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finlof
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October 23, 2013, 04:18:45 PM |
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how about we 1st pretend that ACtM makes miners.
Yeah good one, but I deliberately said 'makes miners' rather than 'plans to' because I think the first VMC miner is already alive. It might not be for sale or have our eASIC chip inside it yet but that's why it's a prototype. i think and i feel and i want and i need and i believe and i trust and i hope and i dream... i do hope for your sake all of your energy isnt for naught. as mad as i was at 1st that bitfunder closed down to the US, i am happy to not have to think/feel/want/need/believe/trust/hope/dream that ACtM will deliver as promised. *edit - added hope and dream to the list of verbs above |
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VolanicEruptor
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October 23, 2013, 04:18:55 PM |
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So Ken, what does "Lot of things" entail? It doesn't look like a lot has happened at all in the last few weeks other than a severe mutilation of share price.
Well the Advisory Board resigned enmass, btc-tc shut down, BF has barred US investors, the SEC has been sending cease and desist letters around, oh and Ken took the mine pic down from the VMC website. That to me is a lot of things. What more do you want? lol to the Troll. I'm PRETTY SURE we were ALL thinking "Lot of things" mean progress with the company, rather than the hell exploding around us.. I'm starting to think you're Ken behind a fake account, who else would stand up for something like that with such backward common sense? |
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Puppet
Legendary
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Activity: 980
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October 23, 2013, 04:25:33 PM |
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The NRE is lowered because it is an FPGA Copy.....
The NRE was ~1M
When I visited California and talked to many individuals that are much more familiar with ASIC costs than I am all stated that 1M NRE for 28nm eASIC (FPGA Copy) is a pretty high NRE.
eASIC Bulk buys these Wafers and has them ready for their customers, they go ahead and charge a couple thousand dollars more per wafer than normal retail and benefit from their bulk purchase and the markup per wafer.
This is my understanding and could be wrong.
First of all, $1M is way lower than you would pay for a full maskset on 28nm. Depending on the number of layers and who you believe, that could easily cost $3-$5M. Im just talking about the physical mask, not the design. Secondly, I dont think you understand how structured asics work. They cant be prefabricated, or at least no entirely. Easic may do wafers with some of the standard layers ready, but they will still need to be processed at the fab to implement the customized routing and extra layers. Its not like easic can take those from the shelve, its not an fpga. So whatever price you heard, is that for fully processed wafers, or preprocessed wafers? Either way, per wafer price is going to be (substantially) higher than for traditional asics, otherwise everyone would do it. |
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Bargraphics
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October 23, 2013, 04:40:44 PM |
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The NRE is lowered because it is an FPGA Copy.....
The NRE was ~1M
When I visited California and talked to many individuals that are much more familiar with ASIC costs than I am all stated that 1M NRE for 28nm eASIC (FPGA Copy) is a pretty high NRE.
eASIC Bulk buys these Wafers and has them ready for their customers, they go ahead and charge a couple thousand dollars more per wafer than normal retail and benefit from their bulk purchase and the markup per wafer.
This is my understanding and could be wrong.
First of all, $1M is way lower than you would pay for a full maskset on 28nm. Depending on the number of layers and who you believe, that could easily cost $3-$5M. Im just talking about the physical mask, not the design. Secondly, I dont think you understand how structured asics work. They cant be prefabricated, or at least no entirely. Easic may do wafers with some of the standard layers ready, but they will still need to be processed at the fab to implement the customized routing and extra layers. Its not like easic can take those from the shelve, its not an fpga. So whatever price you heard, is that for fully processed wafers, or preprocessed wafers? Either way, per wafer price is going to be (substantially) higher than for traditional asics, otherwise everyone would do it. I think you are overpricing 28nm maskset, Physical Design + Full MaskSet + First Batch Wafers would cost $3-$5M total on a Full Custom 28nmLike I said, this isn't full custom. This is an FPGA Port and is much easier to do the Physical Design, many less Layers, and the Wafers cost a little more because they are all primed and ready with the basic layers needed to speed up fabrication. (You are effectively paying a premium for speed) Many people don't use a FPGA Copy because it is power inefficient and you could get much more out of a Full-Custom. Read as Wasted Silicon. But in the Bitcoin world eASIC is perfect because we only need a short lifespan of the Chips to pay for the NRE + more even if they are inefficient. Either way even if the Wafers are a tad more expensive than I'm led to believe, wafer costs are the lowest cost of this whole ordeal. $15,000 Wafer (for example purposes) 2,500 Chips 16GH Chip $0.375/GH Edit: Either way none of this even matters because we have zero information and likely will continue to have zero information until there is a physical device ready. I don't understand this way of business but at this point there's not much else we can do besides waiting for that day to come (or not) In the ASIC industry there's also no standard pricing, everyone gets different deals for this and that so it's really hard to come up with what should cost what anyways. |
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Stuartuk
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October 23, 2013, 04:54:05 PM |
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So Ken, what does "Lot of things" entail? It doesn't look like a lot has happened at all in the last few weeks other than a severe mutilation of share price.
Well the Advisory Board resigned enmass, btc-tc shut down, BF has barred US investors, the SEC has been sending cease and desist letters around, oh and Ken took the mine pic down from the VMC website. That to me is a lot of things. What more do you want? lol to the Troll. I'm PRETTY SURE we were ALL thinking "Lot of things" mean progress with the company, rather than the hell exploding around us.. I'm starting to think you're Ken behind a fake account, who else would stand up for something like that with such backward common sense? Oh you meant good stuff, er nope, I can't think of any. Sorry. And yes I am Ken. Yep, its me, Ken. Da man himself. Now get off my thread you tart. I'M Spartacus! |
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drawingthesun
Legendary
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Activity: 1176
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October 23, 2013, 04:58:11 PM |
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how about we 1st pretend that ACtM makes miners.
Yeah good one, but I deliberately said 'makes miners' rather than 'plans to' because I think the first VMC miner is already alive. It might not be for sale or have our eASIC chip inside it yet but that's why it's a prototype. If we had a prototype it would be hashing on our account where the current avalons are hashing, as this would inspire shareholder confidence. Unfortunately we are still 2 weeks away from the first prototype. |
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Stuartuk
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October 23, 2013, 05:00:56 PM |
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And if it went off line confidence would take a knock. Do you think with how secretive Ken has been that he would openly test a prototype? Wouldn't happen.
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Puppet
Legendary
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October 23, 2013, 05:06:15 PM |
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I think you are overpricing 28nm maskset, Physical Design + Full MaskSet + First Batch Wafers would cost $3-$5M total on a Full Custom 28nm Full custom or standard cell asic wont change a thing about the maskset price. The "first batch wafer cost", we can safely ignore in this context, at $4000 per wafer, thats noise. As for the design, well, for a bitcoin asic that shouldnt cost more than $100k either. So Id say we are in agreement on the cost of the mask set. Like I said, this isn't full custom. This is an FPGA Port and is much easier to do the Physical Design, many less Layers, and the Wafers cost a little more because they are all primed and ready with the basic layers needed to speed up fabrication. (You are effectively paying a premium for speed)
Yes, but you said NRE of this was higher and then mentioned it cost $1M. The reality is the opposite, if your $1M is correct (and it certainly sounds plausible to me), its a considerably lower NRE than a traditional asic. But in the Bitcoin world eASIC is perfect because we only need a short lifespan of the Chips to pay for the NRE + more even if they are inefficient. Again, I agree and always did say its a sensible approach, although the advantage of fast time to market is basically lost by now, and I worry about the power consumption handicap. Time will tell. |
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Bargraphics
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October 23, 2013, 05:23:31 PM |
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But in the Bitcoin world eASIC is perfect because we only need a short lifespan of the Chips to pay for the NRE + more even if they are inefficient. Again, I agree and always did say its a sensible approach, although the advantage of fast time to market is basically lost by now, and I worry about the power consumption handicap. Time will tell. Time to Market isn't lost quite yet, I believe the real value comes in when they want more Wafers made after they have a working miner. eASIC has "Fab Time" allocated to them and again because their wafers are prepped somewhat this time should be significantly less than other companies for additional wafers. This is the advantage of eASIC, if this doesn't exist/isn't realistic then I agree that it would be unwise to use eASIC |
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knybe
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October 23, 2013, 05:38:49 PM |
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how about we 1st pretend that ACtM makes miners.
Yeah good one, but I deliberately said 'makes miners' rather than 'plans to' because I think the first VMC miner is already alive. It might not be for sale or have our eASIC chip inside it yet but that's why it's a prototype. i think and i feel and i want and i need and i believe and i trust and i hope and i dream... i do hope for your sake all of your energy isnt for naught. as mad as i was at 1st that bitfunder closed down to the US, i am happy to not have to think/feel/want/need/believe/trust/hope/dream that ACtM will deliver as promised. *edit - added hope and dream to the list of verbs above Yeah because what this thread really needs is another pseudo-genius FUDing troll... ignored. |
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knybe
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October 23, 2013, 05:40:06 PM |
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So Ken, what does "Lot of things" entail? It doesn't look like a lot has happened at all in the last few weeks other than a severe mutilation of share price.
Well the Advisory Board resigned enmass, btc-tc shut down, BF has barred US investors, the SEC has been sending cease and desist letters around, oh and Ken took the mine pic down from the VMC website. That to me is a lot of things. What more do you want? lol to the Troll. I'm PRETTY SURE we were ALL thinking "Lot of things" mean progress with the company, rather than the hell exploding around us.. I'm starting to think you're Ken behind a fake account, who else would stand up for something like that with such backward common sense? when the tough get going... the tough, uh... get going. ...heard that somewhere. |
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crumbs
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October 23, 2013, 05:57:58 PM |
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Oh, goodness! Where did that bid wall go? Down to .0005 already? And what's below? NOTHING? Seems like a god time to double down  |
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Puppet
Legendary
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Activity: 980
Merit: 1040
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October 23, 2013, 06:13:07 PM |
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Time to Market isn't lost quite yet, I believe the real value comes in when they want more Wafers made after they have a working miner. eASIC has "Fab Time" allocated to them and again because their wafers are prepped somewhat this time should be significantly less than other companies for additional wafers. Yes turnaround is a lot faster, but honestly, if the other vendors are bottlenecked because they didnt get enough wafers, they are beyond stupid for not having ordered a ton more. They cost next to nothing compared to their resale value, better to order too many than too few. You can always sell the chips separately if needed, and its not likely you wouldnt be able to sell them above manufacturing cost. My point however, is that despite the shorter development cycle of a structured asic, ActM is probably going to be only third on the 28nm market, and quite far behind in preorders. This approach would have absolutely perfect to beat all the others to market, and being first, the negatives of worse power consumption and higher unit cost would have been mostly irrelevant. |
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knybe
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October 23, 2013, 06:22:14 PM |
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seriously, has anyone heard from Ken the last few days?
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zumzero
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October 23, 2013, 06:27:54 PM |
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So bALLBREAKER has to wait for his machines. Oh well, you win some you lose some. |
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dexX7
Legendary
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Activity: 1106
Merit: 1024
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October 23, 2013, 06:30:07 PM |
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ActM is probably going to be only third on the 28nm market Sorry for my lack of research, but who is #2? (assuming KnC is #1) |
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Stuartuk
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October 23, 2013, 06:33:21 PM |
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seriously, has anyone heard from Ken the last few days?
seriously what's your problem? if you want a chat with him call his number or send him a pm. I'm guessing you can use a phone but if not ask your mum to show you. |
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VolanicEruptor
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October 23, 2013, 06:55:38 PM |
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If you keep your investors successful and happy, then you will be successful and happy! When the tough gets going, start spewing off more old cheesy phrases like you're making 80's commercials.
And remember, patience is a virtue! So please guys, keep investing, and keep on truckin'. Activemining - it's so active, you're going to lose your socks!
..MENTOS...
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Puppet
Legendary
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Activity: 980
Merit: 1040
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October 23, 2013, 06:57:14 PM |
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ActM is probably going to be only third on the 28nm market Sorry for my lack of research, but who is #2? (assuming KnC is #1) Im assuming they will still be behind hashfast too, despite their delay. Even if not, the bulk of the orders has probably already happened anyway, especially at the high initial premium prices, and ActM would have been perceived as being third. |
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