AFAIK they will be going back into heavy R&D after they ship all their outstanding orders. Gen 2 is expected March/April next year. I'd specs should be at least 5TH/s if they want to stay competitive.
5 TH/s for a single system seems potentially reaching too high... the problem is how many TH's will fit in each box (not the asics, but the power & cooling considerations override how many asics will fit).
Cointerra is already on the limit right now with 2 TH/s, with chips consuming 0.6 W/GH/s, however once you factor in the power conversion losses of the dc/dc converters, the power supply losses, and add in the cooling system and controller consumption etc... you're really talking 0.8+ W/GH at the wall... So it seems unreasonable that you'd get to HALF power consumption in the next generation as the non-asic's power consumption and losses remain in the system regardless of how low your asics can sip the power. It makes the drag on achieving low power very high.
So... lets assume 0.5W/GH at the wall is the best case for the next generation (and i suspect it won't be because people prefer to overclock and have higher performance rather than lower power etc).
5 TH/s is 2.5 KW in one box. Cooling 2.5 KW is pretty hard... and also, finding a low cost power supply for a 2.5 KW load is actually pretty hard (actually, you need more, as you can't run power supplies at 100% load without them being very inefficient so you'd need a 3 KW power supply or more!). You'd need two very expensive atx power supplies, for instance. They take up a *LOT* of room... and are expensive. for instance, two of these... ($600)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171069So.. my gut feeling is that achieving 5 TH in a single box is going to be challenging and i suspect quite impractical for the time being. For best cost & performance, its best to keep it lower, so you can use more affordable cooling and power supply solutions... there's no magic here. the system cost is higher than the asic cost !
-- Jez
