Quote from: DaGreatRV on September 09, 2013, 09:34:45 PM

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completely backward compatible in every way

I do wonder what this is going to look like. If they want to be fully backwards compatible they can't add additional hashing units, that would require a protocol update.
Perhaps they can leverage a higher frequency at the same power use of the gen1 chip.
Or lower power use for the same performance could be interresting for those sensitive to electricity prices.
Also a smaller chip means more chips from a wafer, thus resulting in a cheaper chip. Presuming 55nm isn't four times more expensive then 110nm.
The chips are by far the most expensive components in a miner, making them cheaper could make the whole miner cheaper by a significant factor.

I still want the gen1 chips I ordered. I'll just get the gen2 ones for a new miner.

I think he means to say completely PIN compatible. A protocol update may or may not be needed. If there is a set of hashing units on chip. They may have multiplexed them and added a queue so you can just keep feeding it work units. Like the bitfury chips