kleeck,

using https://coinplorer.com/Hardware and Ken's '1.9 GH/s, 2.5 Watts.'

I think this 55nm chip will have around 65% of the performance (W/GH) of KnC's 2014 Q2 Neptune 20nm chip?

Now if we are only 35% in performance terms behind the cutting edge market leaders I think that is pretty good. We can price our units accordingly. Like you say the market is deep and there is certainly room for a budget machine that costs 65% of the top end KnC model and performs 65% as well. We would be on equal terms with KnC in price per GH's if we can price our machines accordingly.

Even if we are 20% more expensive than KnC we can still sell out if the global supply of machines can not meet the global demand. Infact if demand is insatiable as it may become with BTC higher than it is then every single miner that can ROI will be sold out.

So long as we can produce a machine that will ROI+ we will do well with the 55nm tech. And 1.3W per GH in Q2 is not obsolete by any means.