ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[KarmaShark]

Generation 4's imminent tapeout is wonderful news for long term AM shareholders. Having something tangible out of that product line by end of year would certainly help to soften the blow of a lousy 2014 for the company. I  have yet to write-off Generation 3 just yet however. FC did state the company's desired goals for Gen3 and the network, and with Gen4 this close away we would have to start to see returns from the current generation soon for everything to line-up.

I can see this place becoming a graveyard again with accusations of fraud, imposter FC's and even backwater deals with the Chinese government popping up if nothing from Gen3 comes by the time October rolls around. Come on Fried Cat, your people await your announcement.

[ensurance982]

I'd actually get if FC opted to accept VC money and gives a s certain return on a 'per contract' base, but I agree that diluting our current 400000 shares would be against the contract and contrary to the initial IPO promise!

If FC sold all the chips then he should have at least 10 million easily. How much VC money were you thinking of and what would FC use it for?

I don't really know to be honest... But I don't know how much they need to fund the development and initial tape-out, first batches, etc. of gen 4... I think a node size of 28nm or lower may increase the costs, compared to 40nm. Even if it isn't the latest technology. Also VC money may facilitate the deployment of, say, big time deployment using immersion cooled solutions!

[ensurance982]

Generation 4's imminent tapeout is wonderful news for long term AM shareholders. Having something tangible out of that product line by end of year would certainly help to soften the blow of a lousy 2014 for the company. I  have yet to write-off Generation 3 just yet however. FC did state the company's desired goals for Gen3 and the network, and with Gen4 this close away we would have to start to see returns from the current generation soon for everything to line-up.

I can see this place becoming a graveyard again with accusations of fraud, imposter FC's and even backwater deals with the Chinese government popping up if nothing from Gen3 comes by the time October rolls around. Come on Fried Cat, your people await your announcement.

I really don't know about gen 4's tape-out. It would be a truly amazing thing, that's for certain, but I don't think that gen 4 is as that stage already. Where did we get those information from, after all? Who gave us those information?

[jjdub7]

Generation 4's imminent tapeout is wonderful news for long term AM shareholders. Having something tangible out of that product line by end of year would certainly help to soften the blow of a lousy 2014 for the company. I  have yet to write-off Generation 3 just yet however. FC did state the company's desired goals for Gen3 and the network, and with Gen4 this close away we would have to start to see returns from the current generation soon for everything to line-up.

I can see this place becoming a graveyard again with accusations of fraud, imposter FC's and even backwater deals with the Chinese government popping up if nothing from Gen3 comes by the time October rolls around. Come on Fried Cat, your people await your announcement.

I really don't know about gen 4's tape-out. It would be a truly amazing thing, that's for certain, but I don't think that gen 4 is as that stage already. Where did we get those information from, after all? Who gave us those information?

I heard that the 28nm chip will tape-out in 8 days.   

I heard this news too. Waiting for the next weekend.

From feifa & willBTC - either of you upstanding gentlemen care to provide a source?

[trek27]

Having 28nm chips taped out would be a step in the right direction. Explaining to some extent lack of dividends, justifying hopes of 2014 deployment. Per se not a game changer but very, very heartening. Let's hope it's true.

[sharky101]

Generation 4's imminent tapeout is wonderful news for long term AM shareholders. Having something tangible out of that product line by end of year would certainly help to soften the blow of a lousy 2014 for the company. I  have yet to write-off Generation 3 just yet however. FC did state the company's desired goals for Gen3 and the network, and with Gen4 this close away we would have to start to see returns from the current generation soon for everything to line-up.

I can see this place becoming a graveyard again with accusations of fraud, imposter FC's and even backwater deals with the Chinese government popping up if nothing from Gen3 comes by the time October rolls around. Come on Fried Cat, your people await your announcement.

I really don't know about gen 4's tape-out. It would be a truly amazing thing, that's for certain, but I don't think that gen 4 is as that stage already. Where did we get those information from, after all? Who gave us those information?

I heard that the 28nm chip will tape-out in 8 days.   

I heard this news too. Waiting for the next weekend.

From feifa & willBTC - either of you upstanding gentlemen care to provide a source?

Is the pure speculation or has it come from board members/friedcat?

[RoadStress]

I get the sense that the profitable elements of the company have been removed, or planned to be removed, from AM's stock and into other entities.

I don't know if you are a shareholder or if you are affiliated with any other company, but I am glad to hear someone else have this opinion. I expressed it in the past too, but having an affiliate link in the signature got me only insults.

what like rockminer? they still have to buy the chips from AM

Sure, but at a minimal/nonexistent profit for AM.

If FC sold all the chips then he should have at least 10 million easily. How much VC money were you thinking of and what would FC use it for?

"If"s don't move anything. Money move stuff.

Edit: An unsatisfied customer of the Tubes:

Well after a week in the DC, I can clearly state these tubes SUCK!! total junk!! Unreliable heat MONSTERS!!
Out of 40 boards 10 are severely under performing and I had 1 start on fire today. Now to see IF the RMA process is as botched as the sales process. 

[aahzmundus]

Will be interesting to see if others are having issues, I have only seen people complaining about assembly... but I believe that was done so as to get miners out as fast as possible.  Time is usually the biggest factor and offering them unembarrassed was a smart idea for people willing to put in the work.

[jimmothy]

I get the sense that the profitable elements of the company have been removed, or planned to be removed, from AM's stock and into other entities.

I don't know if you are a shareholder or if you are affiliated with any other company, but I am glad to hear someone else have this opinion. I expressed it in the past too, but having an affiliate link in the signature got me only insults.

what like rockminer? they still have to buy the chips from AM

Sure, but at a minimal/nonexistent profit for AM.

Do you think that the reason you are constantly insulted may be because you are constantly making absurd/baseless assumptions about how much AM is failing/will fail?

Edit: An unsatisfied customer of the Tubes:

So I guess this means you've completely justified ripping off naive noobs by selling them SPtech hardware?

Serious question, if you don't care the slightest about ROI, why not just be a used car salesman for BFL instead? Just like spongebobtech, bfl makes reliable and pretty hardware at an incredibly unreasonable price.

[RoadStress]

Do you think that the reason you are constantly insulted may be because you are constantly making absurd/baseless assumptions about how much AM is failing/will fail?

Well neither you or any of the shareholder don't know for sure if I am wrong or not so you don't know that I am making absurd assumptions or not until you see exactly for how much profit they sell the chips. As for baseless, well they aren't baseless. I am basing my assumption on what Guy said and also on the lack of dividends/information/other projects. A 28nm mask+chips don't cost 10M$.

So I guess this means you've completely justified ripping off naive noobs by selling them SPtech hardware?

Serious question, if you don't care the slightest about ROI, why not just be a used car salesman for BFL instead? Just like spongebobtech, bfl makes reliable and pretty hardware at an incredibly unreasonable price.

I told you in the past that I am not selling anything. I am just supporting their hardware. Having an affiliate link and praising their quality hardware isn't selling.

[jimmothy]

Do you think that the reason you are constantly insulted may be because you are constantly making absurd/baseless assumptions about how much AM is failing/will fail?

Well neither you or any of the shareholder don't know for sure if I am wrong or not so you don't know that I am making absurd assumptions or not until you see exactly for how much profit they sell the chips. As for baseless, well they aren't baseless. I am basing my assumption on what Guy said and also on the lack of dividends/information/other projects. A 28nm mask+chips don't cost 10M$.

The sales price of chips stay a relatively high margin because our option of building our own devices and sell/deploy is always wide open.

Basing your assumptions on a rumor from a competing company's CEO who has been wrong countless times and almost never right is simply idiotic.

FC has outright denied the rumors started by Guy that AM is selling at cost and FC's word can be taken at face value unlike Guys.

Guy has never been a reliable source and he has proven he will say anything that could garner a few more preorders.

So I guess this means you've completely justified ripping off naive noobs by selling them SPtech hardware?

Serious question, if you don't care the slightest about ROI, why not just be a used car salesman for BFL instead? Just like spongebobtech, bfl makes reliable and pretty hardware at an incredibly unreasonable price.

I told you in the past that I am not selling anything. I am just supporting their hardware. Having an affiliate link and praising their quality hardware isn't selling.

So you are just advertising and earning money for every sale you are responsible for correct? I'm not sure how that isn't a form of selling.

Again, why not sell advertise hardware for BFL?

[Mabsark]

I really don't know about gen 4's tape-out. It would be a truly amazing thing, that's for certain, but I don't think that gen 4 is as that stage already. Where did we get those information from, after all? Who gave us those information?

Here's what we know from FC about gen 4:

6) What is the progress on gen4?

It is 28nm and has two major improvements: the first one is to fix the design errors we had with 40nm (which made our silicon data two times worse than simulated data). We believe that 0.35W/G at rated speed of 400MHz would be achievable in 40nm if no mistakes were made before. The second one is the technology improvement from 40nm to 28nm in terms of density, speed and power.

We are on the stage of evaluating the final design choices by running the physical design flow on different settings.

4) The next gen chips, BE300, are likely to be compatible with BE200 with respect to pinouts and package. Therefore all efforts on BE200 based designs are always useful in the long term.

And here's some translated info from the salon:

"Sales team committed to improving the situation of information dissemination. Will be more open."

"Prices are 3xxxx, count force> 1t. My god."

"be300 conservative says the year. May advance."

"Calculate the force said the average rate for the year is 15-20% of the whole network. This is the goal"

"I hope to resume dividend in August."

"Invoices, haha" - wat?

And then we had this rumour:

I heard that the 28nm chip will tape-out in 8 days.   

A tape-out some time in the next month doesn't seem that unreasonable to me and it pretty much needs to be within the next 2 months for AM to have any chance of producing gen 4 hardware this year.

[RoadStress]

The sales price of chips stay a relatively high margin because our option of building our own devices and sell/deploy is always wide open.

Basing your assumptions on a rumor from a competing company's CEO who has been wrong countless times and almost never right is simply idiotic.

FC has outright denied the rumors started by Guy that AM is selling at cost and FC's word can be taken at face value unlike Guys.

Guy has never been a reliable source and he has proven he will say anything that could garner a few more preorders.

Then it's a matter of who we trust. You trust FC. I trust Guy. I am sure that he doesn't want to build a career in bitcoin mining based on lies and on false rumors just like others. He plans to be in this business for a long time and his actions towards his customers prove my point. Don't mistake him with scammer Josh Zerlan or with redbull boy Joshua Zipkin who has no problem stealing money from old army veterans. Care to elaborate the countless times when he was wrong? And don't give me the SP30 specs.

Guess we will have to wait to see how will this unfold, but the reason that I don't believe FC is because he also stated that the self mining started mid-july, but there is no evidence for that except that they have 200Th/s on BTCGuild. No dividends, no official speed, nothing.

So you are just advertising and earning money for every sale you are responsible for correct? I'm not sure how that isn't a form of selling.

Again, why not sell advertise hardware for BFL?

First of all I wasn't aware that BFL had an affiliate program. Second of all I don't intend to support hardware that is being shipped 13 months later and that is bad quality. I think that being fair and trying to recommend good products/services has more returns than trying to make a quick buck while screwing people.

I see no problem in earning some money by supporting a good product. You are earning money too in form of dividends when you are supporting AM's products so it's the same thing. Except that people can see that I am affiliated to a company, while you don't seem to be affiliated to any company to a newbie when in fact you are an AM shareholder so from my point of view I am being more fair than you. When your signature will be "AM shareholder" then we will be equals regarding products/companies affiliation.

[Blazed]

I agree the SP-Tech stuff is so over priced doubt anyone will ever get positive ROI.  The AM tubes are garbage and most buyers are having issues...I made the mistake of getting one and it shipped with a dead controller. I hope AM will make some decent hardware with these BE300 chips and actually test them before shipping.

[Mabsark]

"If"s don't move anything. Money move stuff.

And AM have been making money by self-mining and by selling chips and miners. We know they had 60 Ph/s and they were selling chips for around 0.5 $/G.

1) On the Balance Sheet, approximately how many chips does the current Inventory (Products + Materials + Masks) represent?

A little less than 60P of wafers, most of which are on their final stages of production. The materials consist mainly of lead frames for packaging. The mask is re-usable for years if there are continuing demands for the corresponding wafers.

10) What is the average selling price of AM gen3 chips (price per Gh/s)?

About 0.5$/G for sold chips.

20) What are the future plans and visions of Asicminer?

We could use that to establish an upper limit of 30 million USD. With a mask cost of around 3 million USD, AM could pay for it through 6 Ph/s of chip sales. Given the sales of miners as well, I don't think AM will have much to worry about with regards to funding gen 4.

With BE300 correcting the mistakes of BE200 and being pin compatible with BE200, the roll-out of BE300 will be far quicker and cost less too. Quite a few manufacturers already have experience with BE200 and a well performing BE300 would be very tempting to them. The production infrastructure for building miners would already be there as well and allow rapid deployment of miners for sale and self-mining. Overall, it should be a very smooth and profitable transition if the chips perform anywhere near as well as expected.

[jimmothy]

The sales price of chips stay a relatively high margin because our option of building our own devices and sell/deploy is always wide open.

Basing your assumptions on a rumor from a competing company's CEO who has been wrong countless times and almost never right is simply idiotic.

FC has outright denied the rumors started by Guy that AM is selling at cost and FC's word can be taken at face value unlike Guys.

Guy has never been a reliable source and he has proven he will say anything that could garner a few more preorders.

Then it's a matter of who we trust. You trust FC. I trust Guy.

It's really not even about who you trust more. It just doesn't make any sense to imagine that the Spongebobtech CEO knows more about Asicminer than Asicminers own CEO. Does Guy also know what color underwear I'm wearing?

Why would so many competitors give Guy all this sensitive info? And what kind of NDA prevents him from disclosing the source, yet allows him to disclose all the info?

Care to elaborate the countless times when he was wrong? And don't give me the SP30 specs.

Just to list a few:

I have a second batch order.... Your opinion... Have I to request a refund ?

Taped Out in March: https://www.kncminer.com/news/news-78
TSMC 20nm cycle time (masks creation) is 4-5 months. Samples in July / August. Miners probably in August / September

So let's try this - with a purchase today, an "In Stock" SP10 will ship when?  To keep it simple assume 1 SP10+SP30 April/July bundle.

Mid April and beginning of July.
We don't stock. We build test and ship.

Could be bitfury, asicminer, avalon, bitmain, innosilicon, knc, blackarrow or maybe a company that has yet to reveal itself.

Hello my friend, I've missed you. Is is too boring at one of AM threads ?

None of those companies can match the price point of SP30 with current gen and Q3 planned hardware.
Not to mention the W/GH/s advantage.

10% difficulty jump on SP30: http://btcinvest.net/en/bitcoin-mining-profit-calculator.php?diff=6978842650&dcosts=4500&diff_mincrease=10&blpbtc=25&dhsmhs=5400000&diff_mincreasedecrease=0.5&btcusd=453.80&dpowcon=2500&btcusd_mincrease=1&pcost=0.115&calcweeks=32&dleadtime=9&action=calc#

(this one was deleted for being so wrong: https://bitcointa.lk/threads/ann-spondoolies-tech-launches-a-new-line-of-asic-miners-shipping-in-7-days.284243/page-68#post-6031635)

[jjdub7]

...

With BE300 correcting the mistakes of BE200 and being pin compatible with BE200, the roll-out of BE300 will be far quicker and cost less too. Quite a few manufacturers already have experience with BE200 and a well performing BE300 would be very tempting to them. The production infrastructure for building miners would already be there as well and allow rapid deployment of miners for sale and self-mining. Overall, it should be a very smooth and profitable transition if the chips perform anywhere near as well as expected.

This. 

Re-use/continue device piece supply line, insert BE300 (interchangeable parts, I like), fix end-user flexibility/stratum proxy issues, roll out next gen of miners in February and AM re-proves itself to the world over again.  Now, whether its to happen, and whether friedcat can bring it to market in time is the main question.

[SaintFlow]

Dear friedcat,

I would like you to issue a short press release
every 2 weeks minimum.

Sincerely

Your Shareholder

[Satan666]

Dear friedcat,

I would like you to issue a short press release
every 2 weeks minimum.

Sincerely

Your Shareholder

Welcome to "the club".

[SaintFlow]

I did send this as a pm.
took me 5 sec. I can do this every week and will not hurt me at all.
I will even feel better for letting him know whats up. Feedback - you know.

The more people do this the more time of him gets wasted on sorting emails.
Only when this bothers him enough will he consider actually doing something.

Edit: It's not like we are asking alot. Communication does prevent war.
Even among shareholders of Asicminer. I do not think that he is incapable
to write something like:

Everything on track. Expect numbers in about 4 weeks.
OR
Dividend will not happen in August: Building greater reserves.
OR
Next shareholder meeting middle November.
OR
We would like to publicly thank Rockminer for great cooperation

If he doesn't like this thread for its quality, it might be that he does not help
to raise it himself....