BFL is starting to look good...
PRODUCTION UPDATE — 11/07/2013We want to update our customers on the progress of our machine production.
Producing a rig as powerful as the Baby Jet or Sierra requires coordination with a host of fabricators and designers — like the machines themselves, it's a lot of moving parts, and fluid timelines.
This is the situation:
Silicon Wafer Fabbed Out SuccessfullyThe silicon wafers have completed fabrication. The silicon is the core of the chip, and the complicated etching process that creates the circuitry on the silicon is finished. Now the process is starting of taking this silicon, with its complete circuits, and packaging it into finished chips. The wafers are en route to San Jose, where they will be cut into individual die. We’ll get photos for you soon.
Substrate UpdateWhen we designed our substrates, we knew they'd be one of the most unpredictable segments of the chip's production. Substrate production has a lot of risk — at high power, a substrate can overheat, causing a rig to underperform. While rerunning simulations in Cadence, we saw some concerning currents in some of the vias in the substrate. In order to address that, we've been working closely - every day - with both our substrate designers and our manufacturing house. We’ve made key improvements to the design that can be incorporated even into those substrates that are already in manufacturing. Even so, the latest delivery estimates for the modified, improved substrate design are three weeks from today. This means that we would be shipping our first rigs mid-December.
Obviously this is an incredible concern to us, and to you. So for the last several weeks, we've been engaged with an additional team to work on an additional substrate, simultaneous with our existing fabricator. Essentially, we now have two teams racing to produce the best and fastest substrate. As soon as that is done, we'll marry the substrates to the finished wafer and begin assembly of the rigs.
Miner Protection ProgramFor those of you covered under the Miner Protection Program™ (
https://hashfast.com/miner-protection-program/), this delay will not affect the starting point from which benefits are calculated. For First Batch Baby Jets, the start date of the program will be retroactive to October 30th. We want to make sure a delayed ship date does not reduce the value of the program.
A lot of smart, hardworking people are working incredibly long hours to improve our production schedule. If we are able to ship rigs sooner than expected, we'll do so. And, of course, we'll let you know as we receive further information from our production line.
- The HashFast Team
