KnCMiner selling raw chips for $.15 / GH

[rograz]

Yes (can't be otherwise). 133GH/chip, if every chip requires $150-250 in VRMs alone it's out of the market already.

You could probably find some cheaper design alternatives at those loads however, remember they only used half the VRMs for most of the October units. Then again why would anyone bother trying to get these on boards even if they were given the chips for free, considering the hardware will be obsolete by the time you have something working. Wouldn't mind one for a key chain though!

[MrTeal]

Is that with four chips?

Yes (can't be otherwise). 133GH/chip, if every chip requires $150-250 in VRMs alone it's out of the market already.

Which is why the chips have been sitting on the shelf and are being sold. KNC have the scale, all the design done and just need to press the button to have them made into more Jupiters, but they're not.

If it takes downclocking to 133GH/s per chip to get to 1J/GH, it likely isn't worthwhile to pursue.

[cedivad]

However if the chip can do 190GH and it was downclocked to 133GH in the 2013 deliveries, while being shipped with both cooling and VRMs with room to spare, does that mean that KNC used them in their DC "overcooking" them? (KNC would have unlocked the firmware). That way they had 190GH out of each chip and not the 133GH they shipped to their customers...

If that was true... Well, it's interesting.

[MrTeal]

Well, I got this reply from Liam when asking if anything other than the low res ball map would be published.

A high resolution image of the ballmap and all schematics will only be provided to those have purchased the chips.

Thanks

[marto74]

Strange I got the same answer from both cointerra and hash fast 3 months back.
A lot of people are mad @ Avalon , but in terms of chip info the thing were always ok.
Black Arrow and bitmine.ch doc were good written and available before chip release.
Bitfury was ok.
And spondo documentation and engineering support is outstanding.
All this from board design perspective

[Taugeran]

Well, I got this reply from Liam when asking if anything other than the low res ball map would be published.

A high resolution image of the ballmap and all schematics will only be provided to those have purchased the chips.

Thanks

So we have to lay down 5.5K just to even be able to design for them.

That blows. If a GB gets started  it only needs to be bought once to be in the wild

[CounterStrike]

Its worth it is you know how to build your own ASIC, but don't risk buying if you don't even know where to start..

[Beastlymac]

Its worth it is you know how to build your own ASIC, but don't risk buying if you don't even know where to start..

The documents aren't for fabricating the chip they are for fabricating the pcb board itself.

[Taugeran]

Its worth it is you know how to build your own ASIC, but don't risk buying if you don't even know where to start..

The documents aren't for fabricating the chip they are for fabricating the pcb board itself.

the "docs" to make the chip itself cost knc >$1million USD. and will never see the light of day outside of the vault where they're stored

[crocko]

These chips aren't expensive.. How much you could get out of it is probably ?  I mean W/GH

[tvasbn]

Strange I got the same answer from both cointerra and hash fast 3 months back.
A lot of people are mad @ Avalon , but in terms of chip info the thing were always ok.
Black Arrow and bitmine.ch doc were good written and available before chip release.
Bitfury was ok.
And spondo documentation and engineering support is outstanding.
All this from board design perspective

You"ll be doing in the future some boards for the SP RockerBox??

[dance191]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

[MrTeal]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

Bottom line is that it would cost $5,400 to get the process started, and it's hard to say what the final cost would be since until you spend the $5,400 KnC will not release any information on their system.

[dance191]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

Bottom line is that it would cost $5,400 to get the process started, and it's hard to say what the final cost would be since until you spend the $5,400 KnC will not release any information on their system.

Hmmm.... It sounds a little tricky... What do you think, if you had the chips in your hand, what would your guess be as to how long until there is a finished product ready to mine?  What would the ballpark cost be for the finished product?  Is it not really possible to know as there is not enough info?

All I know that $.15 / GH/s really caught my attention.  For me, I don't care about electrical costs, the cost per GH/s is basically all I care about.

[MrTeal]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

Bottom line is that it would cost $5,400 to get the process started, and it's hard to say what the final cost would be since until you spend the $5,400 KnC will not release any information on their system.

Hmmm.... It sounds a little tricky... What do you think, if you had the chips in your hand, what would your guess be as to how long until there is a finished product ready to mine?  What would the ballpark cost be for the finished product?  Is it not really possible to know as there is not enough info?

All I know that $.15 / GH/s really caught my attention.  For me, I don't care about electrical costs, the cost per GH/s is basically all I care about.

Probably somewhere in the range of $1/GH/s or so, though it would be lower if you did a large volume. Leadtime really depends on what they release. It could be a couple months if the documentation is sparse and they're hard to get a hold of.

[dance191]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

Bottom line is that it would cost $5,400 to get the process started, and it's hard to say what the final cost would be since until you spend the $5,400 KnC will not release any information on their system.

Hmmm.... It sounds a little tricky... What do you think, if you had the chips in your hand, what would your guess be as to how long until there is a finished product ready to mine?  What would the ballpark cost be for the finished product?  Is it not really possible to know as there is not enough info?

All I know that $.15 / GH/s really caught my attention.  For me, I don't care about electrical costs, the cost per GH/s is basically all I care about.

Probably somewhere in the range of $1/GH/s or so, though it would be lower if you did a large volume. Leadtime really depends on what they release. It could be a couple months if the documentation is sparse and they're hard to get a hold of.

How low can it go?  Say with 200 chips, 1,000 chips, 10,000 chips?  What is possible?

[GAW_Taylan]

Have you guys seen this? https://www.kncminer.com/products/knc-28nm-sha256-processor

I'm surprised there is not a group buy up for it yet.  They're selling the chips for dirt cheap.  The only thing I don't like is they're not supplying the documentation before the purchase, I emailed them to see if I could get the documentation ahead of time.

Seems like the perfect chip for an open-sourced board/solution

Found at the bottom of page.

* Due to yield rate the number of usable cores varies. Statistically at least 70% of our production at this level has contained chips with 100% usable cores, and up to 90% of all the chips have 187 or more usable cores, with the rest of the chips varying below that number.

That 30% of partly unusable cores should be scary to any buyer. So if you make a $5400 investment, technically you run the risk of having at least $1620 worth of bad chips.

[dropt]

That 30% of partly unusable cores should be scary to any buyer. So if you make a $5400 investment, technically you run the risk of having at least $1620 worth of bad chips.

In a practical sense it's only 10% that the end-user needs to be concerned about.  >90% of the chips allege to be >97% functional.  As for the remaining 10%, 'bad' is relative.  They likely still work, just not as well as the others.

[Taugeran]

That 30% of partly unusable cores should be scary to any buyer. So if you make a $5400 investment, technically you run the risk of having at least $1620 worth of bad chips.

In a practical sense it's only 10% that the end-user needs to be concerned about.  >90% of the chips allege to be >97% functional.  As for the remaining 10%, 'bad' is relative.  They likely still work, just not as well as the others.

++1

[bizzyb]

What is the bottom line?  MrTeal (or someone who has done this before), what would it cost to get this going?  What is the final product going to cost?

Bottom line is that it would cost $5,400 to get the process started, and it's hard to say what the final cost would be since until you spend the $5,400 KnC will not release any information on their system.

Hmmm.... It sounds a little tricky... What do you think, if you had the chips in your hand, what would your guess be as to how long until there is a finished product ready to mine?  What would the ballpark cost be for the finished product?  Is it not really possible to know as there is not enough info?

All I know that $.15 / GH/s really caught my attention.  For me, I don't care about electrical costs, the cost per GH/s is basically all I care about.

Probably somewhere in the range of $1/GH/s or so, though it would be lower if you did a large volume. Leadtime really depends on what they release. It could be a couple months if the documentation is sparse and they're hard to get a hold of.

Would you be willing/want to head up a group buy for this?
Say a minimum buy in of 0.5BTC per share, to get a 20BTC fund to purchase 200 of these chips and start the research process?

I for one would find this a very attractive proposition, far more than any other pre-order I've ever been involved with.

If anyone wants to get involved does so on the basis that "I invest what I am willing to lose", is this something you would be willing to take on?