Announcement - ASIC mining processor by Butterfly Labs

[rchapoteau]

Just to clear a few things up about what was stated so far by Josh

On the 13th of January par of the original post was

Week of January 26th
Final chips roll off the line

Week of February 10th
We implement the 1/3 shipping plan en mass

The next week on the 22nd he made a change

Week of February 3rd
Final chips roll off the line

BUT this stayed the same. 

Week of February 10th
We implement the 1/3 shipping plan en mass


We will see if this changes in  a future update.  I don't really care as much about what happens in the middle as much as I care about what happens in the end.

[repentance]

I was aware of the change in timeline which projected the chips being finished 4-8 February.  Everything after that is on a very tight timeline.  It's 5 February in Asia, so Josh needs to leave soon if he's going to collect the chips on Friday and start shipping 10 days later (which to date is the "worst case scenario" he's acknowledged).

I saw the comments about Josh not leaving on 1-2 February because Josh sitting around in a hotel room waiting for the chips wasn't regarded as the best use of his time, but no update as yet on when he will be leaving for the fab.  The steps remaining after he collects the chips are :

- 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

If the worst case scenario in every step comes to pass, we are looking at starting shipping around Monday the 18th.

I think they may be over-confident in believing they can meet the 18 Feb shipping date if Josh hasn't even left for the fab yet.

[JWU42]

I think they may be over-confident in believing they can meet the 18 Feb shipping date if Josh hasn't even left for the fab yet.

Sadly, I agree...

[YipYip]

I think they may be over-confident in believing they can meet the 18 Feb shipping date if Josh hasn't even left for the fab yet.

Sadly, I agree...

Happily i agree

[Askit2]

I was aware of the change in timeline which projected the chips being finished 4-8 February.  Everything after that is on a very tight timeline.  It's 5 February in Asia, so Josh needs to leave soon if he's going to collect the chips on Friday and start shipping 10 days later (which to date is the "worst case scenario" he's acknowledged).

I saw the comments about Josh not leaving on 1-2 February because Josh sitting around in a hotel room waiting for the chips wasn't regarded as the best use of his time, but no update as yet on when he will be leaving for the fab.  The steps remaining after he collects the chips are :

- 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

If the worst case scenario in every step comes to pass, we are looking at starting shipping around Monday the 18th.

I think they may be over-confident in believing they can meet the 18 Feb shipping date if Josh hasn't even left for the fab yet.

Maybe I missed where Asia was important to their time line. Last I heard California and North Carolina where the stops the chips made before Kansas. All US unless China put in a NC, Cali, or Kansas that I wasn't aware of.

Maybe the lack of news causes the odd time comments or maybe you are suggesting since it is tomorrow in Asia first that a US company uses the day in Asia as their benchmark for what day things happen on. I personally have never seen a US company use a date that wasn't in their time zone so FWIW I am not sure Asia matters to BFL's timeline.

I would love a real update though. Something that says how things are going.

[Grouver (BtcBalance)]

Front:
http://ow.ly/i/1tysI

Back:
http://ow.ly/i/1tyum

[SkRRJyTC]

Front:
http://ow.ly/i/1tysI

Back:
http://ow.ly/i/1tyum

Awesome.  More info?

[Tomatocage]

These units look pretty sweet. I'm not sure why the Avalon units are so large in comparison, but it reminds me of Iron Man vs. that reverse-engineered Iron Man in the first movie. I might have to put in an order for one and check it out.

Inaba, do you expect to be able to fill all orders with the first wave of bulk shipments?

[Puppet]

Front:
http://ow.ly/i/1tysI

Back:
http://ow.ly/i/1tyum

More pictures of their asic without any asics
Until I see or hear proof otherwise, I am still going to assume those wafers will be the very first actual silicon they get their hands on.

[RHA]

Front:


Back:

FTFY

We see the boards are ready for FCBGA.
Nice.

[John (John K.)]

Thread has been split yet again.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=141496.0

[Gomeler]

These units look pretty sweet. I'm not sure why the Avalon units are so large in comparison, but it reminds me of Iron Man vs. that reverse-engineered Iron Man in the first movie. I might have to put in an order for one and check it out.

Inaba, do you expect to be able to fill all orders with the first wave of bulk shipments?

Avalon went with a very simple chip on a large(110nm) process. I imagine this strategy gave them very high yields out of the wafers because of the small chip size. This came at the cost of a large PCB to route to all the chips. BFL appears to be going the other way with a few very large chips based on a smaller(65nm) process. This should give them better power efficiency and more hashing power per chip at the risk of random manufacturing defects giving them fewer of these chips per wafer. Of course one hopes for 100% yields but that isn't always the case. We'll see how this all plays out very soon.

[MrTeal]

FYI, from the BFL forum.

Here's a quick update:

We are expecting the chips on the 8th. The Fab is still maintaining that it will be the 8th, but it could be earlier than that. We are planning on the 8th though, we will have the chips sent via overnight express to our bumping and packaging facilities in California (We are not going with the North Carolina facility, as they could not meet our timeline). We are negotiating with the California bumping facility to get tooled up and ready to complete the bumping process as fast as possible. We are targeting them for being ready to bump the chips on the 14th, but it could be as late as the 18th. It should not take more than 24 hours to bump all our chips and get them to the packaging facility, where it will take another ~24 hours (probably less) to package them where I will likely be couriering them to our assembly facility.

At that point it will take less than a day to assemble some boards, where I'll send the boards to a couple test facilities to make sure everything is kosher. This step will probably take 1 - 2 days, but may take less as we tweak things. Assuming everything checks out (and we have no reason to believe it won't), we will give the assembly house the go ahead to mount the rest of the chips, which will take less than 24 hours, where I will carry them back and/or overnight express them to Kansas City and we will begin assembly and shipping operations.

So it's looking like the week of the 17th for shipping, probably a bit later in the week unless the bumping house really pulls it together, we might be able to ship as early at the 18th, but that is pretty optimistic, more likely is around the 22nd or so.

[Tomatocage]

Avalon went with a very simple chip on a large(110nm) process. I imagine this strategy gave them very high yields out of the wafers because of the small chip size. This came at the cost of a large PCB to route to all the chips. BFL appears to be going the other way with a few very large chips based on a smaller(65nm) process. This should give them better power efficiency and more hashing power per chip at the risk of random manufacturing defects giving them fewer of these chips per wafer. Of course one hopes for 100% yields but that isn't always the case. We'll see how this all plays out very soon.

Ah, thanks for the explanation. I think I'll opt for the BFL unit then.

[kano]

FYI

I've got my plane tickets to BFL - Kansas City today (email booked digital ticket details from the travel agent) arranged by Josh
So my flight to the USA, leaving Sydney on the 17th Feb (my time) - to be back here in Aus again on the 23rd.

... so I going from Oz (Aus) to Kansas (City) ... isn't that back to front?

[JWU42]

FYI

I've got my plane tickets to BFL - Kansas City today (email booked digital ticket details from the travel agent) arranged by Josh
So my flight to the USA, leaving Sydney on the 17th Feb (my time) - to be back here in Aus again on the 23rd.

... so I going from Oz (Aus) to Kansas (City) ... isn't that back to front?

 

[ewibit]

FYI

I've got my plane tickets to BFL - Kansas City today (email booked digital ticket details from the travel agent) arranged by Josh
So my flight to the USA, leaving Sydney on the 17th Feb (my time) - to be back here in Aus again on the 23rd.

nice 
hope you make some pictures...

[beekeeper]

... so I going from Oz (Aus) to Kansas (City) ... isn't that back to front?

LOL, true... what you need plane tickets, just clicking your heels three times..

[Soros Shorts]

... so I going from Oz (Aus) to Kansas (City) ... isn't that back to front?

LOL, true... what you need plane tickets, just clicking your heels three times..

Shoes are avaialble on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=019-0004-00Y07

[Korbman]

FYI

I've got my plane tickets to BFL - Kansas City today (email booked digital ticket details from the travel agent) arranged by Josh
So my flight to the USA, leaving Sydney on the 17th Feb (my time) - to be back here in Aus again on the 23rd.

... so I going from Oz (Aus) to Kansas (City) ... isn't that back to front?

That's quite the trip! How many days do they have you touring the facilities? Anything specific on the agenda?