ASICMINER: Entering the Future of ASIC Mining by Inventing It

[Puppet]

That is complete bullshit. Gen 4 tape-out occurred on September 16 and FC is expecting Gen 4 chips for testing around December 16. That's less than 2 months from now. Mass-production of Gen 4 is expected to occur in February/March. That's 4 months for mass production of gen 4, not 8.

Gen 3 tape-out happened early February. Real world availability is only happening around now; ~8 months later.

Do you honestly think that the share price will not rise will in December if the chips pass the tests or that it wont rise with the mass production of gen 4?

Both bitfury and spondoolies expect their next gen 28nm miners this year, one with 0.2J/Gh (0.1J next year) the other 0.1J/GH at the wall. AM is aiming for 0.22-0.34J/GH (and that appears to be for the chip alone) at least one quarter later. Even if AM is on time and on spec for a change, I wouldnt get too excited if the network is pushing through 1EH by that time at todays exchange rate.

[Puppet]

The reason why we started AMHhash project is based on factors below:

The reasoning is sensible enough, but after the first full day of IPO, you managed to sell less than 2% of your initial 5PH.
Better hope AM has a plan B to get rid of its stockpile. Or should that be plan F ?

[funkymunky]

Wow, somebody's just gobbled up a lot of shares!

[jdany]

King has a very, very, very valid point.

The ASIC market is more vicious than any market I've played in.
It will roll you in a heartbeat.
Take your money.
Kick you in the nuts.
And kiss you on the way out.

AM is still in business right now because they are super smart and super honest - attributes the marketplace rewards.
AM is being bled out, because in certain areas, they are not bringing excellence to the marketplace - attributes the marketplace punishes.

The most important part of FC's update was they were handing over some of the operations to professionals.

When my businesses did all of our accounting in-house, we paid a lot of "stupid taxes" because we'd mess things up - or pay things late or not at all.  Not intentionally - we just weren't professional accountants.
When I handed the accounting over to a firm - my costs went up by $60,000 a year.
But since then, We've never had a fee or a penalty.  I freed up at least three people's worth of time and energy.

I think AM is working their ass off - and they need help.
I think they need to scale up.
ASIC's are not on the honeymoon anymore.  You have to do business like everyone else.
You're not exempt from the laws of business or capitalism.  People won't continue to buy your products in spite of the way you treat them.

AM has a great brand and a great following.
Because of a certain amount of neglect, they are losing customers and investors.
Each product cycle, it's going to be a tougher sell than the one before it.  

For all I know, they could be doing this and just keeping it to themselves.
But, everyone can agree that they need to fix these wrongs - no matter how many products you put on the shelf, it won't save a business with holes.

[electerium]

Yeah, just as I expected early in the summer when rockminer et all. launched.

AM is being bled dry into more favorable business contracts and such. Sad to see, but its true. Dividends will be non existent for at least 6 months.

The only silver lining here is that cloud mining is the future so if gen4 chips can even be remotely competitive they do fill a void in the market space as many of the basic companies are moving away from chip sales.

But let's be honest about that, AM is being bled out.

[romerun]

Before BTC rise to 10k, I expect to see many mining companies bankrupt.

[Mabsark]

If G3 failed why do we expect G4 to succeed? Both are just a lot of talk. It is just empty promises, lies, failings, then new promises, and new, different failings. Same cycle over and over again.

Honestly. It is very common in businesses and start-ups. People knock bitcoin stocks but the percentage is probably the same failure in real businesses and start-ups. Point being. AM's early success was an insane fluke that will never be repeated.

Gen 3 didn't fail, it just wasn't as good as expected and there was packaging problems initially too. Gen 2 was an actual failure.  So, why expect Gen 4 to succeed? Because FC just told us that they had solved the problems with Gen 3. Sure, new problems might arise.

Gen 3 tape-out happened early February. Real world availability is only happening around now; ~8 months later.

Nonsense. Tubes went on sale on August 12 and chips were available months earlier. If AM would have just built miners instead of selling chips, Tubes would have been available a lot earlier.

Both bitfury and spondoolies expect their next gen 28nm miners this year, one with 0.2J/Gh (0.1J next year) the other 0.1J/GH at the wall. AM is aiming for 0.22-0.34J/GH (and that appears to be for the chip alone) at least one quarter later. Even if AM is on time and on spec for a change, I wouldnt get too excited if the network is pushing through 1EH by that time at todays exchange rate.

It's not just about power efficiency. Sure, competitors may have better power efficiency but what hash rate will those chips have? Look at Bitfury or Spondoolies 40nm ASICs and compare them to AMs gen 3. If those chips were overclocked to match the hash rate of AMs, what would happen to their power efficiency? What would AM gen 3 chips power efficiency be like if the chips were underclocked to match the hash rate of Bitfury's 55nm or Spondoolies 40nm?

Here's what FC said on the issue:

For BE300 in theory it is possible to get lower than 0.225W/GH by stressing the voltage down below 0.55V, but we do not have
solid simulation data yet, so let's see after the test chips are out.

December 16 is to be expected for us to get the chips. Testing time varies at 3-10 days since we had much more preparation work already done this time.

[Puppet]

It's not just about power efficiency.

In so far its not yet the case today, it will be next year. Power consumption will be by far the most important factor. Not only directly as opex, but its also driving PCB and system costs. Asics themselves are cheap; DC voltage regulation, cooling etc are comparatively quite expensive and those costs scale with power (in)efficiency.

Sure, competitors may have better power efficiency but what hash rate will those chips have? Look at Bitfury or Spondoolies 40nm ASICs and compare them to AMs gen 3. If those chips were overclocked to match the hash rate of AMs, what would happen to their power efficiency?

Per chip hashrate is meaningless. Particularly if you dont take in to account die size. Even if you do, it only affects silicon cost which is probably among the least important factors.

Here's what FC said on the issue:

So he says he doesnt know yet.

[Mabsark]

It's not just about power efficiency.

In so far its not yet the case today, it will be next year. Power consumption will be by far the most important factor. Not only directly as opex, but its also driving PCB and system costs. Asics themselves are cheap; DC voltage regulation, cooling etc are comparatively quite expensive and those costs scale with power (in)efficiency.

Sure, competitors may have better power efficiency but what hash rate will those chips have? Look at Bitfury or Spondoolies 40nm ASICs and compare them to AMs gen 3. If those chips were overclocked to match the hash rate of AMs, what would happen to their power efficiency?

Per chip hashrate is meaningless. Particularly if you dont take in to account die size. Even if you do, it only affects silicon cost which is probably among the least important factors.

Here's what FC said on the issue:

So he says he doesnt know yet.

I'm not claiming it's about per chip hash rate, I'm claiming that there are a few factors which need to be considered, not just power efficiency. You need to consider the hash rate, the power efficiency, the cost and the volume of the miner too.

[MichaelBliss]

So he says he doesnt know yet.

The same way Spoondoolies don't know yet.   Except Friedcat is honest, and is telling you he doesn't know, and providing the best estimates he can.   

[Puppet]

I'm not claiming it's about per chip hash rate, and claiming that there are a few factors which need to be considered, not just power efficiency.

You're right; time to market is pretty darn important too.
oops.

You need to consider the hash rate, the power efficiency, the cost and the volume of the miner too.

Volume as in density, is mostly a non issue outside of collocation, which is a dead end anyway. Take a look at the largest mine. notice the shelve spacing here:

http://www.thecoinsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/40-1X33zo7.jpg

or the rack spacing here:

http://www.thecoinsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/39-GQF0zFa.jpg

They could easily cram 3 or 4x as many rigs in that warehouse, if it werent for power/cooling limitations.

As for "hashrate", its not a metric, its a variable that you can scale arbitrarily. What matters is hashrate/watt and hashrate/$ on a system level, but the latter is also highly dependent on power efficiency per chip, since much of the overall cost is in power delivery rather than the asics themselves.

[raskul]

3 Only if AM make profits,dividends is possible.

remember kids, don't shell out more than you can afford to lose 

[Puppet]

The same way Spoondoolies don't know yet.   Except Friedcat is honest, and is telling you he doesn't know, and providing the best estimates he can.   

Fair enough, but fact remains that BF and SP are aiming at 2-3x better power efficiency (and ~3 months earlier time to market). Whether they can pull it off, time will tell, but that goes for AM as well.

[trek27]

Before BTC rise to 10k, I expect to see many mining companies bankrupt.

Right, and many projects are already closed or quasi dead. Hopefully AM will survive.

[RoadStress]

Nonsense. Tubes went on sale on August 12 and chips were available months earlier. If AM would have just built miners instead of selling chips, Tubes would have been available a lot earlier.

Really? That is your excuse? If that's the case AM has a very bad team if they can sell chips and make some miners in the same time.

By the looks of it they haven't sold that many chips so that shouldn't be a good reason to delay miners so much.

[jimmothy]

The same way Spoondoolies don't know yet.   Except Friedcat is honest, and is telling you he doesn't know, and providing the best estimates he can.  

Fair enough, but fact remains that BF and SP are aiming at 2-3x better power efficiency (and ~3 months earlier time to market). Whether they can pull it off, time will tell, but that goes for AM as well.

Let me get this straight, Bitfurys estimate of 0.2 w/gh is 2-3 times better than AM's estimate of 0.22 w/gh? And where did you hear Spondoolies was aiming for 0.1w/gh this year? (not that it matters as they miss more targets than AM)

I'd also love to know how you know that SPtech and Bitfury will have hardware 3 months earlier when taping out 1 month later than AM.

[Puppet]

Let me get this straight, Bitfurys estimate of 0.2 w/gh is 2-3 times better than AM's estimate of 0.22 w/gh?

Yawn.

And where did you hear Spondoolies was aiming for 0.1w/gh this year? (not that it matters as they miss more targets than AM)

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/guy-corem-ceo-spondoolies-tech-speaks-miners-future-mining/

I'd also love to know how you know that SPtech and Bitfury will have hardware 3 months earlier when taping out 1 month later than AM.

Thats not rocket science. AM is doing a pilot run or MPW since they expect test chips in december. BF and SP wont.

[Anthony1985]

Finally some good news

[jjdub7]

Update

Development
The 28nm BE300 engineering batch tapeout was in September 16 with TSMC.
The power efficiency is 0.225W/G to 0.343W/G ranging from core voltage of 0.55V
to 0.70V. The two main mistakes made in BE200 were dedicatedly addressed and
avoided in the whole design stage so we do not expect surprise in frequency and
power consumption in real products.

14nm/16nm projects are at pre-evaluation and pre-design stage. It has to be done
in 2015 but the starting time of placing orders depends on overall gain vs (NRE/R&D/risks).

Led by Block Erupter Prisma, a series of efforts to reduce component-wise
cost and system-wise power efficiency were made.

Production
As known by OEM producers, several large batches of BE200 had problems with
popping chips affecting whole boards due to the misoperation from the packaging
company. It hindered afterwards chip sales and delayed the starting time of
Tube/Prisma sales. Later supply of BE200 has no such problem and filtering process
on old BE200 is also underway.

Because of the non-open-source status of Prisma and high cost of all other designs, BE200
sales were stopped. Rest BE200 chips will likely be consumed by Prisma and succeeding revises.

The mass production time of BE300 in terms of chip-out date is February to March, 2015.

Operation
As sales were seriously hindered by unexpected yield issue of BE200, we had missed many
dates with financing the big mining farm of our own. It is still hopeful that all good BE200
will be turned to hashrate before too late and we have liquid profits again before BE300, but
from the big picture, the missing of target on BE200, the mis-judgment on OEMs and later
yield/financing problem, limited our expansion and profit in this year. But luckily R&D on later
products is not much affected.

AM will continue to develop new products, expand its mining farms, deliver machines to miners,
as well as make money for shareholders.

There is no any foreseeable plan from AM side on force buy-back, dumping, or any
activities on the open stock market. There is no plan of privatization either. The management,
R&D, sales as well as marketing is being more and more separated and dedicated to professionals,
but the founders will continue to be heavily involved and drive AM in the more and more competitive
market. Scenarios of BE100 vs graphics card may never happen again, but we need catch
any opportunity on timing window of leads at either technology or deploying/financing resources
to win the last battle when mining is still an under-capitalized game.

So...we're issuing debt, essentially, with this AMhash fund.

[FUR11]

Has anyone posted the AMHash website to reddit? I mean it is a quite reasonably and trustworthy cloud mining service. The more people know about it, the more revenue AM is going to make. I've only seen a post in /r/BitcoinStocks