[CLOSED] Bitmine CoinCraft A1 28nm chip distribution / DIY support

[kmtan]

lost confident on the miner, i need to consider for ROI for the chip..

[Bicknellski]

Z, the point of the ROI comments is to show that Bitminer has an unworkable pricing schedule, and to try to convince them that it is in their best interests to modify it. So, since they aren't looking in the speculation threads, and since Giorgio is deliberately ignoring that the advance and retreat of BTC to USD conversions does not affect our estimates at all, much less invalidate them, I thought that this was the place to change his mind... it didn't work. Oh, well.

His ignoring the numbers doesn't really affect the numbers: he prices his chips in BTC, regardless of the exchange rate. So, we can calculate the expected return for any given difficulty, in BTC, and compare it to the cost of the chips. The numbers say that for every BTC spent on a chip that is sold at 0.85BTC, and put into operation in January, it will return only about 0.3BTC over its entire lifetime - ignoring the cost of the boards, power supply, and power.
Edit: According to Mining Dashboard, assuming current difficulty increases continue without the rate increasing, the lifetime return for 1BTC is 0.33 BTC (0.6617 loss), regardless of whether you price the BTC at $100 or at $200. No shipping, no power, no boards, no case... only chip costs considered. Check for yourself.

Like I said - a very expensive hobby, and Bitminer is making things that can't be considered anything but toys for rich men.

I thank you heartily - you have been extremely polite in your responses, and I appreciate the civil discussion. Since I can't, evidently, be convincing, I won't push the point any further.

That is a fair assessment.

We will be buying chips anyhow to 'prove' the concept we are working on. Potentially the chips could come down in price still, and those savings are going to be passed along to us as has already happened with the 15% just in the past week. I would agree that it makes little sense to buy bucket loads directly from bitmine at this point if you are prototyping, or for any chip given the length of time and the exponential rise in difficulty pushed mainly on the back of KnC shipping their units nearly on time and in volume and potentially more with HF coming online before the A1's drop to us. The bubble will burst and I think this is that watershed moment when the money going out for more chips and miners starts to dry up. Figuring out when that bottom comes is the next point to looking for opportunities because right now it is all up hill to then the crash.

Time could force bitmine's hand to a certain extent given your evaluation and I suspect most people are not going to throw down for 500 chips or more and fabricated miners that is just not in the cards which ultimately means chip prices will be slashed if there is stock available. HF, BA and Bitmine pretty much all the same in regards to offering a lower price but you would need to outlay 100,000 USD or more just to get on board for earlier delivery and cheaper prices for chips. The alternative is to buy miners which also have low prospects for btc to btc return. The bubble will burst at some point as it did with other tech CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs.

......

On topic: Weren't more A1 specs supposed to drop today?

[giorgiomassa]

On topic: Weren't more A1 specs supposed to drop today?

Yes sorry about the delay, the updated A1 specs will definitely be released today.

[giorgiomassa]

On topic: Weren't more A1 specs supposed to drop today?

Yes sorry about the delay, the updated A1 specs will definitely be released today.

Okay, specs are now on github: https://github.com/bitmine-ch/bitmine

v 0.1.B:
-Updated IC package to newest version.
-Updated PINOUT list.
-Removed old references to RESP_BIT.

[Dexter770221]

Now it looks less friendly
If I may suggest increase d0 dimmension and decrease b2 about 0.2mm. Extra GND track will fit there for decoupling capacitors, just like you did in the corners.

[zulunation]

Still have no idea about CLKMUX and CLOCK pins.

[vs3]

Giorgio and other authors - there is a Wiki section on github too. I think most of the specs would be best hosted there, and the only thing that has to stay in a PDF is any mechanical drawings.

For all analog/signaling details, protocol description, etc - the wiki would probably work the best. And you can assign or give other people permissions to add content there which would further help with clarifying any specs details.

[MrTeal]

Can you provide more details on the package? You said it is a hybrid, but is the top exposed silicon?
Do you have any preliminary specs from the package manufacturer on expected Tjc for both the top and the bottom?

Thanks

[DickMS]

I am assuming that the two drawings, the first in Section 5.1 labelled "Pinout", and the second on succeeding page labelled "Bottom View" are reversed because the first is actually a top view, right?

More questions, for Zefir:

These chips will be guaranteed operational, and tested before shipping, right? We can't act as your packaged-article test because we risk having to do rework on non-functional chips. There are no sockets for these chips for us to do the testing to reduce our risk, so perhaps they are tested at the factory after packaging, and that testing is covered in the pricing? Are the chips binned for voltage/frequency of operation (that is, are you guaranteeing all chips we buy will operate in Turbo mode, and produce 40GH/s there?) Are all 32 engines guaranteed operational? You can see where this is going... a guarantee of more free chips to make up for failed ones is not sufficient to make up for the rework costs, and system customers won't pay premium prices for boards with a chip that only partially works when it arrives.... Just want to know what we can expect to get our hands on... untested random gambles, or properly in-package-tested chips?

Thanks guy!
DickMS

[Lucko]

Chip specifications, design documents, reference software, and everything that is required to design mining rig development will be provided through github incrementally, with a guaranteed availability of all required support material by end of October.

It is like 2 days away... And we are not even close to everything... We only have 1 thing that is close to useless...

EDIT: sorry missed that it was chanced so not that useless but still missing a lot of promised staff...

[DickMS]

Folks, in your paragraph 1.1, General protocol specifications, you write:

"The CoinCraft A1 uses two SPI ports, one used in slave mode as an input from the uC or
the previous A1 in the chain (pins IN_MOSI, IN_MISO, IN_SCLK, IN_CS) and one in
master mode to the next A1 in the chain (pins OUT_MOSI, OUT_MISO, OUT_SCLK,
OUT_CS), if any."

In your pin descriptions, you use completely different signal names.

https://i.imgur.com/IXQavZw.png
https://i.imgur.com/tRFsGLK.png

It seems reasonable to assume that the above mentioned slave port, meant to be connected to the MCU or a preceding A1 consists of:

Signal	Pin	Input to A1?
SCK_S	13	input
SDI_S	14	input
SDO_S	15	output
CS_I	16	input

and the above mentioned Master port, meant to drive subsequent A1s consists of:

Signal	Pin	Input to A1?
SCK_M	8	output
SDI_M	7	output
SDO_M	6	input
CS_O	4	output

and that SPI signal flow outbound from the MCU will travel from right to left when looking down on a board with "pin" 1 in the upper left corner.

Could you please verify that I have the layout correctly described, please?

In addition, could you please verify the polarity of the chip select signals? Chip select is only rarely active high, and my controller is wired for the usual active low chip selects...
I would prefer not to rework the prototype boards I am submitting due to my misunderstanding...

Thanks!
--DickMS

[Bicknellski]

Le bumpty bump... hoping Dick gets a reply soon.

[Lucko]

Come on chips are coming(I hope) and a lot of documentation is missing. All should be posted by now...

[MrTeal]

I agree with Lucko. I'm interested in doing a design based on these chips, but I'm not going to bother until I know a little more. Where's the rest of the documentation?

[Bicknellski]

Tick tick tock....


the clock... she is a ticking.

[GandalfG]

Avalon start selling Gen2. 30BTC for 500 chip 1.6Gh
Bitfury still selling and cut prices.
KNC run next bath and only days for HashFast go with production.
For the price and performance of the chip present, we can be forgive himself as a viable alternative.

[Lucko]

And lack of documentation is making it impossible to make anything ready for the time chips came out.

[Bicknellski]

Confident that Bitmine will provide the details we all need... question is how soon?

Black Arrow should also be releasing their specs for the Minion soon so here is hoping both the A1 and the Minion are well documented this month.

[GodHatesFigs]

Good luck breaking even with these chips, guys: the numbers aren't with you.

[Bicknellski]

Good luck breaking even with these chips, guys: the numbers aren't with you.

Not always about the break even...

It is about rethinking miners as modular for our group because we are looking way beyond the difficulty that is currently going vertical. Can't speak for others developing "one chip" miners.