Announcement - ASIC mining processor by Butterfly Labs

[BFL]

December 2012 UPDATE
For up to date, accurate information, please visit our new forums:

https://forums.butterflylabs.com

We provide support and official information in our forums for all things related to BFL.


Original Post
We have officially announced our upcoming ASIC based SHA256 products today.  Here's the press release with most of the relevant details:

http://news.yahoo.com/butterfly-labs-announces-next-generation-asic-lineup-054626776.html

Note:  We're currently focused on the shipment of our Mini Rig product and won't be able to field questions for a few days but we'll be back with answers to any questions.

Kind regards,
BFL

[gmaxwell]

Before posting, please make sure you read these subforum guidelines.

The prior history of this thread was split off after it devolved into more noise than signal.

BFL ASIC Status (link provided by SLoK)

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status.html

[Fiyasko]

Finally a clean BFL Announcement thread, Hopefully BFLabs will post thier most recent info here on this thread, because the opening post is kind of old

[btharper]

Before posting, please make sure you read these subforum guidelines.

The prior history of this thread was split off after it devolved into more noise than signal.

BFL ASIC Status (link provided by SLoK)

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status.html

Darn, I was hoping that was new info from BFL. Thanks for the cleanup though

[RHA]

Current info (updated weekly) is here:
--->   BFL ASIC Status

[makomk]

This is actually new-ish info, I think?

I wanted to have a bit more information for this update, but it looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow to talk to a couple people.

The most important thing I wanted to convey to people at this time was that we have changed our initial "batch" from 12 wafers to 6 wafers, or to be more specific, it's apparently always been 6 with the additional six scheduled for about 1.5 weeks after that. Due to the short time frame between the two, there was a miscommunication as to the actual number of wafers being delivered in the first round. I don't know that this will affect any sort of shipping, since the next set of wafers will be done about when we are ready to start assembly on the first set.

The 6 wafers is actually a good set point for the "first batch" shipping, so the 1/3 plan will be implemented for the first 6 wafers and the remaining wafers will then all be FIFO. The first 6 wafers should cut into the pre-order orderbook by a decent chunk, but it obviously won't satisfy them all. We aren't sure what our yield will be on the wafers, we are running on an 80% yield speculation, but it's likely our yield will be much, much higher than that. With our design, we can have a core in a chip disabled due to dust or what have you and just bump up the other 15 cores to compensate and/or use it for a Jalapeno, so our yield will likely be much closer to 100% than other ASIC projects with more complicated chips.

We should see the bulk of what remains of the 75k chip run about 2 weeks after that, so about the time we are done shipping the other 6 wafers worth we'll have the bulk of our chips arrive and we'll start assembling/shipping those.

The bumping situation is mostly wrapped up at this point, so there should be no problem there. I know there was some talk about the final mask with regards to the bumping and that it may push the date of the chip completion back a couple days, but it shouldn't impact the timeline to speak of as a couple days on either side of the 31st of January shouldn't really make much of difference, being as it's basically a weekend and is in transit anyway. I am hoping to have confirmation with regards to that tomorrow (Monday).

I obviously haven't left for the fab yet, and Mondays call will determine when/if I leave. We have changed our bumping facility from the left coast to the right coast (North Carolina), so we may have the 6 wafers overnighted via courier to the bumping facility vs me picking them up and couriering them myself, although I will be meeting them at the bumping facility and making sure they don't sit around for a couple days while some guy eats and egg salad sandwich and wonders why there's a "priority!" box on his desk.

It's possible they're holding half their initial batch of wafers part-way through the wafer deposition process like ASICMINER did, in case they need to be revised. To be honest, I'd thought this was what Josh was hinting about a while ago regardign being able to revise their designs, so it's a surprise that he's so surprised by it.

[lucif]

From: Butterfly Labs Inc <office@butterflylabs.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:59:07 -0600

You must order your Jalapeno through our website. When you choose BTC you
will be directed to send the required number of BTC.

There are no ASIC machines completed yet as the chips have not arrived.
With the volume of orders we have already taken your order may not be
shipped until May.

If we used the machines ourselves instead of selling them, we would break
the BTC. To be viable, many people must choose to use BTC. We are a
hardware manufacturer.

Jody

until May...

[DobZombie]

From: Butterfly Labs Inc <office@butterflylabs.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 06:59:07 -0600

You must order your Jalapeno through our website. When you choose BTC you
will be directed to send the required number of BTC.

There are no ASIC machines completed yet as the chips have not arrived.
With the volume of orders we have already taken your order may not be
shipped until May.

If we used the machines ourselves instead of selling them, we would break
the BTC. To be viable, many people must choose to use BTC. We are a
hardware manufacturer.

Jody

until May...

what am I looking at here?

[btharper]

This is actually new-ish info, I think?

It's possible they're holding half their initial batch of wafers part-way through the wafer deposition process like ASICMINER did, in case they need to be revised. To be honest, I'd thought this was what Josh was hinting about a while ago regardign being able to revise their designs, so it's a surprise that he's so surprised by it.

Ahh, I figured they'd update the first comment, new information is staying there I suppose.

[Korbman]

Glad to see a cleaned up thread. Let's see how many pages we go before it falls into chaos again

This week should be pretty big for BFL, assuming they're still sticking to their schedule. Hopefully we'll have a progress update soon as well.

[Fiyasko]

Well according to thier own schedual they are falling behind, a BFL guy (josh) should be driving in a motor vehicle right now as "the final chips roll out"

[MonsterZero]

Well according to thier own schedual they are falling behind, a BFL guy (josh) should be driving in a motor vehicle right now as "the final chips roll out"

I obviously haven't left for the fab yet, and Mondays call will determine when/if I leave. We have changed our bumping facility from the left coast to the right coast (North Carolina), so we may have the 6 wafers overnighted via courier to the bumping facility vs me picking them up and couriering them myself, although I will be meeting them at the bumping facility and making sure they don't sit around for a couple days while some guy eats and egg salad sandwich and wonders why there's a "priority!" box on his desk.

Of course his update post changes this if you read it.

[Fiyasko]

FallING behind, they arent behind yet, so long as josh drives today

[noncecents]

I would not be surprised if they were being DDOS'd.

[greyhawk]

I would not be surprised if they were being DDOS'd.

Please stop spreading FUD.

[Inaba]

I was rebooting the box the forums run on to add some memory to speed things up.  It took a few minutes longer than I anticipated, sorry about that.  Jeez, down for ten minutes and people think we are packing up shop, really?  Even when the website itself was still up?

[Inaba]

Forums are going to be down for a bit.  I'm bringing the box down to install more physical ram and work on a couple other things.  Shouldn't be more than an hour (hopefully much less than that)

[DobZombie]

ooooh, it's all clean in here!

 

[JWU42]

For those of you that do not frequent the BFL Forums -- https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status.html#post12237

I will most likely be headed to the fab at the end of the week to be prepared to pick up the chips next week. The broker says no later than the 8th on the chips, but most likely earlier. Even if the chips roll off the line on the 8th, it doesn't affect the timeline much. Here is the current projected timeline:

Leave for the fab ~ Feb 1st or 2nd
Acquire 6 wafers earliest Feb 4th - Latest Feb 8th
Transport wafers same day to bumping facility
2 days in bumping facility
Transport to substrate and packaging
1 - 2 days for substrate and packaging
Transport to assembly house
< 24 hours at assembly house
~1 day for chip verification/testing
Transport to Kansas City
Bulk assembly / send out demo units
Ship bulk units


Our timeline is still on target for the week of the 10th, probably towards the later part of the week. If the worst case scenario in every step comes to pass, we are looking at starting shipping around Monday the 18th. Best case scenario we will start shipping around Wednesday the 13th or Thursday the 14th. This is, of course, subject to change, but I will keep everyone updated when/if there are any changes.

Happy for the update...

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

For those of you that do not frequent the BFL Forums -- https://forums.butterflylabs.com/announcements/692-bfl-asic-status.html#post12237

I will most likely be headed to the fab at the end of the week to be prepared to pick up the chips next week. The broker says no later than the 8th on the chips, but most likely earlier. Even if the chips roll off the line on the 8th, it doesn't affect the timeline much. Here is the current projected timeline:

Leave for the fab ~ Feb 1st or 2nd
Acquire 6 wafers earliest Feb 4th - Latest Feb 8th
Transport wafers same day to bumping facility
2 days in bumping facility
Transport to substrate and packaging
1 - 2 days for substrate and packaging
Transport to assembly house
. 24 hours at assembly house
~1 day for chip verification/testing
Transport to Kansas City
Bulk assembly / send out demo units
Ship bulk units


Our timeline is still on target for the week of the 10th, probably towards the later part of the week. If the worst case scenario in every step comes to pass, we are looking at starting shipping around Monday the 18th. Best case scenario we will start shipping around Wednesday the 13th or Thursday the 14th. This is, of course, subject to change, but I will keep everyone updated when/if there are any changes.

Happy for the update...

Interesting update. I am still doubtful of BFL not delaying through. After you roll 1 ten times, you start realizing the dice is loaded