Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Guesstimate thread for total ASIC pre-order hashing power.
by
FeedbackLoop
on 24/08/2013, 01:40:21 UTC

KnC ASIC will have about 100 GH/s realised with 192 engine IPs (see KnC R&D news from 7/19/2013).

I assume that an engine IP is equivalent to a pipelined hash core. To realise 100 GH/s they must run at a little bit more than 500 MHz, what is feasible in 28nm.

Based on technology scaling (2x more logic on same area form technology node to next technology node) we get based on BFL hash core size (estimated based on BFL die including 16 cores removing spare area and pad frame overhead) from 65(55)nm -> 45(40)nm -> 32(28)nm an estimated area per hash core of 0.6 mm2 in 28nm.

This results in an overall KnC die area of about 115 mm2 (0.6mm2 x 192).
Adding some area for supporting logic, I would say max 120 mm2 would be a good target.

An 28nm 300mm wafer has an area of about 70000 mm2. So we get 583 dies per wafer (assuming 100% yield, not realistic I know, but you can scale it yourself to your yield assumptions).

For 50 wafer:

583 dies/wafer -> 58.3 TH/wafer
50 wafer -> 2915 TH

Minimum ordering at foundries is normally one lot (25 wafer). Maybe also half lots are possible. But keep in mind, additional wafers costs nothing compared to the initial mask costs.

So would you say the above is too crazy?

Did this wafer reasoning apply to other manufacturers?

Maybe they ordered only one batch of 25 wafers which would be only 1.5 PH/s and thus only 3 times your estimate. Lets say there's a lot of inefficiencies and put it at 1PH/s? 50 wafers plus inefficiencies (66%) ~ 2 PH/s ?  Been looking forward for a while to get someone to comment on the wafer estimate by HyperMega.