ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[101111]

Rich Miller has posted another interesting article on mining infrastructure: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/04/07/datatank-immersion-containers-industrial-bitcoin-mining/

[bitcoin.newsfeed]

so ... what now? It took 2 days to assemble chips into PCB in Rockminer ... Friedcat has chips for 2 weeks now and nothing?

[Franktank]

so ... what now? It took 2 days to assemble chips into PCB in Rockminer ... Friedcat has chips for 2 weeks now and nothing?

Ok, I'll bite: Would you prefer if there were just streams of intermittent "non-updates"? That friedcat would just log in and post meaningless updates and rough approximations every week, only to comeback to retract and provide new approximations? Because that's what other ASIC companies do and their customers seem to be "happy" with it. Those who've been around long enough know that he'll post when there is something substantial to post. You've seen the documents/pictures and read posts from third parties, draw your own conclusions from there.

Now with that said, I do agree that BitFountain would largely benefit by having a larger staff who could deal with these things but then they'd have to do background checks and etc. They would need proper procedures in place to ensure that their trade secrets aren't leaked. Will BitFountain have to deal with these issues eventually? They better if this project/business is meant to be long term. Right now, they're focused on chips and deployment and not PR. For now, it appears that the vast majority of the shareholders (myself included) are content with that.

[bitcoin.newsfeed]

Frank, it's about time to get some complex update about future of company, last one was more than 6 months ago.

[Franktank]

Frank, it's about time to get some complex update about future of company, last one was more than 6 months ago.

According to this, it's will be 6 months by April 27th. With that said, I do agree that friedcat should provide some more info by the end of April at the very latest.

[necro_nemesis]

What's with fuse F1? Bunch of diodes on this side of the board not showing, ICs U10, U9 and U6, switch SW1, resistor R22, and that fuse looks to be coming up short.

[dexX7]

Rich Miller has posted another interesting article on mining infrastructure: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/04/07/datatank-immersion-containers-industrial-bitcoin-mining/

So AM is selling containers!

[necro_nemesis]

How do you arrive at AM being Allied Control?

[maxl]

I think they worked together to make the immersion cooled datacenter in Hongkong.

[spartan82]

That's not enough to say that asicminer is manufacturing and supplying these containers. The hardware that will be housed by these containers on the other hand....

[necro_nemesis]

It's a concept.

Why don't we just build a sea lab near a fissure in the earth's crust to house a data center. We can use the ocean's cool water to dissipate heat from our Novec and power the facility via geothermal energy rising from the fissure. When boards fail Jar Jar can swim down and swap them out.  

[bitcoin.newsfeed]

So AM is selling containers!

No. Its not. But ASICminer paid for R&D of these "proof of concept" 2-phase immersion cooling datacenters, but Friedcat suddenly decided to abandon this manufacturing and mining path and only sell chips. 

[Caesium]

[..] Friedcat suddenly decided to abandon this manufacturing and mining path and only sell chips.  

Source? Or is this you presenting your own assumptions as cast in iron facts?

[arnuschky]

What's with fuse F1? Bunch of diodes on this side of the board not showing, ICs U10, U9 and U6, switch SW1, resistor R22, and that fuse looks to be coming up short.

What is your point? And where did this image come from?

[ning]

Here's the source of the image above: http://blog.rockminer.com/#!/2014/04/11/Rockminer_update_of_11_April

[CMMPro]

Check it against the reference design posted earlier.

I haven't done so, but unpopulated components on boards is not something to be worried about at this point.
In my design iterations I have done this as well...where certain board features were added for testing purposes but not for large scale production. You aren't going to make several different board designs at this low level of production.

The missing features could also be for in circuit programming or electrical testing...or they may have simplified the design.

It could also be that they found out that since some components were faulty (as they have stated publicly) so they stopped the line and pulled these out not fully populated.

I really don't think this is a labcoin situation, those boards were so obviously fake garbage it wasn't funny.

These at look completely legit to me other than being missing some components.


Edit: After looking a the pictures more closely it looks to me like most of the power source circuit is missing.
The large connector missing at the board edge is the power input and you see the ground plane, large diodes, mosfet/transistor etc all entering the board and in that area. what they are doing is likely using a bench power supply to test the design and forgoing the use of the production physical connectors etc. The more precise bench supply allows them to skip all the circuits related to smoothing and level shifting the power source. 


 

[necro_nemesis]

I came to many of the same conclusions about omitted components but then there's F1 which leads me to believe what was on the Gerber for the board is not what got ordered and attempted to be stuffed.

Also all boards are seemingly identical so if they pulled components they already did all. Conclusions about the boards simply provide further evidence that the ASIC is not the immediate concern.

@rockxie : You're on here trolling for IPO money and potential miner buyers; in return in all fairness what's currently up with the ASIC?

[Draino]

http://blog.rockminer.com/#!/2014/04/13/Testing_Results_Of_BE200.md


Testing Results Of BE200

We've got the results of one good testing board,it seems not  good,but sill can be accepted.We will receive more chips at next weekend if things are going well .

Results:

Board:one chip testing board
Frequency:360Mhz
Volt:0.72V
Hashrate per chip:11.52Ghash
Power consumption:6.375W per chip
Power consumption per Ghash:6.375/11.52=0.5539W/Ghash
After power supply changeover:0.5539/81% = 0.684W/Ghash（at blade）
Power consumption on wall:0.684/0.8 = 0.855W/G
Adding other components loss about 1KW/Thash
Tips:this result is not very accurate just for reference.

[chriswilmer]

http://blog.rockminer.com/#!/2014/04/13/Testing_Results_Of_BE200.md


Testing Results Of BE200

We've got the results of one good testing board,it seems not  good,but sill can be accepted.We will receive more chips at next weekend if things are going well .

Results:

Board:one chip testing board
Frequency:360Mhz
Volt:0.72V
Hashrate per chip:11.52Ghash
Power consumption:6.375W per chip
Power consumption per Ghash:6.375/11.52=0.5539W/Ghash
After power supply changeover:0.5539/81% = 0.684W/Ghash（at blade）
Power consumption on wall:0.684/0.8 = 0.855W/G
Adding other components loss about 1KW/Thash
Tips:this result is not very accurate just for reference.

Seems pretty good to me! Good enough to mass produce 100,000+ chips go go go go go g og ggogogogogo!

[Chris_Sabian]

11.52Ghash at 6.375W...

Here I am hashing away at 37 Ghash at 320W