Also, as has happened with others, there just arent enough margins to give everyone more hardware to compensate. Its not like these things have 100% margin so you cant just double up the supply. Those days are long gone (avalon maybe even kncminer had great margins, the first time around... but the more recent asic companies have operated on much slimmer margins... and their costs are high because every part theyve ordered has to be on a 'rush' schedule which means everything costs a lot more than if you could give the suppliers the usual 12 weeks to source the parts (an eternity in bitcoinland)
Thank you for another insight on why are pre-orders needed for a new company that already invested in 2 mask sets and on parts for their gen1 miners.
please explain what you mean (and who?) .. im not getting your inference.
Your statement show that I'm not the only one thinking that securing components from time is better than waiting for chips and then buying them from stock.
Do you need to buy pcbs, components, and server psus months in advance? I'm sure they are a few other components that have long lead times but I really doubt the majority do.
As a customer I prefer them to secure the components in advance than to take the risk to buy them from stock when they could be unavailable.
the reality is there are several reasons they cant bulk order all the parts they need, long in advance of when they need them.
1. the board needs to be tested before the right parts can be ordered.. which means asics need to be back from the fab. sure, some parts can be 'risk ordered'... ie, hope theyre the right ones. but since board tweaks, and most likely, part substitutions happen during the 'bring up' phase, you cant place huge orders for parts that you dont definitely know you want. Some parts can be ordered in advance (eg Power Supplies), which you definitely know you want, however...
2. cashflow. the companies that finance their NRE and production via pre-orders do NOT have an excess of spare cash to tie up ordering huge amounts of parts in advance. cashflow has to be finely balanced. Most parts suppliers in bitcoinland require cash in advance and credit facilities arent offered to bitcoin companies (because theyre too new... no 3 year audited history.. and also because, quite frankly, bitcoin companies dont pass compliance/credit checks of the parts suppliers so they expect cash in advance).
Also, the companies who have already produced asics in a previous generation (kncminer, bitfury etc).. have already amassed huge cash piles, both of dollars, and bitcoins... and have the firepower needed to do their next asic without requiring huge pre-orders from punters. Also, some companies are raising external money from VCs or investors. Some may even IPO..! The irony is that the only way that customers can guarantee a supply of bitcoin miners is to pre-order them... because the companies that dont need pre-orders and can already afford to pay for their own NRE and production are the companies that can afford to build their own private mines and not ever need the hassle of taking customer money and all the associated customer support overheads. an asic company that doesnt have a customer support department is a tiny fraction of the size of one that has lots of customers!