No, that just means that they don't have a prototype of this board running, it does not mean they are "fakes"
A fake is something intended to fool. An engineering sample is a more likely possibility.
Engineering samples are by definition an actual, mostly-working version of the chip, possibly with various issues and really poor yields, but functional enough to test with. BFL have said they don't have any chips like that yet, so these pretty much have to be fakes (though I believe the more polite term is "mock-up").
Oh my.
I can't quite believe they are ordering up 20,000 chips, and counting on them to all work right, without having first received such an engineering sample, to verify that it works, and to have the opportunity to make any changes before producing them in large numbers.
If they are, well, best of luck gentlemen.
You make a lot of assumptions in that sentence.
If you recall the announcement, Josh specifically mentioned the
"final chip versions," so I'm going to stand well back because you are going off half-cocked, and that is dangerous to your fellow Musketeers.
(realizing some of our international friends might think this colloquialism is a porn reference, here is some background:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-cock)
It would appear from the wording that there has been at least one other batch or test ASIC. FYI, I've not looked him up yet, but the guy they have doing the ASIC design is supposed to be pretty hot stuff.