Block Erupter: Dedicated Mining ASIC Project (Open for Discussion)

[ssateneth]

Pictures... I came.

[ice_chill]

Suddenly there's no more talk: OMG ASIC is gonna kill Bitcoin

[Dacm4n]

So when it comes to mining with an ASIC all you would need to set one up is a cheap PC with a USB port like a netbook and some kind of mining software?

Yes. The same as current FPGA mining boards.

Awesome thanks.

[e21]

Any chance there is a CAD drawing of the Block Erupter yet?

There is now. But it's not named as CAD drawing, but IC layout.

The first picture is the IC layout of the whole chip after P&R. The big cyan bar in the bottom center is the pins of the chip. Purple bars above and below the chip, as well as the light blue bars in the left and the right of the chip, are all power pads. The small rectangle in the bottom left is the blackbox of PLL IP module. The rest parts are real hashing units doing the actual job of erupting blocks.



The second picture is a magnified local part of the hashing unit. It's harder to tell which part is which in this picture, but it feels very nice for ourselves to see how our logic design turns out physical.

Nice! And thank you! I will certainly be ordering some of these once they become available!

[mokahless]

Looking forward to some competition.
Have you considered accepting payment in bitcoin? Or have you not gotten to the business model yet?

[DutchBrat]

Looking forward to some competition.
Have you considered accepting payment in bitcoin? Or have you not gotten to the business model yet?

They are raising money to start production through GLBSE and private share placements

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

[e21]

Looking forward to some competition.
Have you considered accepting payment in bitcoin? Or have you not gotten to the business model yet?

They are raising money to start production through GLBSE and private share placements

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

Are funds still needed to get this chip into production? I've never purchased "shares" of a company before, not into stocks either, so this concept is new to me.

Personally, I'd kinda rather just give you money in the form of a pre-order for the products, as BFL is doing with their ASICs. Your company seems much more transparent than BFL, and seeing as how you have some proof of existence of your work, I certainly wouldn't mind tossing some pre-order $$ your way, as opposed to BFL.

[nedbert9]

This is a tempting investment.


Though, it's unsettling to know that after share principle repayment 50% of return goes to a small group of individuals that is Bitfountain.

Conservatively, IMO, Bitfountain's take might be $40,000+ for the first month after funding repayment.  Definitely a sweet deal for Bitfountain.


Bitfountain will always own a minimum of 50% of their self-run hashing capacity.  Makes me nervous the same way Vladimir's plans did.

[e21]

This is a tempting investment.


Though, it's unsettling to know that after share principle repayment 50% of return goes to a small group of individuals that is Bitfountain.

Conservatively, IMO, Bitfountain's take might be $40,000+ for the first month after funding repayment.  Definitely a sweet deal for Bitfountain.


Bitfountain will always own a minimum of 50% of their self-run hashing capacity.  Makes me nervous the same way Vladimir's plans did.

Wait, sorry if this is a dumb question, but do you mean that Bitfountain is going to be a mining company only, that is to say, that they will not be offering the "Block Erutper" ASIC for sale?

[DutchBrat]

This is a tempting investment.


Though, it's unsettling to know that after share principle repayment 50% of return goes to a small group of individuals that is Bitfountain.

Conservatively, IMO, Bitfountain's take might be $40,000+ for the first month after funding repayment.  Definitely a sweet deal for Bitfountain.


Bitfountain will always own a minimum of 50% of their self-run hashing capacity.  Makes me nervous the same way Vladimir's plans did.

Wait, sorry if this is a dumb question, but do you mean that Bitfountain is going to be a mining company only, that is to say, that they will not be offering the "Block Erutper" ASIC for sale?

They are planning to mine themselves with 20 TH, then when the investment is paid off sell the ASIC while expanding their own mining operation to 50 TH

Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong

[friedcat]

Update

Since the fundraising thread was already made, I would prefer the discussion of more technical aspects in this thread. After all it's a sub-forum in the hardware board. But I will answer these questions:

Wait, sorry if this is a dumb question, but do you mean that Bitfountain is going to be a mining company only, that is to say, that they will not be offering the "Block Erutper" ASIC for sale?

We will offer our boards for sale, but that will be a stage after our self-mining. Because within that time we could polish our board design and contact potential partners of doing marketing, logistics and customer service for us.

Though, it's unsettling to know that after share principle repayment 50% of return goes to a small group of individuals that is Bitfountain.

Conservatively, IMO, Bitfountain's take might be $40,000+ for the first month after funding repayment.  Definitely a sweet deal for Bitfountain.

Bitfountain will always own a minimum of 50% of their self-run hashing capacity.  Makes me nervous the same way Vladimir's plans did.

1. We ourselves don't consider the portion of our own too high. Because the investors of ASICMINER will have the privilege of breaking even first and no future dilution. Also the market will tell us whether 0.1BTC per 1/400,000 of the company is overpriced or not.
2. It is hard to say if such a prediction is conservative or aggressive. It might be either much higher or lower than that depending on how the ASIC mining industry performs. And no one knows how many competitors are secretly lurking there besides those who have revealed themselves.
3. We may own less in the future, because when we further sell the shares of the company, we can only sell ours because, as we promised, ASICMINER shares are prone to no dilution.

[ElectricMucus]

What this thread is entirely missing is where the production would be done. (masks, wafers, packaging and bonding). And some really good explanation of why it would be so cheap.
No "LOL we are in China" is not sufficient.

Which software is used to design the chips? Where do the models for the gates come from?

FYI: I am almost certain this is a scam.

[LazyOtto]

FYI: I am almost certain this is a scam.

It usually is.

However, are they actually accepting payments in any form, yet?

Or do you think this is all still in a 'foundation laying' stage and the 'amazing opportunity to invest' is still to come?

"Since the fundraising thread was already made"

Hmmm. Ok, I need to go look for that.
Link for convenience, please?

[friedcat]

What this thread is entirely missing is where the production would be done. (masks, wafers, packaging and bonding). And some really good explanation of why it would be so cheap.
No "LOL we are in China" is not sufficient.

Which software is used to design the chips? Where do the models for the gates come from?

FYI: I am almost certain this is a scam.

These factors all contribute to the inexpensive cost:
  1. 130nm node size. As the mainstream switches to 28nm, the 130nm existed for so long that even many smaller foundries could do it very well. The intense competition of manufacturing in China brings the price of everything down, including ICs. Though we chose the larger and more reliable foundry, their evaluation of the price of 130nm full-mask and MLM is still near the price in this main thread.
  2. MLM(Multi-Level-Mask). Compared to full-mask, this technology reduces the cost of mask-set to half with the exchange of increasing the margin cost by about 40%. This is a good deal for us because the margin cost of chips themselves is one of the lowest cost in our budget.
  3. Low EDA license fees and low labor cost in China.
  4. We ourselves did most of the RTL design, optimization and simulation.

The RTL is written in Verilog.
Frontend: We use VCS for simulation, Verdi for debugging, DC for synthesize.
Backend: We use ICC for P&R, Calibre for DRC/LVS check, virturso for layout merge, StarRCXT for RC extraction and PrimeTime for STA.

Formality is used to verify the netlist. We also do some simulation directly on the netlist but it is very slow compared to that on the RTL phase, so many possible cases of the state machine couldn't be covered. Formality is needed to increase the confidence of the synthesize results.

By models of the gates, I guess you mean technology libraries. They are provided by our foundry indirectly from the foundry agent.

The PLL IP module is also provided by them.

Please PM me with your e-mail address and ask for more documents and information if you feel necessary. Thanks.

[friedcat]

FYI: I am almost certain this is a scam.

It usually is.

However, are they actually accepting payments in any form, yet?

Or do you think this is all still in a 'foundation laying' stage and the 'amazing opportunity to invest' is still to come?

"Since the fundraising thread was already made"

Hmmm. Ok, I need to go look for that.
Link for convenience, please?

But we are not.

The fundraising thread is here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=99497.0

There are more information, as well as question answered.

I would prefer that this Block Erupter thread will be mainly used to report the progress of the chips to the community, as well as discussion of technical problems in the future.

[Carlton Banks]

Link for convenience, please?

The link is about 5-6 posts above yours, how convenient is that? You take your moniker pretty seriously, eh?

[LazyOtto]

Link for convenience, please?

The link is about 5-6 posts above yours, how convenient is that? You take your moniker pretty seriously, eh?

I reckon so. But I do apologize.

People who don't read threads before posting do tend to drive me nuts. 

[Carlton Banks]

Link for convenience, please?

The link is about 5-6 posts above yours, how convenient is that? You take your moniker pretty seriously, eh?

I reckon so. But I do apologize.

People who don't read threads before posting do tend to drive me nuts. 

Lol, I wasn't being quite as blunt as it maybe came across, was just giving you what you wanted in my own cantakerous way  We all skim threads and then ask questions that have already been answered (expect the perfect people of course, I feel sorry for those lot! Making mistakes is fun!)

[HorseRider]

What this thread is entirely missing is where the production would be done. (masks, wafers, packaging and bonding). And some really good explanation of why it would be so cheap.
No "LOL we are in China" is not sufficient.

Which software is used to design the chips? Where do the models for the gates come from?

FYI: I am almost certain this is a scam.

I love this theory. thanks for the asymmetric information, I and other investors are able to invest into this company at such a low valuation, because people like ElectricMucus just don't believe it.

[Carlton Banks]

I must say, I much prefer the funding route that Block Eruptor are taking (as opposed to BFL's model). At least there is a better opportunity for ROI both before you receive any hardware and after. And you're not even commited to buying the hardware, you can simply sell your shares if you get cold feet.

Also, 0.1 BTC minimum investment is substantially lower (pffff, and the rest) than $149 for a Jalapeno. Still, I believe that BFL will deliver hardware (eventually). And I can't quite say the same thing for the Block Eruptor devices though... friedcat openly admits that there is some possibility that it will not happen (on the basis that the IPO may be refunded if the minimum is not reached)

But I guess that brings me to another feather in Bitfountain's cap: I wasn't expecting such candid breakdown of the financial details and the manufacturing costs (the figure for the margins on the chips are the sort of thing that you'd expect a commercial operator to keep very close to their chest, especially when directly liaising with future customers).


It's rather difficult to choose between these two!