Open Hardware Bitcoin Miner

[kken]

This is not really open. Where are the ASIC design files?

[sliverstorm]

The GitHub says open board. I gather it's someone unrelated to the company that makes the ASICs, that would like to buy discrete chips rather than a whole package from Avalon.

[sciguy77]

I suspect this is a clever way to sell more Avalon chips (they're over $100 each if memory serves).

I remember reading that the chip was designed by a kid at NYU-Poly. How is a college student able to design and manufacture such an awesome chip?

[wsxcde]

Isn't it just a hardware implementation of SHA256? Shouldn't it be very straightforward? I fully expect that the undergrads in the logic design class I'm TA'ing will be able to do it. It's really not very much harder than writing a program that computes SHA256.

A really really good implementation is probably harder but I think the intersection of engineers with the required design skills, access to the design tools, access to foundries and people interested is bitcoin is minimal.

[sliverstorm]

The chips are supposedly pretty damn simple, so the key is having access to the software tools (which a kid at Uni will have access to) and the capitol to run an order with a fab.

[tcas]

Pretty cool, but I think the PCB design will need a bit more work before it can be assembly house produced. There seems to be a lot of pointless via in pads that are not plated over (plated over costs $). From most assembly houses I've dealt with this is a big no-no (usually they'll still try, but expect tombstoning and other bad things as solder is sucked through the via). Same thing with the QFN/P parts.

If I had a copy of OrCad I'd love to check out the actual schematic/layout, the Upverter doesn't seem to be updated.

[GeorgeHahn]

I agree. The via in pads was done more as an experiment to see what would happen - I'd never tried it before. They lower the inductance on the ground path, but it's not a huge deal. They'll be relocated in a future iteration. The QFNs have more vias than they need.

[nullc]

This is a similar commercial design, currently available, using the bitfury chips: http://eligius.st/~gateway/products/hashbuster-micro

Unfortunately the tremendous demand for Bitcoin mining hardware means that although there are several chip vendors now the market is not very competitively priced— the chips are selling a huge multiples of their marginal cost.

[kanzure]

    > Unfortunately the tremendous demand for Bitcoin mining hardware means
    > that although there are several chip vendors now the market is
    > not very competitively priced

Doesn't this just increase incentive to sell this hardware yourself and price it lower? There's no way that this demand has already saturated all the pcb shops and asic fabs or already eaten away the margins..

[ck2]

Very impressive.

Also very necessary once all those 600 Ghash/sec miners come online in the next 30-60 days. The difficulty will go through the roof.

I wonder what it costs to build a 10 chip board. Single chip 2.5Mhash/sec bitfury chip board originally cost $100

[sliverstorm]

Aside from the ASICs themselves? Cheap, if he can get a large board run together. The real questions are, how much for the ASICs, and are you capable of mounting BGA.

[Zoomla]

Can you use an ASIC miner for Litecoin mining?

[bmelton]

Currently, no.

However, Alpha Technologies has announced[1] an ASIC targeting scrypt (or at least Litecoin) in development.

[1] - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341939.0