Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 09, 2011, 05:40:35 PM

Quote from: ngzhang on November 09, 2011, 05:29:57 PM

Icarus will for sell in a few days.

price? just guess.

Hopefully <$500 per unit?

Any plans to have volume pricing?

maybe slightly higher, but not much. in effect, 500$ is enough for the manufacture cost, but months work is a REALISTIC problem.

Quote from: aTg on November 09, 2011, 07:53:40 PM

the slot is to connect to a motherboard? so would not need either USB and power cable?

yes, the slot is used for connect to a motherboard. but in mining purpose, this architecture is highly NOT recommend. i design 2 of "link port" for cross boards connect. In fact, just 1 USB port could support hundreds of Icarus. (But by present firmware's coding bugs, this function can not work well. Grin

) So, using a complex motherboard just for remove the power cable is inefficent.

Quote from: Bitcoinbernd on November 09, 2011, 07:58:45 PM

This looks great. Wouldnt it be possible to run this with passive cooler?
Whats the price going to be?

highly NOT recommend. because of the chip packaging, a low thermal resistance cooling method is needed. relation to the size, a 25mm fan is enough. now i use a NIDEC ball-bearing fan, high quality.

Quote from: DeathAndTaxes on November 09, 2011, 08:38:16 PM

Quote from: aTg on November 09, 2011, 07:53:40 PM

the slot is to connect to a motherboard? so would not need either USB and power cable?

Doesn't look like any of the traces from DIMM connector reach the USB microcontroller. It does look like it could get power from the edge connector though. That combined with a convenient way of mounting multiple cards would make the backplane worth it. If backplane handled data to well that would just be awesome.

this function only need a slightly UCF code modification. certainly, you need build a mother board. the DIMM connector provide near 100 GPIOs, JTAG, and power.
attention: the FPGA's config bitstream CAN be stored on board. on this board, each FPGA has 1 64Mb SPI flash with it, so it can boot up when power on in 500ms.
this means the upper computer's work is simply transform the mining data. maybe a hacked router is fairy enough for it.
the bitstream download can be finish with a XILINX platform cable.

Quote from: wndrbr3d on November 09, 2011, 10:00:35 PM

I'm hoping this will be the unit that puts us at $2/Mhash... so $600 would be perfection Wink

EDIT: Math fail Wink

maybe lower. but please, this is a good development board, not just a mining machine. I think it's much ease for resell if you want to give up mining bitcoins Grin

.

Quote from: bulanula on November 09, 2011, 09:21:16 PM

This really is an exciting development. Board looks very nice compared to other hacks.

What is price ?

What is memory connector for ? I think it is just for the power and the data uses USB.

This is a development board. not just for mining. the DIMM connector is mainly for other purpose.

Quote from: ElectricMucus on November 09, 2011, 10:08:18 PM

When this is intended as a bitcoin miner, why the 6 layer pcb?

Heck, I can imagine it would be doable on a double layer board with minimal I/O, if not even single layer if the power for both chips can be supplied by a single power converter. The thing I want is a pcie card with nothing on it except 2 fpgas, and the power circuit.

I am willing to bet this can be done with double layer and around USD 1/mhash.

there is enough of product as you say, isn't it? Grin

beyond that, there is another side: a 6 layers PCB's heat dissipation is much better than a 2 layer PCB, so the FPGA chips' core temperature will lower than just using a 2 layers PCB . there are about 3 complete copper planes in the PCB, and all signals has reference planes. and it's necessary for diff-pairs routing.

Quote from: Dexter770221 on November 09, 2011, 10:19:37 PM

Great work.
For a such heavy routing 6 layer PCB its necessary. I'm waiting for a price...
I like the idea for routing I/Os, maybe I buy one... If you will sell those..

certainly they are for sell, if you don't need a "open box can use" mining code, i can ship you 1 today.
now we are debugging around the mining control software. and this will lasts some days.

Quote from: sadpandatech on November 09, 2011, 11:32:27 PM

Excellent work, Ngzhang!!

Speculation on price; Those particular spartans are $158 for <60, the boards have a LOT of components and the PCBs not cheap. High amp regulator $30+. Maybe saved a few bukcs on a low end uart? Not seeing it but am not real familiar with them. Not sure if he has a license fee attached but will add it in case.

builders markup included result = XLX $386, PCB+License $145, Components $110, usb and power cable $7

= ~$648 or $1.80/MH

Did I miss any thing?

and i do all of this for free? Grin

relax, it will not reach 648$. Grin

Quote from: hxtop on November 10, 2011, 02:12:53 AM

中国人的骄傲。。。。。

speak english please...