Yep. Though to be fair, thats exactly how it went with KnC, and I assume they did plenty of testing with an FPGA. Of course its entirely possible (likely even) they will run in to more hickups, like the firmware issues KnC had. If they dont get packaged chips in the next 10 days, I seriously doubt they will ship anything before the tail end of November.
Why 20+ days beyond chip arrival for shipping? Since you reference KNC they went from chip delivery to shipping in 3? 4? days. Granted that was kinda impressive but even a week isn't 3 weeks.
I though KnC picked up the chips around the 25th or so, and started shipping on the 3rd? Either way, I have no good argument for my prediction, other than a gut feeling and the fact that KnC felt like an incredible rush job pulling all nighters and even then they simply shipped before they were ready. Something tells me HF wont do that. Well, even if they wanted to, I kinda doubt Ciara will.