If they are trying to test 2.1 million ASIC chips with a small crew then I can understand the delay... What I can't understand is why the BTC is still in the account and hasn't been used to hire additional people. My best guess is that they've been paid and aren't in any hurry to get the chips out now.
The webstore for chip sales said the chips would be working/tested.
Interesting. Presumably some % is defective. Since the chips are connected serially, one bad chip could mess up a whole board, so testing is probably pretty critical.
On the other hand I'm sure purchasers would probably prefer getting untested chips at this rate.
That said, 2.1 million chips would be 720Th/s. More then twice the
entire current hash rate. Enough to boost the difficulty of the network to 100.
So obviously most of these chips are not in production at this point.
They changed their policy after B2, it was in their email newsletter.