I know KnC is on record saying this is a cell based asic, not a hardcopy. But that was said a long time ago, and  if you look at the known facts:

- significantly worse GH/J than competing 28nm (and even 55nm) chips,
- judging by the chip package, massive die size, ~3x larger per GH than cointerra and hashfast
- extremely fast TTM (assuming they meet their goals), with apparently no need for any chip testing
- Chip developed by a company with a trackrecord in doing altera harcopy conversion
- Originally planned to do an FPGA
- PCB tested/photographed with an altera cyclone FPGA that just happens to fit

I have a hard time believing this is not a hardcopy or some other structured asic.

(Note: Im not saying thats a bad thing. Its what I would have done too).