Update
Development
The 28nm BE300 engineering batch tapeout was in September 16 with TSMC.
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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).
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The mass production time of BE300 in terms of chip-out date is February to March, 2015.
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.
They got those chips about a week early it seems so they seem to be on track and we've heard nothing that would suggest any delays.
those are engineering samples. they come from a set of wafers called a Shuttle - or MPW - Multi Project Wafer. these are wafers that contains lots of customers samples on the same wafer.
They're not production wafers, and the huge NRE will not have had to be paid for those samples.
For the real production, a multi million dollar NRE will have to be paid, plus an order for several 'lots' of wafer production (also multi million dollar). its a big commitment at a time when the price of bitcoin is very low and the economics of taping out a new 28nm chip are a painful decision. It'd be surprising if friedcat has pressed the button on this expensive tape-out and production, especially when he knows that bitfury has a better chip (and presumably others) also out in the same timeframe.