Custom FPGA Board for Sale!

[ElectricMucus]

http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1943818-ic-fpga-spartan-6-43k-676fggbga-xc6slx45-2fgg676i.html

am I missing something  

We aren't using the LX45, that's a puny part with 43+k logic cells. We've on the board a LX150 part that has 147+k logic cells, also the -2 plays a part in how fast the chip can run. -3 is what we have.

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=122-1725-ND

I realized that and edited the post, sry

But what about those?
http://www2.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microsemi/A2F500M3G-FGG256/?qs=9C5AG8cDq%252bW6haUt%252bCawKA%3d%3d

[li_gangyi]

But what about those?
http://www2.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Microsemi/A2F500M3G-FGG256/?qs=9C5AG8cDq%252bW6haUt%252bCawKA%3d%3d

There's no real way to compare logic elements vs system gates, the only way would be to port the code over and see it'll fit.
From the rough looks of it, not gonna happen, there's the extra microcontroller and extra features sucking up silicon real estate.

[CanaryInTheMine]

That price is definitely good for an FPGA miner, I think though the most savings will come from mass production due to the power, heat and space saving costs. If you can manage to get 5 on a board and sell it for ~1k and make it stackable it would not be a bad investment. I'm sure people would put down some serious $$ then.

5 FPGAs alone (without board any parts yet), will suck up the 1k budget already. We aren't trying to sell the boards with a sky high margin, the costs of the parts alone are just quite high at the moment.

Have you looked at the microsemi smartfusion devices? They offer a huge amount of gates at a much lower price & you get a extra arm processor.

am I missing something  

are you asking just to ask or have you compared the technical capabilities of the chips?

[ElectricMucus]

idk, I suggested the chip because I assumed gates are gates, no matter on which fpga they are. So I did some comparison.
This wasn't meant as a critique or that you choose the wrong chip, just me trying to help 

I've heard that the markups of fpgas are quite high, so I assumed it is possible that a cheaper chip is available which could be used with similar or superior capability. Xilinx is the market leader so I think it's save to assume that competitors try to offer cheaper products to get a higher market share.     

[molecular]

I'm happy to report to the thread that I just ordered my FPGA miner.

molecular, thank you very much! You won't be disappointed. Also, as one of our first customers, you locked in a 10% discount for life

Yeah, I know, thanks a lot for the discount. That really made the decision a lot easier.

[fpgaminer]

idk, I suggested the chip because I assumed gates are gates, no matter on which fpga they are. So I did some comparison.
This wasn't meant as a critique or that you choose the wrong chip, just me trying to help

Your help is appreciated, and it's always good to learn about new options.

A lot of FPGA products will list their gate count in promotional material, but gates are completely meaningless on an FPGA so it is just a marketing "scam."  Took Xilinx a few generations to stop that nonsense and start listing their products in terms of 4-LUTs.

[CanaryInTheMine]

idk, I suggested the chip because I assumed gates are gates, no matter on which fpga they are. So I did some comparison.
This wasn't meant as a critique or that you choose the wrong chip, just me trying to help 

I've heard that the markups of fpgas are quite high, so I assumed it is possible that a cheaper chip is available which could be used with similar or superior capability. Xilinx is the market leader so I think it's save to assume that competitors try to offer cheaper products to get a higher market share.     

I didn't read it as critique, I was wondering if you had found something...  i don't know much about fpga's so that's why I ask.  I wouldn't know how to compare them... at least not yet.

[Pipesnake]

I'm happy to report to the thread that I just ordered my FPGA miner.

molecular, thank you very much! You won't be disappointed. Also, as one of our first customers, you locked in a 10% discount for life

Edit: We are down to 2 boards left now. And we are trying to work out a selling deal with Cablesaurus!!!

Still have the 2?

I'll buy both if you can accept PayPal as I don't have enough BTC.  Please pm me details.

[newMeat1]

Still have the 2?

I'll buy both if you can accept PayPal as I don't have enough BTC.  Please pm me details.

3 of them have sold, for sure. There's one that payment hasn't gone through on yet, but I consider it spoken for. Pipesnake- if the buyer doesn't come through on this last one, I'll contact you right away.

About 4 of us got together and had a really nerdy meeting this afternoon, planning the next version of the board. We think we have a solution to the USB interface problem. It's scalable and it costs less than $10!

fpgaminer is going to test whether our idea works in the coming week. Then we will have to order more boards, which takes 2 weeks. So, in 3-3.5 weeks, hopefully we will be announcing a newer board.

[Pipesnake]

Ok I'm in for sure on the last board or the next batch.  Awesome work!!

[inh]

on gettin' em sold! I would have liked to pick one up but the price was a bit high (understandable though) and I'd really like to make my own.

Nice to see some progress on this, props for being first to market.

[ElectricMucus]

1337 views 

[rph]

Are you guys using the DSP48A1s (@100MH/s?) They will not necessarily
increase Fmax, but, they should reduce LUT count and perhaps let you
fit more stages/cores into the part.

-rph

[thirdlight]

Hi,

What would be the minimum spec for the computer controlling this?

Would this http://mini-itx.com/store/?c=34#jnf94-270 do?

Thanks!

[newMeat1]

Well, you will need an internet connection, for sure, so that you can communicate with the mining pool. It looks like this board has an ethernet connector and USB ports, so maybe it would work. If you could load Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS or SUSE Linux Enterprise onto this little Atom board from a USB drive, then it wouldn't be too hard. Our mining scripts and the Platform cable would work.

I bet fpgaminer can give you a lot better answer when he's online. He's our main programmer.

A more cost-effective option, and easier, would be to buy an old laptop off eBay or a garage sale or something.

Anyways, let us know if you decide to use the Atom board. I want to see how it turns out, and I like the idea of a highly efficient computer.

EDIT: I'm forgetting about the Molex power supply. Somehow you need to give our FPGA board 12V.

[echo2]

oooooooooh look at this project http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/794668827/aliencortex-av

[newMeat1]

Sounds good doesn't it? But the FPGA on it is pretty weak. It probably has only about 20% of the logic elements of our board, so you would be looking at maybe 10 Mhash/s from that thing. (The relationship between # of LE's and hash rate isn't linear... the more LE's you have, the more efficiently you can mine. Up to a point)

Also just noticed it only runs at 24 MHz... so really it would only be good for 2-3 MHash/s

[old_engineer]

Congrats, looks like great work getting the first FPGA miner up and running!  Better keep moving, there are likely many others right on your heels.

My hours are booked solid until November, with no time to fiddle with a new board as much as I'd like to, but I'll likely jump in on the next round of boards.

[dovewing2000]

I hope my suggestion wont be taken as trolling...

how about setting up a company to garner resource for research and selling the end product to the btc community like what you guys are doing here..

except that those that actually buy into the company will either get profit/discount on the product...?

IE...

total dev cost is $5000
total manufacturing cost is $5000

(these are just assumptions.. i'm sure someone can make a better accurate depiction of how to do this...)

so you would sell 10k worth of shares for the first round to buffer for this...
the dev who put in time and money would be covered by the shares representing their hardware cost and dev time...  may be 1/3 of the total shares?
the rest is open for public buy-in...

when boards are sold... the profit is divided upon the shares hold... and distributed among share holders..? if shareholders wants to buy at discount they get a % related to the % of shares they hold...?

just a suggestion... nothing more ...

[deslok]

If shares for said theroetical FPGA comany could be purchased on GLBSE i would certainly buy some myself.