ASICMiner BE300S Samples Arrived, <0.2W/G Achieved at Board Level

[MichaelBliss]

Fantastic news Friedcat!   It looks like a great chip, on time and on spec.  

Now, as a shareholder I have one request:  please hire the best sales team you can find to promote the BE300, and capitalize on this engineering success!  

ASICMiner has the best chip, it should have the best *everything*.  Including the best bottom line.  

Congratulations and keep up the good work!

[kendog77]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

[raskul]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

i am exceedingly cautious these days. my rule of principle is that I never buy batch1 of anything.
and NEVER pre-order.
i'll wait to see what happens.

[daddyfatsax]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

i am exceedingly cautious these days. my rule of principle is that I never buy batch1 of anything.
and NEVER pre-order.
i'll wait to see what happens.

I bought a tube right when they came out and it has worked perfectly. Never got a prisma due to all the delays.

It should be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of months.

[Dexter770221]

Hmm... LGA vs QFN..  does that mean the heat goes out the top of the chip now?
 

From pictures you can see that heatsink is under a PCB. So propably it's old way to dissipate heat thru bottom...

[PsychoticBoy]

Very good news Friedcat 

Keep up the good work.

[alexrossi]

Will these chips be packaged in a miner for standard users or the development is already pointed on a datacenter product like SP did? (maybe it's too early to ask about it)

[freedomno1]

Awesome! They're finally in! 

Indeed something to look forward too ^^

Keep up the good work Friedcat and thanks for the update.

[Taugeran]

@Friedcat: what is the qfn next to the pin header that's labeled PMS01?

[AJRGale]

@Friedcat: what is the qfn next to the pin header that's labeled PMS01?

that would be a simple 8/16 bit micro-controller, iirc similar to what they used in the usb block erupter, gets the uart data off the chip then passes it over to ttl..

i could be wrong

[AJRGale]

now i do have a question about these chip, they are not a straight drop in for the BE200's yes?

re-read, "FCLGA 5mm x 5mm" thats smaller then the 8mmx8mm QFN package

[CanaryInTheMine]

Any date estimates for miners with these chips?

Probably March for mass shipping

[CanaryInTheMine]

I hope that AM sticks to just selling the chips and not making miners again. Amazing how bad the Prisma experience was...

It was a strategic mistake to switch to chips only, that's why AM started producing be200 based devices (tubes/prismas).  You should expect miners and chips to be available with be300

[klondike_bar]

I hope that AM sticks to just selling the chips and not making miners again. Amazing how bad the Prisma experience was...

It was a strategic mistake to switch to chips only, that's why AM started producing be200 based devices (tubes/prismas).  You should expect miners and chips to be available with be300

+1. nobody knows better how to design a PCB than the guys who design the chips. Relying on 3rd party groups (technobit for example) to invest in prototype boards for multiple chip types simultaneously is less likely to get an ideal resulting design - ie the series-based design for voltage control, exactly what bitfury managed to do

[DigitalPackrat]

I hope that AM sticks to just selling the chips and not making miners again. Amazing how bad the Prisma experience was...

It was a strategic mistake to switch to chips only, that's why AM started producing be200 based devices (tubes/prismas).  You should expect miners and chips to be available with be300

+1. nobody knows better how to design a PCB than the guys who design the chips. Relying on 3rd party groups (technobit for example) to invest in prototype boards for multiple chip types simultaneously is less likely to get an ideal resulting design - ie the series-based design for voltage control, exactly what bitfury managed to do

You would think that but then you run into a company like AM that produced the prisma. Multiple people including myself have had one spontaneously burst into flame. Then AM has promised compensation they have not delivered. For myself they promised a new prisma for compensation on the burned up boards that I paid to ship back to Hong Kong from the US. Instead they shipped replacement boards leaving me to repair the damaged heatsink and pay for shipping from the distributor they shipped the new boards to. Then when they started acknowledging the other boards that have caught on fire or just don't work they promised to pay for return shipping to Hong Kong and to compensate for downtime. Now if you look in the thread where they posted that, there are no responses from AM. emails and PM's go unanswered and aside from a few boards they sent which didn't cover all the damaged ones there is no compensation either.

[philipma1957]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

AM's track record:

prisma ran hot a lot of them burned  and popped caps.---------- a little bit slow to deliver

tube ran hot a few of them popped caps.       controller sucked only one pool no auto rollover.-----also a little bit slow to deliver

cube ran hot a few of them smoked some psu's

blades ran hot but these worked okay if you cooled them

 the usb sticks ran hot but were decent performers. I would say they were an important pice of gear for many miners to join the game.

Canary
Crazy
Silent Sonic Boom  sold me hundreds of them.  all good sellers.



Am's support and replacement refunds etc. --------------meh not terrible.

I will wait until two or three brave souls  run them  and let us know how they work.

[friedcat]

@Friedcat: what is the qfn next to the pin header that's labeled PMS01?

It's our own string-based power management chip for solving the Prisma-related problems.
The single-chip board is not a string, but we used many of its functionalities anyway to simplify
the PCB design.

One of the problem with Prisma is that it involves too many separate components that might
go wrong. We concentrated them into one chip and only need to test one chip.

The revised Prismas (2.0) are based on this chip. From our large-scale stress testing, we
are confident that the instability and burning problems of original Prisma (1.0 and 1.1) are eliminated.

[Chris_Sabian]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

AM's track record:

prisma ran hot a lot of them burned  and popped caps.---------- a little bit slow to deliver

tube ran hot a few of them popped caps.       controller sucked only one pool no auto rollover.-----also a little bit slow to deliver

cube ran hot a few of them smoked some psu's

blades ran hot but these worked okay if you cooled them

 the usb sticks ran hot but were decent performers. I would say they were an important pice of gear for many miners to join the game.

Canary
Crazy
Silent Sonic Boom  sold me hundreds of them.  all good sellers.



Am's support and replacement refunds etc. --------------meh not terrible.

I will wait until two or three brave souls  run them  and let us know how they work.

Look at AM's track record compared to:

BFL
KnC
Black Arrow
Cointerra
Hashfast

(and about the same compared to)
Bitmain
BitFury

[philipma1957]

I'm surprised folks are so excited about this considering all the problems with under-performing BE200 products. I'm certainly glad I never purchased a Prisma and had to deal with all of those headaches! Also, Asicminer overpromised and underdelivered big time with the BE200.

Given their track record, I don't trust Asicminer enough to order a BE300S product right now. That could change in the future, but only after others confirm that the finished miners are actually a quality product.

AM's track record:

prisma ran hot a lot of them burned  and popped caps.---------- a little bit slow to deliver

tube ran hot a few of them popped caps.       controller sucked only one pool no auto rollover.-----also a little bit slow to deliver

cube ran hot a few of them smoked some psu's

blades ran hot but these worked okay if you cooled them

 the usb sticks ran hot but were decent performers. I would say they were an important pice of gear for many miners to join the game.

Canary
Crazy
Silent Sonic Boom  sold me hundreds of them.  all good sellers.



Am's support and replacement refunds etc. --------------meh not terrible.

I will wait until two or three brave souls  run them  and let us know how they work.

Look at AM's track record compared to:

BFL
KnC
Black Arrow
Cointerra
Hashfast

(and about the same compared to)
Bitmain
BitFury

Okay bitmain has less fire issues and burnouts then AM.

If I ranked gear /companies  bitmain + spondoolies are 1 ,2 or 2, 1   and AM is in third place.

This is why I would still buy from them which I said in my post.

[Blazed]

@Friedcat: what is the qfn next to the pin header that's labeled PMS01?

It's our own string-based power management chip for solving the Prisma-related problems.
The single-chip board is not a string, but we used many of its functionalities anyway to simplify
the PCB design.

One of the problem with Prisma is that it involves too many separate components that might
go wrong. We concentrated them into one chip and only need to test one chip.

The revised Prismas (2.0) are based on this chip. From our large-scale stress testing, we
are confident that the instability and burning problems of original Prisma (1.0 and 1.1) are eliminated.

Well I purchased both a Tube and Prisma and both were shipped with issues.. Why should I trust you when you say it is all fixed now? My only experiences with buying AM gear have both ended in me taking a loss. You guys have 0 support to help us too. I must say it has been very frustrating buying your gear to say the least.