Bitcoin Miners progress update 21 March 2014
1. Global Foundries have finished the test wafers which were subsequently shipped to Amkor.
2. Amkor and VeriSilicon decided to redesign the substrate. This should be finished by tomorrow but there is no confirmation at the moment if a slight delay of few days will incur. As it stands we might still be able to keep on track for the tight schedule.
3. 5 case factories fitted our strict criteria and succeeded in making our shortlist. We will decide shortly which one(s) will be able to meet our high quality demands and meeting our aggressive deadlines. Payment was already made to cover the required samples.
4. We produced a prototype case for X1 which was made of steel. We are not planning to replace the original design but we came up with this as plan B in case in case the plastic mould wont be finished on time for Batch1.
5. We have received the 1600 Watt PSU from Power-One, will test this week.
6. We have tested the hashboard sample and other PCBs we've produces so far in a laboratory environment. Despite the lab samples are not meeting all our design requirements to 100% we are happy to report that all perform properly. We are currently negotiating with our suppliers to increase the quality checks for producing much better quality boards.
7. We have tested the (under-spec) X1 hashboard PCBs and it can deliver 130Amperes. We were targeting 140Amperes but the problem appears to be in the coil not in the PCB. Were getting new coils tomorrow for further testing. As a reference, VeriSilicons projected consumption is 100 Amperes in worst case scenario (high leakage) but we want to make sure that we can overclock the chip.
8. Finishing the boards takes longer than weve expected. For this reason were not sure if we have time to finish the 200Amperes board.
9. We have corrected several schematics and layout issues in the X1 hashboard and X1 backplane and started manufacturing the new samples
10. Following case review we have added a fan connector to the X3 hashboard. We haven't taped out the X3 hashboard yet as we will have to be sure that the X1 hashboard performs properly.
11. The control board boots Linux partially. There are some drivers missing or misconfigured and we need to fix some bugs in schematics. We're now reworking it to change the main connector and fix schematics bugs.
12. X3 backplane has not yet been finished due to modification of the control board.
13. Weve started work on our Bitcoin/Litecoin pool.
14. We got the BTC refund document back from our solicitors. We are updating few legal and we should be able to release this as early as tomorrow.
15. BTC/LTC and PPC payment processor is now online, ready to process orders. Still making some cosmetic adjustments. It took longer than weve anticipated but were happy how it works.
16. Front End for the LTC chip is now stable. Were starting the back end as soon as possible and were going to start pre-orders soon.
17. Were looking into providing schematics as reference design for our ASIC in order to gather more interest from 3rd party manufacturers.