Black Arrow 28nm 100Ghash Bitcoin ASIC from $0.49/GH/s

[blackarrow]

Care to give some more insights in to the cost structure?

Dear Puppet,

If you wish to have insights on our cost structure you are welcome to join our team and investor circle.

[1713293661]

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[1713293661]

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[1713293661]

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[Puppet]

IM not asking for exact numbers specific to black arrow, Im just curious in a general sense. Some general ballpark notions would be appreciated, particularly the cost of the PCBs is something I have no idea about. Is it on the same order as the asic's ? But if you dont want to share, thats fine too.

[blackarrow]

IM not asking for exact numbers specific to black arrow, Im just curious in a general sense. Some general ballpark notions would be appreciated, particularly the cost of the PCBs is something I have no idea about. Is it on the same order as the asic's ? But if you dont want to share, thats fine too.

Maybe you have already read it but the following links will make you an idea of what ASIC and ASIC costs mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application-specific_integrated_circuit.
And quote:
"The non-recurring engineering (NRE) cost of an ASIC can run into the millions of dollars."

Our ASIC is a Full Custom design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_custom.

And quote:
"The main factor affecting the design and production of ASICs is the high cost of mask sets and the requisite EDA design tools. The mask sets are required in order to transfer the ASIC designs onto the wafer."

You may also read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiconductor_manufacturing

An End-User product which us and others are currently designing and manufacturing involves at least 9 month of team work, involving: FPGA engineers, ASIC engineers, Hardware design engineers, software engineers, Foundry, PCB manufacturer, assembly manufacturing, case design and manufacturing, packaging design and manufacturing, Sales/Customer Support team, Web maintenance team and these are what I can think from the top of my head.

I hope this makes a general idea. I do not want to offend saying, please do not take all this work for granted. Please do not make calculations looking at the surface of things.

As I said in a previous message there is a threshold where from the price cannot go lower.

And to discuss why is preferable to have Pre-Orders from customers than going to investors. An investor expect an immediate ROI which will reflect on high prices of the End-Product. If customers pay for Pre-Orders and participate in this way to fund the project partially, they can benefit from discounts. The fact that a customer invests his money it will not reflect into an increase of the end unit price, but help keeping it lower.

[Puppet]

I think we all appreciate the NRE for a 28nm maskset is fairly massive. But its a sunk cost. Once recovered or If/when difficulty goes up too high, so that miners no longer buy, the choice between not selling anything and selling well above marginal (/variable/production) cost (so excluding NRE) seems obvious to me.

So in the long run NRE wont matter in the pricing (it will matter a whole lot to determine whether or not you make a profit). No one expects you to sell anywhere near that marginal cost today, but ultimately, thats were we are headed for. Hence my question. 2TH @ $1000 seems well above marginal cost. Im just curious roughly how far above and what the biggest, non recurring production costs are.

[Paladin69]

At the rate of difficulty increase, your $4K price currently should drop as you get closer to Feb.  Not increase.  It would also put you in a very competitive position.

That being said, I am interested.

[yamaka]

My experience with BlackArrow Lancelot has been disgusting from beginning:
1. I paid the order without escrow with 2% more to sell btc at Gox rate, as it didn't sell at that price, the seller didn't make refund to me as stated by them. They took my BTC without asking anything.

2. Cardreaderfactory shipped me my 10 boards with EMS without asking me first (I said them I want DHL or UPS). As consequence I have lots of problems with Customs and it was really expensive to me.

3. When I plug all boards, one of them never power on. I contacted their support and I didn't have any solution.

4. After three months of continuous mining I had to repair the fans because high noise and blocking.
I have now two boards with temperature problem too, that causes the mining stop, I will have to repair them too.

I recommend all of you to take all risks of losing your money with this company. At least make use of Escrow Bitcoin. I had order number 1771.

[blackarrow]

My experience with BlackArrow Lancelot has been disgusting from beginning:
1. I paid the order without escrow with 2% more to sell btc at Gox rate, as it didn't sell at that price, the seller didn't make refund to me as stated by them. They took my BTC without asking anything.

2. Cardreaderfactory shipped me my 10 boards with EMS without asking me first (I said them I want DHL or UPS). As consequence I have lots of problems with Customs and it was really expensive to me.

3. When I plug all boards, one of them never power on. I contacted their support and I didn't have any solution.

4. After three months of continuous mining I had to repair the fans because high noise and blocking.
I have now two boards with temperature problem too, that causes the mining stop, I will have to repair them too.

I recommend all of you to take all risks of losing your money with this company. At least make use of Escrow Bitcoin. I had order number 1771.

I have looked through data base, message history and order history.

14th of June - package was sent to you through EMS. There is no DHL or UPS or Fedex from China to your country. The other option was China Post (more than 20 days for delivery)
29th of June - you confirmed receiving the package and you reported 2 faulty units (29th of June was Saturday)
1st of July - we have replied to you and send you RMA, we have explained you how to fix one of them so you do not have to send it back to us, if you prefer to DIY a little.

You never replied back, you did not send the units back for repair.
This was your experience with us.

We have replaced all Lancelot that were reported faulty and were sent for repairs.

Problems that you have with Customs are not our fault and it is not our responsibility to clear customs (we cannot clear Customs for you). Also Customs makes problems no matter if you receive your package via DHL, UPS or any carrier. Customs are not carriers employees and do not serve carriers interest but government interest. They are the Taxman.

I have looked into your refund. Your order was handled by an employee who lost her job few days later. We are still fixing the work she had done for us. You never made us aware of this issue. Please confirm that 1hAw68j3dR9z1x5o3fKriByV12NvuvRVJ is still a valid BTC address where we can send the change.

May I know why did you place an order for a Prospero ?

[yamaka]

First of all I make A Prospero order to see if you have the same method that cardreaderfactory and I can confirm it, first problem is the shipping you promote DHL/UPS but you want to send it with EMS, and in my country Argentina there is a great difference in price and in papership/restrictions for them.

I had order successfully shipped from China with those carriers too.

Second, your ask more btc to sell in btc-e and you don't say anything what happens if it didn't sell there.

I send the boards failing to local repair and it took some time, and the board not powering is in same state, the other two I have off until I repair them. Do you will accept them for trade-in?

That btc address is mine yes. I'm tired of losing so much money with mining with FPGA and AM erupters , and my advice is take care of keeping the money in the wallet.

I want to recover some btc with this obsolete boards and I saw that you don t want I can sell them to another guy, for example with Bitmit.

[blackarrow]

First of all I make A Prospero order to see if you have the same method that cardreaderfactory and I can confirm it, first problem is the shipping you promote DHL/UPS but you want to send it with EMS, and in my country Argentina there is a great difference in price and in papership/restrictions for them.

I had order successfully shipped from China with those carriers too.

Second, your ask more btc to sell in btc-e and you don't say anything what happens if it didn't sell there.

I send the boards failing to local repair and it took some time, and the board not powering is in same state, the other two I have off until I repair them. Do you will accept them for trade-in?

That btc address is mine yes. I'm tired of losing so much money with mining with FPGA and AM erupters , and my advice is take care of keeping the money in the wallet.

I want to recover some btc with this obsolete boards and I saw that you don t want I can sell them to another guy, for example with Bitmit.

Dear Customer,

This discussion is way off topic. Should you wish to resolve any issues we suggest that you contact us directly as all other customers do.
Your refund has been issued not because you wrote here. It was issued because you overpaid and you brought this in our attention, which you should have done 4 months ago. However we do not appreciate that you deviate this thread from its original topic. Please do not continue this discussion here. If you do, we will delete all further messages.

The Lancelot trade-in is only for the customers who have purchased from us directly. If you sell them to a 3rd party they will be unable to exchange them.

[abacus]

[...]
May I know why did you place an order for a Prospero ?

Maybe because to find a vendor that really ships gears is already a big success on these days.

[wingspan]

Our promise to our customers is that we'll deliver the most efficient chip and will practice a minimal profit.
At the time of the actual shipment we'll make sure that we sell our chip at the market price or lower. All pre-orders will benefit of the same discount by the time that we start shipping.

Customers who pre-order and pay now have 25% discount. Our promise is that we will ensure that customers who preorder now will always get a better deal than customers who order later.

Everybody until now sold you hardware that they knew that you're going to loose money because 1 month later they announced something faster at a better price.
We are guaranteeing that this won't happen with us: If we drop the price you'll get even faster hardware, keeping you in front of everybody else.

Yes, you are guaranteed to get a price 25% below the market price ($/ghash) at the time of shipment.
And yes, we will keep our prices below every other company.

What we are trying to say is:
 - We do not know what will happen with Bitcoin difficulty/revenue in February or December or even tomorrow. We do not avoid questions. We do not have an answer. Nobody has. On that date in February we will sell cheaper than our competition. This is our promise. If products from competition will have ROI in February than our products will have as well.
Hope this statement is more clear.  

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders of any vendor's comparable product at the time the Prospero pre-orders can be shipped.  His currently-good reputation guarantees it.  It is likely (assuming current trends) to not have much ROI if any, but at least we get a 25% discount on the best going price in late February and we get to become part of the mining elite helping bitcoin be more difficult to attack.

[xyzzy099]

Just say no to preorders folks.  Let the madness end already.

[bobsag3]

Just say no to preorders folks.  Let the madness end already.

Becasue the " say no to drugs" campaign really worked didnt it?

People will buy according to their interests. I know I am interested - But to each their own. You know what risks you take with a preorder, and you should plan accordingly.

[xyzzy099]

Just say no to preorders folks.  Let the madness end already.

Becasue the " say no to drugs" campaign really worked didnt it?

People will buy according to their interests. I know I am interested - But to each their own. You know what risks you take with a preorder, and you should plan accordingly.

I don't disagree with you brother.  I'm just giving my $0.02 worth of advice.  I don't expect to be leading a flock of followers to the golden horizon.

I believe in Capitalism, and people making mistakes are a necessary part of any market.

I think it's still ok to offer some advice occasionally, though

[topminingcontracts]

I am writing this to read other people opinion.

1.- Difficulty still strongly growing
 
2.- At least I have no idea from where is coming the hardware supply to support such big increase, over 100% increase in one month means 100% more hardware where who has it where they buy them?

3.- Considering, BFL Monarch, KnCminer, HashFast and Cointerra to say some of the hardware suppliers of over 400 GH/s units the first one to start delivering real units may be KnC and at this moment may never have a positive ROI even when they deliver on time.

4.- Cointerra was offering units for December (sold out) at u$s 14.000 and same unit for January costs u$s 6000.- even with that discount I estimate none of their units will revover the investment.

5.- Black Arrow is aggressively offering $2.- per GH, for February... if Cointerra didnt make a positive ROI starting in January at u$s 3.- I doubt Prospero units will have a different result starting one month after at u$s 2.-

6.- At some point "Difficulty" needs to stabilize because the cost of electricity will make a total loos for the hardware not so efficient. But more less all the players in 28 nm has (in paper) similar performance. If difficulty increment continues like this none hardware will even pay the electricity bill later than June 2014 (is my estimation)

7.- If the cost of hardware was ZERO, we will not make any money if the tendency don’t change.

Considering all that something will change, I a positive Bitcoin will survive so something will change to reach some balance in this situation.

Instead of pushing Black Arrow people on cheaper prices we need to determine what will happens and may be coordinate some strategy in benefit of the buyers and the ASIC producer in this case Black Arrow.

I may be wrong in many points I will love to read your comments.

TMC

[bobsag3]

Just say no to preorders folks.  Let the madness end already.

Becasue the " say no to drugs" campaign really worked didnt it?

People will buy according to their interests. I know I am interested - But to each their own. You know what risks you take with a preorder, and you should plan accordingly.

I don't disagree with you brother.  I'm just giving my $0.02 worth of advice.  I don't expect to be leading a flock of followers to the golden horizon.

I believe in Capitalism, and people making mistakes are a necessary part of any market.

I think it's still ok to offer some advice occasionally, though

Exactly
I wasnt attacking you, sorry if it came off that way. Capatalism works at its finest when all parties work from the same information, and so far the Black Arrow guys have been very upfront and straightforward with me in our discussions.

A non-preorder flock... you would kill Apple!

[whiteEAGLE]

If i order today - when will the units be shipped?

Still end 02/2014?

[papamoi]

hi

i m repeating my questions you didn t answered

who s the fab?

[blackarrow]

The above quotes simplify to this for me:   BlackArrow has promised his Prospero ASIC pre-orders (completely paid by Oct sometime) will be 25% cheaper than the market price of currently-shipping non-pre-orders

Correction: 25% cheaper than today's market price. We will do our best to keep the prices 25% less than the competition compared to the orders that are shipped in February 2014 as well, but we cannot guarantee 25% as they have the same manufacturing prices as we do. We can only guarantee that we'll sell cheaper compared to the prices from February 2014.

[blackarrow]

But more less all the players in 28 nm has (in paper) similar performance.

I disagree. KNC Miner is promising 1.6W/ghash which is lower efficiency than Bitfury at 55nm.