nothing and the 2 weeks explain nothing.
Then someone knocked at a employees door? Thats so creepy one have to stop working and, like i read, getting bodyguards? I really believe it only was a customer asking were his chips are.
The same goes for the pdf with private details. Whats the problem? The problem is that so many customers are angry and would like to break the communication stop. Without that the threat would be useless.

Whatever. Im tired of getting angry at Yifu.

Mostly I agree with Sebastian.
Such a process of producing chips is well known with all of its time frames. Yifu knows all of this, and yet he choose to misled us and stale us.
Dishonest to say at least. I wish I didn't bought any of his damn chips.