[ANN] Sfards:SF100, the first 28nm Dual-Mode Miner is accepting pre-order now

[notlist3d]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

[philipma1957]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

Based on gridseed's past history it will be price as high as possible as long as it sells.
This thread reminds me of an old school porn movie attempting to go slow  to get us excited.  The first 20 minutes of the movie is all tease.  This took 20 pages to offer any kind of product.

     I try not to sound jaded  like other older members here , but I would be surprised to see it cheap.
Secondly if it is cheap bitmaintech will price war the fuck out of them  that was done to Sp-tech's sp20 and you know what happened when the price    war happen with the two of them coins dropped to under 190 in January 2015. I hope they price it so that is is slightly better or worse then the s-5.
Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more.

[starsoccer9]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

Based on gridseed's past history it will be price as high as possible as long as it sells.
This thread reminds me of an old school porn movie attempting to go slow  to get us excited.  The first 20 minutes of the movie is all tease.  This took 20 pages to offer any kind of product.

     I try not to sound jaded  like other older members here , but I would be surprised to see it cheap.
Secondly if it is cheap bitmaintech will price war the fuck out of them  that was done to Sp-tech's sp20 and you know what happened when the price    war happen with the two of them coins dropped to under 190 in January 2015. I hope they price it so that is is slightly better or worse then the s-5.
Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more.

So far I have added them on skype and still have not heard back which is really pissing me off -

But in anycase, I am not sure what type of math you have done but how exactly is a Avalon 4.1 better then a S5. A avalon 4.1 is .7 Watts as well as only 1000 GH

[valkir]

For home mining Avalon is way better than S5 because of sound and underclock possibility.

The avalon 4.1 is the quiet one. I have a Avalon 4.1 1 S5 and 1 SP20 and the best home miner is the avalon 4.1

The price is too high unfortunatly.

And the watt/gh is more like 0.5 when you use the correct setup. 

[jstefanop]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

Based on gridseed's past history it will be price as high as possible as long as it sells.
This thread reminds me of an old school porn movie attempting to go slow  to get us excited.  The first 20 minutes of the movie is all tease.  This took 20 pages to offer any kind of product.

     I try not to sound jaded  like other older members here , but I would be surprised to see it cheap.
Secondly if it is cheap bitmaintech will price war the fuck out of them  that was done to Sp-tech's sp20 and you know what happened when the price    war happen with the two of them coins dropped to under 190 in January 2015. I hope they price it so that is is slightly better or worse then the s-5.
Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more.

If anyone pays more than 400/TH for these when they come out in a month from now they will be complete retards. The diff will definitely double by the end of  the summer with all the huge new 16nm clouds coming online soon....i bet stuff will be selling for under 200/TH by the end of the summer.

[valkir]

Any link for the 16nm chips ??

[J4bberwock]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

Based on gridseed's past history it will be price as high as possible as long as it sells.
This thread reminds me of an old school porn movie attempting to go slow  to get us excited.  The first 20 minutes of the movie is all tease.  This took 20 pages to offer any kind of product.

     I try not to sound jaded  like other older members here , but I would be surprised to see it cheap.
Secondly if it is cheap bitmaintech will price war the fuck out of them  that was done to Sp-tech's sp20 and you know what happened when the price    war happen with the two of them coins dropped to under 190 in January 2015. I hope they price it so that is is slightly better or worse then the s-5.
Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more.

If anyone pays more than 400/TH for these when they come out in a month from now they will be complete retards. The diff will definitely double by the end of  the summer with all the huge new 16nm clouds coming online soon....i bet stuff will be selling for under 200/TH by the end of the summer.

Depending on when the full miners will be available, the 30-40MH of Scrypt @100w for 10 chips will add some value if you look at what is currently available and how it's priced.

[J4bberwock]

The power boards are  probably based on something like tps40140 or ltc3829.
They could have been ordered separately. worst case, they can be used to work on other chips later.
But I expected the power supply to be built in the dev board, and price for the dev board is almost twice what I expected, so sample chips will be fine and more fun.

Anyway, my 2 chips design only needs routing to be finished.
I've been away today and will be driving back home tomorrow (9hours trip at least), so I probably won't update until Wednesday.

Sample chips price is a little bit high too, I expected something closer to 50$ each, but if price for "small batches" is right, it doesn't really matters.
Before I buy 2 or 4 of them, I'll need some more technical informations than what can be found in the partial data sheet.
I'll check tomorrow or Wednesday for what's missing.
Can I assume the chips will be sent express (dhl/FedEx) within 1 or 2 days after payment will be made?

Yes, we will ship (DHL/FedEx) within 48 hours after full payment.

Thanks for the confirmation, here are some of my questions regarding the chips:
Can we supply non symetrical voltages to body bias?
Let's say +0.8v and -1.1v
This could be an option to improve a little bit the global efficiency.

Also, can you confirm that both pairs are supposed to receive the same voltages?
BTC_VDDS0/1
BTC_GNDS0/1
I won't mix voltages, but since there are 2 pairs of pins, it could happen on different designs

What do we do with the last chip downstream UART pins?
Left open, pulled up/down?

Your schematics, with the 4.7k resistors, seems to suggest pulled up, but even the pins in use are shown with the same 4.7k resistor.
So it's not really clear which ones do need what.

What do you call "internal oscillator"
Is it an oscillator built in the SF3301, or does it refer to the on board oscillator?

And last one for now:

Will you provide the software you used to test the dev board in your github?

[dogie]

What do you call "internal oscillator"
Is it an oscillator built in the SF3301, or does it refer to the on board oscillator?

Is one on the PCB not visible on the right of their board picture?

[J4bberwock]

What do you call "internal oscillator"
Is it an oscillator built in the SF3301, or does it refer to the on board oscillator?

Is one on the PCB not visible on the right of their board picture?

yes, and it's also on the schematics, but even if you have an internal oscillator, It's quite common to use an external one for some reasons, so the "internal" word may be a translation mistake referring to the one on board as opposed to the one from another daisy chained board, the signal being transferred by the coaxial cable (RF receptacle).

[Dexter770221]

What do you call "internal oscillator"
Is it an oscillator built in the SF3301, or does it refer to the on board oscillator?

Is one on the PCB not visible on the right of their board picture?

yes, and it's also on the schematics, but even if you have an internal oscillator, It's quite common to use an external one for some reasons, so the "internal" word may be a translation mistake referring to the one on board as opposed to the one from another daisy chained board, the signal being transferred by the coaxial cable (RF receptacle).

I think that they mean internal circurity necessary for crystal rezonator to be working (negator/amplifier). You may connect crystal rezonator or "CMOS level" clock signal, pin OSC_BP is responsible for selecting propretiary mode. That's my guess.

[Bicknellski]

J4bberwock are you going to start a new thread for your project soon here in Hardware?

The power boards are  probably based on something like tps40140 or ltc3829.
They could have been ordered separately. worst case, they can be used to work on other chips later.
But I expected the power supply to be built in the dev board, and price for the dev board is almost twice what I expected, so sample chips will be fine and more fun.

Anyway, my 2 chips design only needs routing to be finished.
I've been away today and will be driving back home tomorrow (9hours trip at least), so I probably won't update until Wednesday.

Sample chips price is a little bit high too, I expected something closer to 50$ each, but if price for "small batches" is right, it doesn't really matters.
Before I buy 2 or 4 of them, I'll need some more technical informations than what can be found in the partial data sheet.
I'll check tomorrow or Wednesday for what's missing.
Can I assume the chips will be sent express (dhl/FedEx) within 1 or 2 days after payment will be made?

[Sfards]

....
as from what I have seen the sample chips are usually a lot more expensive then final products.

Only in Bitcoin world. When you look at chips manufacturers sites you will find plenty of "get free sample" buttons.

Normally I think samples are cheaper/free if you have proper credentials.  Normally I think companies do this so you choose their chip to develop.

But I will admit this is not the standard.  It looks like they spent quite a bit of time to make a nice dev kit.  With low volume I can see why it has a high price tag.  But chips I'm a little worried with that being price.   Makes me look down the line and wonder what final price will be.

Based on gridseed's past history it will be price as high as possible as long as it sells.
This thread reminds me of an old school porn movie attempting to go slow  to get us excited.  The first 20 minutes of the movie is all tease.  This took 20 pages to offer any kind of product.

     I try not to sound jaded  like other older members here , but I would be surprised to see it cheap.
Secondly if it is cheap bitmaintech will price war the fuck out of them  that was done to Sp-tech's sp20 and you know what happened when the price    war happen with the two of them coins dropped to under 190 in January 2015. I hope they price it so that is is slightly better or worse then the s-5.
Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more.

So far I have added them on skype and still have not heard back which is really pissing me off -

But in anycase, I am not sure what type of math you have done but how exactly is a Avalon 4.1 better then a S5. A avalon 4.1 is .7 Watts as well as only 1000 GH

Sorry about  that, since we work in Chinese time, maybe there is a little bit delay.

[philipma1957]

...

So far I have added them on skype and still have not heard back which is really pissing me off -

But in anycase, I am not sure what type of math you have done but how exactly is a Avalon 4.1 better then a S5. A avalon 4.1 is .7 Watts as well as only 1000 GH

 

simple

the avalon 4.1 does .52 at 800gh and is dead quiet  

 the s-5 does .51 watts at 1150 gh and is insanely loud

so the avalon 4.1 is better  except for price  which is what I said:

"Not like the Avalon 4.1 which is far better then the S-5 but cost a shit ton more."

The avalon  and the sp20 and this chip all work like a gpu if you down clock them the watts per gh drop off and if you overclock them the watts per gh rise.

The s-5 is linear basically .5 to .52 watts per gh  from 800gh to 1300gh

So the avalon is better except for price per gh.

My guess is this company will do the same thing avalon did price the gear higher per gh then the s-5  since they want to avoid a  price war with bitmaintech.
I only hope they don't go as high as avalon 4.1 is.

[Rabinovitch]

Hmm. My can do 0.51 Wt/Gh (freq. 400, 1.3 Th). At acceptable noise level.

May be it is not so "dead quiet" like Avalon 4.1, but S5 a) cheaper, b) easier in deploying.

Also, S5 is better in price/Gh if I am not mistaken. But you said it already. 

[ashleysly]

Obviously the $200 for 2 chips is due to it being a sample size, pricey too. However if sfards were to ramp up production of chips then I'm sure the price would go down.

I would like to see the price of miners if SFARDS continues and makes their own hardware and produces one.

Any speculation on how much a miner could be once fully produced?

[philipma1957]

Hmm. My can do 0.51 Wt/Gh (freq. 400, 1.3 Th). At acceptable noise level.

May be it is not so "dead quiet" like Avalon 4.1, but S5 a) cheaper, b) easier in deploying.

Also, S5 is better in price/Gh if I am not mistaken. But you said it already. 

    The avalon 4.1 becomes really easy to setup.
  After the first one is setup on a rasp pi 12 more will just plug n play. Running very stable.
Plus you can stack them 2 or  3 high as the pcie's are on the back end.

If your s-5 is doing .51 at freq 400 1.3th  you did a fan mod.
BTW they can be fan modded and noise level is okay at 1.3th  somewhere I have a thread on it.

But price wise 800gh for 2.3 btc =   66 cents a gh
vs 1150gh  for               1.66 btc = 33 cents a gh



Which is what I said.  Believe it or not   all this is not off topic.

those 2 numbers   66 cents a gh vs 33 cents a gh  are my pricing guide for this new gear.

Too close to 66 cents and it is over priced.  Too close to 33 cents and price war with bitmaintech.

Should be very interesting to see what they do.

[Swimmer63]

Hmm. My can do 0.51 Wt/Gh (freq. 400, 1.3 Th). At acceptable noise level.

May be it is not so "dead quiet" like Avalon 4.1, but S5 a) cheaper, b) easier in deploying.

Also, S5 is better in price/Gh if I am not mistaken. But you said it already. 

    The avalon 4.1 becomes really easy to setup.
  After the first one is setup on a rasp pi 12 more will just plug n play. Running very stable.
Plus you can stack them 2 or  3 high as the pcie's are on the back end.

If your s-5 is doing .51 at freq 400 1.3th  you did a fan mod.
BTW they can be fan modded and noise level is okay at 1.3th  somewhere I have a thread on it.

But price wise 800gh for 2.3 btc =   66 cents a gh
vs 1150gh  for               1.66 btc = 33 cents a gh



Which is what I said.  Believe it or not   all this is not off topic.

those 2 numbers   66 cents a gh vs 33 cents a gh  are my pricing guide for this new gear.

Too close to 66 cents and it is over priced.  Too close to 33 cents and price war with bitmaintech.

Should be very interesting to see what they do.

Nice summation.  I think you have gotten to the nub of the issue.

[J4bberwock]

I'll do once I will order the chips.
For now, I still need the informations I asked earlier to be confirmed by SFARDS.
I'd like to arrange delivery of the bare PCBs at the same time I'll get the chips, but I need to have those informations confirmed before I send the files to the manufacturer.

J4bberwock are you going to start a new thread for your project soon here in Hardware?

The power boards are  probably based on something like tps40140 or ltc3829.
They could have been ordered separately. worst case, they can be used to work on other chips later.
But I expected the power supply to be built in the dev board, and price for the dev board is almost twice what I expected, so sample chips will be fine and more fun.

Anyway, my 2 chips design only needs routing to be finished.
I've been away today and will be driving back home tomorrow (9hours trip at least), so I probably won't update until Wednesday.

Sample chips price is a little bit high too, I expected something closer to 50$ each, but if price for "small batches" is right, it doesn't really matters.
Before I buy 2 or 4 of them, I'll need some more technical informations than what can be found in the partial data sheet.
I'll check tomorrow or Wednesday for what's missing.
Can I assume the chips will be sent express (dhl/FedEx) within 1 or 2 days after payment will be made?

[philipma1957]

...



Which is what I said.  Believe it or not   all this is not off topic.

those 2 numbers   66 cents a gh vs 33 cents a gh  are my pricing guide for this new gear.

Too close to 66 cents and it is over priced.  Too close to 33 cents and price war with bitmaintech.

Should be very interesting to see what they do.

Nice summation.  I think you have gotten to the nub of the issue.
[/quote]

Thank you ,  What I have found to be true is downward pricing on BTC ever since the s-3 came out in June- July 2014. along with downward diff rate increases.

I do Believe cheap quality asics at low prices simply hurt diff/price.  

So a builder like Sfards  that had gridseed blades drop from 3000 to 150 usd  really needs to be careful in pricing the new gear.

BTC was 658 usd when s-3 sales started-----------Late June
BTC dropped to 628 once they were shipped ----- Late July
BTC dropped to 478 one month of shipping--------Late Aug
BTC dropped to 375 two months of shipping ------Late Sept

And diff rate adjustments dropped the turning point was late June.

So while many want for more powerful cheaper gear, we really need no new gear or over- priced gear.

And of course much better demand to raise BTC price up.