Announcement: Bitmain launches AntMiner solution, 0.68 J/GH on chip

[MrTeal]

Any further news on chip samples and improved documentation on the chip/ protocol/ reference design?

Thanks

[Textplorer]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

[Syke]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

What if Avalon is behind this? Get rid of their bad reputation by hiding behind a new name?

[Aexcu]

Questions:
As this unit is pretty much 'bare bones', if I would be interesting in actually racking these up (/placing them inside a chassis), what kind of setup would you propose? Is there already some exact hardware into which these could be deployed into as 'modules'? How many could you fit in e.g. a 3-4 U server chassis?

[MrTeal]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

Where are you seeing the code?

[bitterdog]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

What if Avalon is behind this? Get rid of their bad reputation by hiding behind a new name?

Does it really matter if they deliver?

Of course  Avalon is quite possibly Antminer - YIFU and Bitsyncom have pissed a lot of people off not many would buy from them again
Notice how the auction was run EXACTLY as it was on Tradehill?
Chip Specs the same.. but like I said does it matter if they deliver?

So now back to my question AGAIN...

Where is the U1?

[Textplorer]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

Where are you seeing the code?

CGminer code from Bitmain for "BM3080".
https://github.com/bitmaintech/cgminer/commit/295a81f67093f31541fa50ac7a0ae4bc46a533b8

[Bogart]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

I think he meant the Web UI.  Indeed is is quite similar.  Apparently based on openwrt, like Avalon used.

I did notice that a lot of the hardware design is very similar also.  Just look at the layout of the PCBs.  QFN chips with decoupling caps situated right next to the chip pins with their ends all facing the chips.  A couple big ceramic caps in the middle of the ASIC area.  The positioning of the screw holes that anchor the PCB to the backside heatsink.  A discrete VRM section near the top of the board, a continuous power plane covering the topside of the PCB ASIC area, etc.

The hashrate per chip, feature size, and efficiency are also in line with Avalon gen-2.

There's even an 11-digit number stenciled onto the PCBs in both designs.

Compare:



Batch 1 Avalon:


Batch 3 avalon:

[intron]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

When you put some scope probes to pins 17 and 18
of a hashing chip and you encounter something that
resembles this you can be pretty sure it's an Avalon.



Thanks to BkkCoins for the scope traces.

intron

[reactor]

How come nobody else has noticed that the code for the chip is pretty much copy -> paste from Avalons code?
I think the BM3080 is a tweaked Avalon design :/

What if Avalon is behind this? Get rid of their bad reputation by hiding behind a new name?

Does it really matter if they deliver?

Of course  Avalon is quite possibly Antminer - YIFU and Bitsyncom have pissed a lot of people off not many would buy from them again
Notice how the auction was run EXACTLY as it was on Tradehill?
Chip Specs the same.. but like I said does it matter if they deliver?

So now back to my question AGAIN...

Where is the U1?

My question as well.  AM sticks sold like wildfire, so there is a market and people practically begging for these devices.  Engineering-wise they should be much simpler, less moving parts and all, so what is up with the delay?

[RoadStress]

So I'm pretty sure most suspect this might actually be yifu selling avalon gen 2 devices. The specs are the same but the chip markings mysteriously are not there

Setting up the review takes a few people.  Someone to travel (in this case it was me), someone to keep track of where the traveler is as often as possible, someone who knows about building the website, someone to see I’m not way off to the RIGHT or LEFT and way politically wrong on the posts (to avoid remorse after the post) and sacrifices from loved ones around us and my Piggy Bank 


*lots of already posted pictures and text*

After the the last post of sushi(a member who joined this forum on 5 November and who strangely did a special travel to China for this review) with the same text and picture and all the marketing shit for the third time I started to ponder about this project. While I know that there are different chip packages(can someone tell me if you can package the chip in different packages?) I'm starting to believe this is Avalon undercover. The specs are very alike and I'm wondering how did they manage to raise funds all by themselves and how come they didn't come here in the supposed 7 months of developing the chip and not ask for a single pre-order. Considering that people still buy BFL products they could easily raise some money. Another thing that i don't understand is how come bitmain let's sushi do all the marketing and all the communication here but he is active in the Market forum.We also never saw bitmain or anyone else in person.

 This may not add up, but a big FU to all the Avalon team starting with the scumbag BitSyncomm! Boycott time!

[minternj]

Boycott won't do squat. Plenty of buyers that just see Hashrate and want it. It was pretty obvious these things were going to cost as much as asicminer stuff. Like i said in a past post if they sold it cheap, they would either be very poor businessmen or scammers.

[klondike_bar]

why are you guys getting so angry over:

1) "bitmain resembles avalon - it must be them and f--k avalon'
Avalon has thier own webstore, where they are capable of selling 140GH units for 6BTC. They have no reason to pretend to be somebody else. Avalon screwed over the batch3/chip buyers, but now seems to have thier priorities more focused on in-stock products, it makes no sense to pretend they are a small second company with no reviews

2) 'it wont ROI, the auction is a terrible idea because it sets the pricing bar too high"
depending on how you do calculations, I beleive it is capable of returning 4.25-5 BTC within 6-8 months of operation. (If you think that we will see 130% difficulty/month forever, you will get much lower estimates - i beleive it will be hard to see the difficulty more than 85%/month). Running an auction clearly showed that a lot of people are willing to pay up to 5BTC per unit. If they filled an online shop with these in-hand, they could probably sell out with prices of over 5.5BTC


In my mind, i will likely mine roughly the same amount of BTC as i paid, minus some power costs, and will have a neat peice of physical hardware to keep. (and we've all seen the resale value on useless physical hardware - $20 for a 0.3GH usb erupter or $200 for a 2.5GH red fury - I feel like 180GH device will have significant resale value even 6 months from now)

I won the auction with a bid of 5.00BTC, with a payment of 4.75BTC (my secondary bid of 4.75 didnt make the cut somehow). I hope they follow up on their word, and ship within 24hrs using a service capable of north america (Canada) delivery before the end of next week. If they do that, and the unit runs 180GH, I will be a happy customer

ps: can these overclock? operating at 45C is relatively cool, it would be great if it could be pushed to 200GH

[MrTeal]

why are you guys getting so angry over:

1) "bitmain resembles avalon - it must be them and f--k avalon'
Avalon has thier own webstore, where they are capable of selling 140GH units for 6BTC. They have no reason to pretend to be somebody else. Avalon screwed over the batch3/chip buyers, but now seems to have thier priorities more focused on in-stock products, it makes no sense to pretend they are a small second company with no reviews

2) 'it wont ROI, the auction is a terrible idea because it sets the pricing bar too high"
depending on how you do calculations, I beleive it is capable of returning 4.25-5 BTC within 6-8 months of operation. (If you think that we will see 130% difficulty/month forever, you will get much lower estimates - i beleive it will be hard to see the difficulty more than 85%/month). Running an auction clearly showed that a lot of people are willing to pay up to 5BTC per unit. If they filled an online shop with these in-hand, they could probably sell out with prices of over 5.5BTC


In my mind, i will likely mine roughly the same amount of BTC as i paid, minus some power costs, and will have a neat peice of physical hardware to keep. (and we've all seen the resale value on useless physical hardware - $20 for a 0.3GH usb erupter or $200 for a 2.5GH red fury - I feel like 180GH device will have significant resale value even 6 months from now)

I won the auction with a bid of 5.00BTC, with a payment of 4.75BTC (my secondary bid of 4.75 didnt make the cut somehow). I hope they follow up on their word, and ship within 24hrs using a service capable of north america (Canada) delivery before the end of next week. If they do that, and the unit runs 180GH, I will be a happy customer

ps: can these overclock? operating at 45C is relatively cool, it would be great if it could be pushed to 200GH

They aren't running at 45C. If you look at the FLIR image, you can see the regular matrix of the chips as white dots, with two DC/DC regulators in frame on the left that are the hottest components on the board. It's a little saturated and out of focus, but that one ASIC at the very top center probably has an outer case temperature around 65-70C or so.

[Textplorer]

why are you guys getting so angry over:

1) "bitmain resembles avalon - it must be them and f--k avalon'

That´s not what i´m saying... i´m just trying to bring some light to the fact that the "BM3080" chip most likely is a tweaked Avalon design.
If i had but one chip in front of me.... Hey Bitmain / sushi, mind to send me some? 

[Bogart]

Bitsyncom/Avalon has thoroughly destroyed any positive reputation they once had.  They have every reason to try to hide behind a newly fabricated identity.

[fasmax]

With the 8 control signals this looks like something I would expect to see from an Avalon type design.
The chips would be connected in 2 sets of 16 chips per board.
Even though I lost BTC due to Avalon being late with the chips I have forgiven them.
I speak only for myself.

[sushi]

Textplorer, Where are you located?  I can't send you the chip but I may be able to bring you the unit depends on where you are at.  As long as you don’t have to take the chip off of the PCB, you are welcome to check out the chip from my testing unit.

But, here is the question...  Even this turns out to be very similar to the Avalon Chip, it doesn't prove that this is a rebranded business.  It could be that they purchased the design, or reverse engineered or other things or had the simiar idea and solidified the design by studying the Avalon unit.

Hope it’s not the exact chip but if it was, they may have purchased the license or rights to brand the chip as their own and we will not find out what the deal was.
 

[fasmax]

The Avalon communication protocol (hardware level) is the real giveaway.
If the Report and Configuration signals are the same then it's Avalon based.
 
 

[FlappySocks]

I couldn't care less who's chip it is. If it has a realistic chance of ROI, and can be purchased with a credit card, I'll buy.