Quote from: PlanetCrypto on April 27, 2016, 03:24:47 AM

Thanks, that's info I (a non-fab chip guy) can sink my teeth into.

Quote from: HyperMega on April 26, 2016, 08:19:06 AM

... it would be better to cooperate with a IC design service company at least for the first project. You bring the chip concept and architecture, they help you to design, manufacture, package and test it.

Recommendations of companies that have experience in BTC chip design?

Perfect would be one, which is in your neighbourhood or at least in the same time zone.

Sorry, I don't know any IC design service companies in Minnesota.

www.uniquify.com
(did the design for Hastfast)
www.open-silicon.com
(did the design for Cointerra)

Both are located in CA. Probably not the best examples looking at how the stories ended. Wink

Another one in US (also CA) is www.esilicon.com

But in principle I doubt that any of these companies would implement a 0.1 J/GH ASIC for you below $1M for design services (this does not include the mask costs), if they are interested at all.

The reason for this is that there are no low hanging fruits anymore. If you want to be successful with a new BTC ASIC, many custom CAD monkeys have to work really hard, because any competitive ASIC has to be implemented based on custom digital design techniques to reach 0.1 J/GH.
It is easier to reach this target based on 16nm, but probably not impossible in 28/22/20nm. Anyway it would require very high effort, compared to the first ASICs which hit the market in 2013.

Quote from: PlanetCrypto on April 27, 2016, 03:24:47 AM

Is there any advantage to not packaging the prototypes?

You can do nothing with bare die samples, despite you have suitable test prober equipment, which is also not cheap.

Maybe a comprise would be a COB setup (Chip on Board). Here the bare dies are directly wire bonded on a fine pitch PCB.