The Chili – 30+GH/s BFL based Bitcoin Miner Assembly

[MrTeal]

The time is finally here. I’ve been dying to announce formal sales for a long time, but we were adamant that we would not start taking people’s money until the assembly and supply chain is in place and we have the production board brought up, tested and hashing.
That time is now. The Chili is here and it’s ready to go.


The culmination of a long, costly development cycle, we’re finally ready to start taking orders for assembly of your BFL 65nm SC chips. I think it’s the most advanced, versatile BFL miner available. Almost every possible feature has been added to the hardware in order to really push the BFL chips.

Hardware

• 4-phase Digital Voltage Regulator
  Designed using state-of-the-art Texas Instruments integrated driver MOSFETs (DrMOS), it provides ample power to the BFL chips. Designed for high efficiency at 100A, it can provide 160A continuous with adequate extra cooling. Voltage levels are software programmable, and it supports reading a whole range of data, including input and output voltage, per phase and total current, duty cycles and temperatures
• 11 Temperature Sensors
  One at the MOSFETs, onboard the voltage regulator, a general board temp, and the on-die temperatures of each ASIC
• Per-Chip Frequency Measurements
  The hashing frequency of the BFL chips is very voltage sensitive, but even at the same voltage there is a wide variation in frequency at the same setpoint between different chips. The Chili is the only board that measures the actual frequency of each chip using the on-chip clock output.
• High Performance ARM microcontroller
  A high performance Cortex M3 microcontroller was chosen, and direct DMA access allows it to simultaneously communicate with ASICs on two SPI busses while also performing other job queuing and monitoring applications.
• Versatile Form Factor
  Designed to be compatible with a common PCI expansion chassis, mounting large numbers of the Chili is as simple as mounting a GPU. Alternate configurations are also available; holes with the same spacing as those on the bottom of common 3.5" HDDs allow the Chili to be screwed on a HDD caddy and mounted in a hard drive bay.

Software

• Entirely Custom Code
  Starting from a blank slate and using the BFL code only as a reference, we worked from the ground up to make the Chili as efficient as possible.
• USB Firmware Updates
  As new features are added, the software can be field updated over USB without the need to buy a JTAG programmer.
• P2Pool Efficient
  Because we are able to accurately measure frequency and the real hashing power of each chip, we can efficiently divide work between chips without gaps. This allows support for one job per board vs one job per chip. In addition, when a new block is detected the old work is aborted and the new work is immediately loaded.
• Z-Link Chaining Connections
  Similar to BFL's X-Link interface, this still in development interface allows boards to be chained together and a single USB connection to be used, keeping wiring clutter in check for large data center applications - Coming Soon
• Fully Dynamic and Automatic Frequency, Voltage and Fan Speed Control
  Fully dynamic and automatic voltage (V), frequency (F) and fan speed (S) control to maximize hashing performance while staying within safe operating parameters of temperature and voltage.  As the environment (room temperature) changes, V, F, and S will be adjust appropriately to maintain the highest hashing power based on the specified limits. This allows each individual chip to be pushed to it's safe limit without one slow chip throttling the entire assembly or a single hot chip destroying itself due to localized overheating. The user will be able to select slower fan speeds for noise sensitive environments such as bedrooms at the cost of some hashing power performance loss.

Software work is still continuing at breakneck pace to make sure that every feature is ready to by the time production is done, including some exciting as of yet unannounced features that will really allow us to push the chips to their maximum.

How Hot Do You Want Your Chili?

We designed the Chili to use the extremely cheap, extremely high performance off the shelf components that are already available in the computing industry. Got some room and want a quiet system? Grab a nice tower cooler. Looking for something high density? Use a GPU cooler and mount the boards in a 4U PCI expansion chassis. Want to really push it? Custom water isn’t needed, just get a water block off the shelf. Intel’s 75mm LGA115x and ATI 53.2mm hole spacing are included. Lists of recommended and tested heatsinks and thermal interface materials will be provided to ensure setup is as easy as possible, and as we develop the ecosystem custom kits will likely be offered

Pricing for the first order is $300 for parts (minus your BFL ASICs) and assembly. Contact us for shipping options depending on where you are and your preference for speed vs cost.
First batch assembly is scheduled to start October 7th, though it could start on the Oct 3rd if the majority of chips are received by then. Assembly will take place in Austin, Texas and the boards will ship from the US. Payment will be by Bitcoin or wire, contact myself at mrtealasic@gmail.com for details.
Edit: Batch 1 now closed and in production.

Edit: Batch 2 sales are now open. If you have chips that you are getting from BFL or have chips in hand, we can arrange to have them mounted on boards for you. Due to much less demands and a smaller order size, many of the economies of scale we had in the first batch will be gone. To compensate for this, the price for batch 2 will be $350.

Edit: Batch 2 is closed and shipped. Thank you all very much for your support.

Edit: Batch 3 is now open for assembly services with your chips. We are planning on starting production on the 6th of December.

Terms of Sale

• Performance numbers are not guaranteed. While we are confident in our platform, the single most important factor is the BFL asics and we have no control of their quality. Chips are sold in mixed lots and are not marked, so it is the luck of the draw. Please don't contact me asking to get a AAA unit as a special favor.
• There is no warranty on these items. Each units will be tested prior to shipment and will not ship unless it is working. Should an issue arise due to a non-ASIC problem we can work with you to get it repaired. BFL's ASICs are a bit of an unknown however, and we can not guarantee their longevity or reliability.
• The price will include parts, assembly, test. Your quoted shipping price will include antistatic packaging and shipping. We cannot calculate VAT/Tax/Duty for international customers.

[MrTeal]

Current Firmware: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoewijezzhfl3bs/Chili14e.hex
Flash Utility: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xpccbhfkbpinov8/ChiliFlash.exe
Utility Source: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zn8gkojly2f87wx/ChiliFlash.rar

Alternate FW:
Voltage limited to 1.1V, can prevent overcurrent conditions on cards with almost all cores enabled.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rfa4kuigov99sg8/Chili14e1v1.hex
1V limited, to bring power use down to ~4J/GH
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b9f9ne7ilwl3ap8/Chili14e1v0.hex

Previous FW
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8qhhoqmvtk6i6jj/Chili14d.hex

Flashing instructions:
Open the exe file in Windows (or inspect the source of the VS project and compile yourself), and select the comm port for the card from the drop down list. Note that you need the default FTDI/VCP drivers (ie, the ones you'd use for bfgminer) installed to see a comm port, you can't have the WinUSB drivers at this point.
Open the port, and you should see a bunch of information including the current FW version, the number of cores on each chip and their frequency.
Click browse and navigate to the hex file you want to flash, and then click program. The progress bar will increment and the LEDs on the unit will binary count as it programs, and when it's done the program will prompt you to power cycle the unit, and the inner and outer 4 LEDs on the board will alternatingly flash until you do.


Should you need to program the FTDI chip, you can use the following links
FTDI Programming Template: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gkbcih32atez8qb/BFL%20FTDI.xml
FT_PROG utility: http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities/FT_Prog_v2.8.2.0.zip

[qwk]

Nice work.
Especially that you chose the PCI connector.

[Unacceptable]

Hashrate & powerdraw

[Ridicuss]

Nice, Now if I only had some chips. Very nice looking design.

Regards,

Edit:  Did I miss understand? 300 minus our chips?

So You have chips and can assemble complete units for those without chips?

Thanks

[shapemaker]

I'm confused... do we need to supply our own chips, or are you providing them?

What is the full cost of a board, all included, if you supply the ASICS? Where are you located at?

EDIT: it's quite impossible to buy chips for this at such a short notice, so it would be good to have an all-in-one board choice to buy.

[MrTeal]

Hashrate & powerdraw

Working on getting some videos up of the production board. In the mean time, here are some of the test board.

Some videos. The first one is kind of a nominal load for the board. 107 hashing engines, setpoint of 283MHz per engine to give 30GH/s. Everything stays nice and cool, the board draws 130W at the wall. The cooler is a Hyper 212 Evo, and there's a couple little stick on GPU RAM heatsinks on the bottom under the mosfets, with a little quiet 80mm fan blowing towards them. The mosfets are 125F.
http://youtu.be/VOOGvlpNwws

This one is what I'd consider an overclock. 1.15V on the chips, with the same 283MHz nominal setpoint. 38GH/s and the mosfets got up to 175F. If you plan to do that constantly you'd probably want to invest in some proper cooling and airflow for them. Pulling 220W from the wall, so a big power penalty for those extra 8 GH/s
http://youtu.be/cCqiCodE12Y

I've found  1.1V on the ASIC to be a nice compromise for the future, with 35GH/s and 180W draw and things staying much cooler.

My test board has been burning in for almost a week now at 35GH/s and 180W.

[MrTeal]

I'm confused... do we need to supply our own chips, or are you providing them?

What is the full cost of a board, all included, if you supply the ASICS? Where are you located at?

EDIT: it's quite impossible to buy chips for this at such a short notice, so it would be good to have an all-in-one board choice to buy.

At this time we aren't offering any completed boards for sale, you have to provide the BFL ASICs. If you don't have chips but are interested in making a purchase, email me and we can discuss lead time and what is possible.

[shapemaker]

I'm confused... do we need to supply our own chips, or are you providing them?

What is the full cost of a board, all included, if you supply the ASICS? Where are you located at?

EDIT: it's quite impossible to buy chips for this at such a short notice, so it would be good to have an all-in-one board choice to buy.

At this time we aren't offering any completed boards for sale, you have to provide the BFL ASICs. If you don't have chips but are interested in making a purchase, email me and we can discuss lead time and what is possible.

Thanks for the answer. I'll pass, getting the chips to EU and then back to US (where I am guessing you're located) would take prohibitively long, or be ridiculously expensive

Had you had completed boards for sale, I'd have snatched a few. Good luck to your venture

[MWNinja]

Can't wait, this is such a cool project. Looking forward to seeing cooler and case recommendations.

I take it members of your chip group buy will get in the first batch.

[Unacceptable]

Hashrate & powerdraw

Working on getting some videos up of the production board. In the mean time, here are some of the test board.

Some videos. The first one is kind of a nominal load for the board. 107 hashing engines, setpoint of 283MHz per engine to give 30GH/s. Everything stays nice and cool, the board draws 130W at the wall. The cooler is a Hyper 212 Evo, and there's a couple little stick on GPU RAM heatsinks on the bottom under the mosfets, with a little quiet 80mm fan blowing towards them. The mosfets are 125F.
http://youtu.be/VOOGvlpNwws

This one is what I'd consider an overclock. 1.15V on the chips, with the same 283MHz nominal setpoint. 38GH/s and the mosfets got up to 175F. If you plan to do that constantly you'd probably want to invest in some proper cooling and airflow for them. Pulling 220W from the wall, so a big power penalty for those extra 8 GH/s
http://youtu.be/cCqiCodE12Y

I've found  1.1V on the ASIC to be a nice compromise for the future, with 35GH/s and 180W draw and things staying much cooler.

My test board has been burning in for almost a week now at 35GH/s and 180W.

Thanks for the info!!!   Same draw & hashrate as my BFL 30GH'er   

The profit margin will be shortlived at about $800 for 30GH..I payed $650+$95 extra shipping for mine...but I got it on July 1st, .10BTC per 24hrs ATM 

Looks great & cool idea using PCIE 1x to set in a PC slot 

I got 16 chip credits for sale BTW....PM me if anyone's got an offer 

[ScaryHash]

Hashrate & powerdraw

Probably depends on the number of chips. Looks like you could put up to 7 chips on there, but I imagine it would work with 2-6 also.

Nice work.

[r3animation]

Very nice work.

[mmmerlin]

@Ridicuss, shapemaker and any others:

I have a lot of chips, fully paid for and being delivered with the group buy that I am open to offers for. They are already being delivered straight to MrTeal for assembly in the first batch, so no escrow/address changes would be necessary either, so it would be a very simple transaction.

They will be part of the first assembly batch that MrTeal is discussing, so this is a chance for a total queue jump, with chips delivered as he was saying in the next few days. As I said, I have a lot of chips, but not an infinite amount, and I don't necessarily want to sell them all, but PM me if this is of interest to anyone and we can discuss. Multiples of 8 only obviously!

One thing I will say though, is that any sale must not inconvenience MrTeal in any way, as selling these on was not part of my original deal with him. I don't want splitting orders to be of any inconvenience to him whatsoever, and the logistical stuff can be a real pain. This might mean having all my miners assembled and shipped somewhere (within the US) first and then the order split and shipped on to people so as not to cause any hassle. This would be done with a respected member of the community though, and I'm just saying it now, both to forewarn people, and to reassure MrTeal that this will not be an annoyance to him as he has been super helpful and super professional through everything (as I'm sure you can tell from the OP!)

[bobsag3]

@Ridicuss, shapemaker and any others:

I have a lot of chips, fully paid for and being delivered with the group buy that I am open to offers for. They are already being delivered straight to MrTeal for assembly in the first batch, so no escrow/address changes would be necessary either, so it would be a very simple transaction.

They will be part of the first assembly batch that MrTeal is discussing, so this is a chance for a total queue jump, with chips delivered as he was saying in the next few days. As I said, I have a lot of chips, but not an infinite amount, and I don't necessarily want to sell them all, but PM me if this is of interest to anyone and we can discuss. Multiples of 8 only obviously!

One thing I will say though, is that any sale must not inconvenience MrTeal in any way, as selling these on was not part of my original deal with him. I don't want splitting orders to be of any inconvenience to him whatsoever, and the logistical stuff can be a real pain. This might mean having all my miners assembled and shipped somewhere (within the US) first and then the order split and shipped on to people so as not to cause any hassle. This would be done with a respected member of the community though, and I'm just saying it now, both to forewarn people, and to reassure MrTeal that this will not be an annoyance to him as he has been super helpful and super professional through everything (as I'm sure you can tell from the OP!)

PM'ed

[mmmerlin]

I forgot to say before though, it looks totally awesome!

[Dagger75]

Looking very good MrTeal!  You two did a very good job from the looks of it.

Got a question about shipping from those of us that were in the group buy and paid $56 a chip vs $50 Actual cost and that extra $6 per chip was to be for shipping our completed boards correct?  For Example my 32 chips X $6 (Extra per chip) = $192 Extra which is a pretty good chunk of change and would surely hope we don't have to pay anymore for a reasonable US shipping option.

Thanks again.

[Sitarow]

nice work hope this works out

I will send you a pm about bfl chip discount vouchers.

[mmmerlin]

For those looking for coolers for these units, to save you all the research, this one is compatible, high performing, cheap and can be bought with BTC!

So unless you're going for water-cooling this is probably the way to go:

https://www.bitcoinstore.com/cooler-master-hyper-212-evo-rr-212e-20pk-r2-cooling-fan-heatsink.html

[af_newbie]

Anyone is interested in chips?  I still have 48.  16 chips for BTC5.5, or BTC16.5 for all 48

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=303224.0

Fully paid. Shipping next week.