Yes, it does. Half node die shrinks are pretty easy, but going from 110nm down to 28nm requires pretty much a redesign of the entire chip. If your (Biostar) engineers have not done 28nm products before, they will have a big learning curve. The licenses for the tools they need are also more expensive and complex, and the design rules are vastly different at the smaller geometries.
I am very pleased to see a major, well-established vendor get involved in this space. Please consider a partnership with one of the existing SHA256 ASIC vendors, and leverage your supply chain capabilities to bring cost and power effective products to the market.
At 5W/GH/s they're running more expensively than Avalons and BFl 65nm gear - which can had for more or less free nowadays. Thanks for the review but this item is dead before it even hit the shelves.
if this is 110/130nm technology efficiency doesnt matter much - consider it as a small-batch test of thier design. If they go and replicate into 28nm they could catch up to the market quicly, and the review indicates a stable unit once mining. For a company like biostar playing catchup will be easier than it was for bitcoin manufacturers to oranise and fund thier first die-shrink
who knows - maybe a BTC-240GH is on the horizon at the same power draw (would require 28nm assuming this was 110nm)
I was under the impression from other EEs on the forums that shrinkage required quite an extensive redesign rather just switching the manufacturing process. If it's not too involved that maybe a quick jump to 28nm with a good design would put Biostar into significant competition with the current ASIC leaders.