BFL Monarch update

[joeventura]

From Joshie:


Just to update everyone on where we stand with the Monarch at the moment.

Current chip production has an expected delivery date in early/first half of December. We expect to have chips at that time and hope to have our first units shipped out the door by the end of December. We did not reach our goal of November delivery. Unlike our first generation ASIC devices, we already have the vendors in place and ready to go, along with the substrate design and manufacturing slotted in and geared up. Right now, we are not anticipating any issues but unexpected things do pop up. If they do, I will let people know as soon as I have definitive information regarding that, otherwise we are on target for a December release. If anything changes, I will let everyone know, via this thread, as soon as I have the information.

Let me reiterate that if you are uncomfortable with pre-ordering for cutting edge, custom designed technology and all the risks that it implies, please do not place a pre-order and wait until the products are shipping and available. If you do choose to pre-order, please understand that unforseen problems and delays can and do happen and we will do our best to alert everyone to them when we encounter them and have had time to assess what the impact will be on the timeline.

Our production capacity is geared up and ready to go. With the extreme simplicity of the Monarch compared to our 65nm product line, we do not anticipate any difficulties in getting units built and out the door in a rapid fashion. Compared to our current generation, assuming no parts shortages, we should be able to product more than 1000 Monarchs per day. For reference, the Monarch should use ~12 screws and two discrete parts (board and HSF), compared to even our most simple device, the Jalapeno, which has over 20 discrete parts, assembly is trivial and should pose no issues.

The current expected date for our chips out of the foundry is early December. Obviously nothing will be shipping in November. Projected target is end of December but that is, as usual, subject to change. When I have more info I will share it.

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[scambutterflylabs]

quote BFL forum:
"Hello BFL,

Yes its november. Is prototype working?

People who have invested a lot and investing would be very happy with the current state of monarch.

Thank you.
"

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/monarch-discussion/5441-status-update-please-3.html#post63733

[Xian01]

 Initially it was infuriating watching the bullshit fly out of his mouth, then it went to just plain pathetic and sad, and now it's just comedy gold watching him pontificate (as the forum poster so accurately noted) while failing yet again.

http://s18.postimg.org/ey3tfj7i1/monarch2.jpg

[GenTarkin]

god damnit BFL ... u want to at least have a chance of getting some of ur customers back.... you need to start adding a few realistic months to ur projected dates.... from the start.... theres an idea!
Instead of "if everything goes perfectly we should get the products shipped by x.y.z, so lets announce we will ship this new asic x.y.z"
try "if everything goes perfectly we should get products shipped by x.y.z, so lets announce we will ship this new asic x+4.y.z"

then everyone will be amazed u actually delivered on time!

[joeventura]

[southerngentuk]

god damnit BFL ... u want to at least have a chance of getting some of ur customers back.... you need to start adding a few realistic months to ur projected dates.... from the start.... theres an idea!
Instead of "if everything goes perfectly we should get the products shipped by x.y.z, so lets announce we will ship this new asic x.y.z"
try "if everything goes perfectly we should get products shipped by x.y.z, so lets announce we will ship this new asic x+4.y.z"

then everyone will be amazed u actually delivered on time!

Delivery in Latember,  Nevuary and  Nay

[JakeGold]

[...]
Unlike our first generation ASIC devices, we already have the vendors in place and ready to go, along with the substrate design and manufacturing slotted in and geared up. Right now, we are not anticipating any issues but unexpected things do pop up.
[...]

Exactly the same BS they said after finally delivering their delayed FPGAs and trying to pitch their new 65nm ASICs. "Yeah, we fucked up with that last one, but THIS time..."

I feel sorry for anyone who falls for it, but I hope they learn something from the experience and become all the wiser for it.

[Bicknellski]

From Joshie:


Just to update everyone on where we stand with the Monarch at the moment.

Current chip production has an expected delivery date in early/first half of December. We expect to have chips at that time and hope to have our first units shipped out the door by the end of December. We did not reach our goal of November delivery. Unlike our first generation ASIC devices, we already have the vendors in place and ready to go, along with the substrate design and manufacturing slotted in and geared up. Right now, we are not anticipating any issues but unexpected things do pop up. If they do, I will let people know as soon as I have definitive information regarding that, otherwise we are on target for a December release. If anything changes, I will let everyone know, via this thread, as soon as I have the information.

Let me reiterate that if you are uncomfortable with pre-ordering for cutting edge, custom designed technology and all the risks that it implies, please do not place a pre-order and wait until the products are shipping and available. If you do choose to pre-order, please understand that unforseen problems and delays can and do happen and we will do our best to alert everyone to them when we encounter them and have had time to assess what the impact will be on the timeline.

Our production capacity is geared up and ready to go. With the extreme simplicity of the Monarch compared to our 65nm product line, we do not anticipate any difficulties in getting units built and out the door in a rapid fashion. Compared to our current generation, assuming no parts shortages, we should be able to product more than 1000 Monarchs per day. For reference, the Monarch should use ~12 screws and two discrete parts (board and HSF), compared to even our most simple device, the Jalapeno, which has over 20 discrete parts, assembly is trivial and should pose no issues.

The current expected date for our chips out of the foundry is early December. Obviously nothing will be shipping in November. Projected target is end of December but that is, as usual, subject to change. When I have more info I will share it.

Tapeout?

Did the chips even tapeout?

[dogie]

"unforseen problems and delays can and do happen and we will do our best to alert everyone to them when we encounter them"

So problems WILL happen, but they're unforeseen? That's called retarded planning. Every problem - bar natural or macro disaster - should be planned and accounted for.

[Puppet]

we should be able to product more than 1000 Monarchs per day.

Thats ~12PH per month for BFL alone. Damned if they ship, damned if they dont.

[Puppet]

Tapeout?

Did the chips even tapeout?

I guess they did not. from a previous announcement:

Late August/Early September Tape Out
There are two processes with this step that we are using. The initial process is what is called a bullet run, it will allow us to get a finished set of wafers in approximately 24 days from the date we tape out. This will result in a limited number of chips available.
The second process is the standard run, which takes between 75 and 90 days on average, and this is where the bulk of our chips will come from

If they had taped out, by their own schedule they should be getting their hot lot by the end of November and they would not claim shipping only one month later. Also note that  by their own schedule, the bulk shipment can only start 50-65 days later. End of december +~60 means early March instead of the "January/February" the are advertising. Of course on BFL's calender,  January has 65 days.

[Bicknellski]

Tapeout?

Did the chips even tapeout?

I guess they did not. from a previous announcement:

Late August/Early September Tape Out
There are two processes with this step that we are using. The initial process is what is called a bullet run, it will allow us to get a finished set of wafers in approximately 24 days from the date we tape out. This will result in a limited number of chips available.
The second process is the standard run, which takes between 75 and 90 days on average, and this is where the bulk of our chips will come from

If they had taped out, by their own schedule they should be getting their hot lot by the end of November and they would not claim shipping only one month later. Also note that  by their own schedule, the bulk shipment can only start 50-65 days later. End of december +~60 means early March instead of the "January/February" the are advertising. Of course on BFL's calender,  January has 65 days.

From a typical tapeout... how many weeks to chips to a prototype board?

Guessing as you are putting it they are lying already. Here is a good read.



http://www.samharris.org/lying

[imamanandyou]

we should be able to product more than 1000 Monarchs per day

 

Good, there is no point in preordering then, all preorders should be send the same week I guess

[Puppet]

From a typical tapeout... how many weeks to chips to a prototype board?

In the bitcoin realm, there is no difference between a working prototype and a shipping product.
BFL claims the hot lot takes 25 days, and that sounds about right for the asics themselves. Packaging, testing, binning, assembly etc if done right with a proper supply chain in place should only add a few days to that. KnC did it in less than a week, so its not impossible, but with BFL who knows.

[Bicknellski]

From a typical tapeout... how many weeks to chips to a prototype board?

In the bitcoin realm, there is no difference between a working prototype and a shipping product.
BFL claims the hot lot takes 25 days, and that sounds about right for the asics themselves. Packaging, testing, binning, assembly etc if done right with a proper supply chain in place should only add a few days to that. KnC did it in less than a week, so its not impossible, but with BFL who knows.

They are not KnC that is for sure.

[reactor]

"unforseen problems and delays can and do happen and we will do our best to alert everyone to them when we encounter them"

So problems WILL happen, but they're unforeseen? That's called retarded planning. Every problem - bar natural or macro disaster - should be planned and accounted for.

Not to throw gas on the fire, but nobody predicted the earthquake and resulting tsunami in Japan a few years back.  Major disruption that hurt a lot of manufacturers.

At least they are admitting shit can happen and throw things off.

[Puppet]

Thing is, if you know unpredictable things not only can, but will happen (read the quote carefully), then you try to account for them. That still means a schedule can change, but it should be able to change in both direction. For obvious reason, in the bitcoin mining realm the only schedule changes are delays, nothing ever happens ahead of schedule because the schedules they publish are the best case scenario's that could only theoretically pan out if absolutely nothing goes wrong. Whatever date they publish must therefore be interpreted, not as a real estimate but as a "no sooner than" date.

[reactor]

Thing is, if you know unpredictable things not only can, but will happen (read the quote carefully), then you try to account for them. That still means a schedule can change, but it should be able to change in both direction. For obvious reason, in the bitcoin mining realm the only schedule changes are delays, nothing ever happens ahead of schedule because the schedules they publish are the best case scenario's that could only theoretically pan out if absolutely nothing goes wrong. Whatever date they publish must therefore be interpreted, not as a real estimate but as a "no sooner than" date.

"No sooner than" is a good one for this industry.  But on the flipside, look over at the KNC thread (almost 1000 pages now), how many of the last 100+ pages are people giving one another tech support because KNC rushed things out the door so folks had crappy packaging, firmware hell, etc., etc.?  It's a bad precedent in either case because you either get plagued with delays or start shipping untested/lightly tested hardware and software and hope customers are understanding while you fix your shit while they already are sitting on hardware and cringing at the next diff hitting before their hardware works as advertised.

Very, very tricky business.

[Xian01]

At least they are admitting shit can happen and throw things off.

 So nothing has changed then over the last two years, is what you saying ?

 ... Waiting for Josh to stop by and pontificate about how Bitcoin works ...

[reactor]

At least they are admitting shit can happen and throw things off.

 So nothing has changed then over the last two years, is what you saying ?

 ... Waiting for Josh to stop by and pontificate about how Bitcoin works ...

Yeah, but the terms are pretty clear about the risk involved:

"This is a Pre-Order product which is not yet shipping.  If you're uncomfortable waiting until the development is complete and the product is shipped, do NOT pre-order this product. Perhaps undesirable, but this is a pre-order market.  Customers flatly demand to get in line for the new technology before it's finished development.  This has created a lot of drama for the manufacturers but it's something we simply have to deal with.  All manufacturers in this space have experienced some degree of delay with their first generation ASIC.  Every last one of them, so we're reluctant to give a specific delivery date.  However, this is our second generation, so we have much greater clarity on the process and we feel our timeline to begin shipments towards the end of the year is solid."

(Underline added for emphasis, bold is from BFL site)

In other words, do not order if you can't afford the risk of pre-order, experimental hardware being delayed.  Plain and simple.  So for however much people want to bitch and moan, BFL has plainly stated that they have an estimated timeline, they may not meet the timeline, so only order if you are okay with that risk.  Otherwise, BFL's public record is quite public, so if people want to order then let them. Same for Avalon, I still see posts of people asking about hardware and refunds, so it's at your own risk to order from either company as their past is plainly known.