[ANN] OpenBitASIC : The Open Source Bitcoin ASIC Initiative

[jjshabadoo]

Well if you can allow the community to invest and find a way for initial purchasers to not be slaughtered by lower prices down the road, you will be doing the community a great service.

If you beat BFL to market then you will have done the community a GREAT service. I also believe you will need to put some thought into how they will be distributed once they are completed. Sending them out in drips and drabs will seriously effect those who get their devices down the road if they are paying the same price as those who get the first devices.

Again, I am willing to assist in any way I can and I believe you will find there are many in the community who would be willing to help as well, even other vendors.

Best of luck.

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[nedbert9]

Well if you can allow the community to invest and find a way for initial purchasers to not be slaughtered by lower prices down the road, you will be doing the community a great service.

If you beat BFL to market then you will have done the community a GREAT service. I also believe you will need to put some thought into how they will be distributed once they are completed. Sending them out in drips and drabs will seriously effect those who get their devices down the road if they are paying the same price as those who get the first devices.

Again, I am willing to assist in any way I can and I believe you will find there are many in the community who would be willing to help as well, even other vendors.

Best of luck.

+100

Having a fair distribution strategy as well as market strategy is very important.

A slow, steady output (per customer output) would be quite unfair especially if you receive financial support from a wide base of community members.

The community needs to put money in to this up front in order for the producer to survive the special requirements that a healthy technology shift such as this would entail.

[gusti]

@jjshabadoo
@nedbert9

That's the reason we are not taking a single dime from investors / customers AFTER we have all the costs, ETA and distribution / selling strategy figured out. In the meantime, we'd been putting our money and time since the project inception. Are we expecting a return on that ? Sure we are, but in an open and bitcoin-spirit way.

 

[nedbert9]

@jjshabadoo
@nedbert9

That's the reason we are not taking a single dime from investors / customers AFTER we have all the costs, ETA and distribution / selling strategy figured out. In the meantime, we'd been putting our money and time since the project inception. Are we expecting a return on that ? Sure we are, but in an open and bitcoin-spirit way.

 

Big plus

[jjshabadoo]

If You can get this done by November 1st i still think you will beat BFL by at least a month given their previous track record.

[sadpandatech]

If You can get this done by November 1st i still think you will beat BFL by at least a month given their previous track record.

most definitley..

And I would be most interested in buying bonds of such a company that could later be redemeed for product..?? that would rock!

[||bit]

If You can get this done by November 1st i still think you will beat BFL by at least a month given their previous track record.

Is that even possible? How much is actually done? Getting a chip designed & manufactured doesn't seem like a trvial tasking. Not to mention other stuff that probably needs to be done, like mounting the ASIC's along with other components onto a PCB (in mass quantities). This seems why BFL isn't shipping stuff everyday, they still have to build the boards and stuff (not to mention QA the product).

[Jason]

Is that even possible? How much is actually done? Getting a chip designed & manufactured doesn't seem like a trvial tasking. Not to mention other stuff that probably needs to be done, like mounting the ASIC's along with other components onto a PCB (in mass quantities). This seems why BFL isn't shipping stuff everyday, they still have to build the boards and stuff (not to mention QA the product).

The PC board design and manufacturing are trivial tasks compared to the ASIC.  Furthermore, they can be done in parallel with the other tasks so really have little or no impact on the schedule.  The phases involved in creating a full custom ASIC are:

• Specification
• RTL Implementation
• Logic Implementation
• Physical Implementation (maskset creation)
• Chip Production

At this point we've completed the first two of these tasks.  The remaining phases typically take around 12 months to do by most US-based firms we've been in contact with and are quite expensive.  By working with companies in emerging markets, we're hoping to not only reduce our NRE costs, but also to significantly reduce the time required to complete the last three phases.

We're don't want to ask anyone for money until we have an agreement in place with a partner to complete the last three phases for us in what we determine to be a competitive time frame.  As soon as that happens, it will be announced here for all those who are interested.

[Bitcoin Oz]

There someone trying to raise money on glbse for a bfl ASIC. What I suggest is to not only let people invest in the manufacturing company but create a "mining company" that people can invest in. This way people can get the benefit of ASIC mining without having to actually own hardware.

As the creators of this product you should be able to run it optimally.

[Tyger]

I think the pool will become to big if you do that.

Also if they deliver in Europe that makes me happy, waiting for a delivery so long like at BFL is really enoying.

[sadpandatech]

I think the pool will become to big if you do that.

The beneift here is they could easily mine with the company hardware using P2Pool. This would allow those not wanting to invest into their own hardware still take part and earn some profit and would aid in the overall decentralization of mining. win win

[Tyger]

Thats a good idea

[Qoheleth]

Subscribing.

(I have money to pour into this project, for the record.)

[ice_chill]

No-one could compete with BFL's FPGAs, they are a serious company product wise, ASIC won't be any easier.

[Qoheleth]

No-one could compete with BFL's FPGAs, they are a serious company product wise, ASIC won't be any easier.

Nobody could compete with BFL's FPGAs because they were somehow buying them for like 1/4 retail. There's no indication they're doing that with ASICs, which means this project (which is doing that by going after markets where the work is cheaper) has a chance, just like BFL had a chance when they finally started shipping months after FPGAs were already on the market.

[Qoheleth]

Have you looked at (using) open cores? Ethernet interface would be nice.
Not sure about its cost, but SoC mining ASIC would be a bitcoin killer.
Put Linux and cgminer on it.
Call it bitcoinberry 3.14  

If the pinouts &c are public, these guys wouldn't even have to. Someone else could easily come along and put together the SoC themselves.

[2112]

Mining SoC is a technical nonsense. The mining controller has to be on a separate chip with separate cooling to reliably monitor the error rate of the mining portion of the hardware.

SoC only makes sense if you aren't planning on overclocking or otherwise pushing the envelope. This isn't going to happen in the mining business.

[sadpandatech]

Mining SoC is a technical nonsense. The mining controller has to be on a separate chip with separate cooling to reliably monitor the error rate of the mining portion of the hardware.

SoC only makes sense if you aren't planning on overclocking or otherwise pushing the envelope. This isn't going to happen in the mining business.

maybe a seperate soc that would provide all the functions desired? Or would that add too much to the price?

[rjk]

"SOC" stands for "System-on-a-chip", and in generally referred to as meaning a complete, all-in-one package with minimal to no external support components. The thing is, such a setup doesn't really lend itself well to an easy design, or to an error-free design, or such things. For such a specialized application, a highly custom single-purpose device is more appropriate.

[Qoheleth]

"SOC" stands for "System-on-a-chip", and in generally referred to as meaning a complete, all-in-one package with minimal to no external support components. The thing is, such a setup doesn't really lend itself well to an easy design, or to an error-free design, or such things. For such a specialized application, a highly custom single-purpose device is more appropriate.

Yeah, my earlier response to the SoC idea was based on the misunderstanding of the term as covering itty-bitty embedded CPUs in general, and not being restricted to literal one-chip systems (including the specialty bits).