I would ask, in reference to Friedcat's comments of October 2, 2013,
7. Research & Development
We had tried several different really intricate and speculative designs for 2014, based on the assumption being competitive in a fully saturated market (average return rate getting close to normal business' single digits per year). but originally with a limited channel/staff, it can be very difficult to fully explore them. So, we conducted interviews, and recently identified several exceptional people.
We will be spreading design risk by working on several designs simultaneously and having all other designs' info/simulation results fed back to the main design process. Our designs changed aggressively and the expected successful rate (on a working mask) drops compared to the standard flow so it has to be fully (wave-level) simulated before fabrication.
Were there any intellectual property controls in place on the teams conducting parallel R&D? Was it possible for one or more of those teams to carry on their work and develop competing devices, should ASICMINER choose not to use their designs?