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What will be cost estimate for a PCI-e board ? Chip ? if this thing touches consumer hands.

Are you planning any production samples for research / universities / DARPA ?

The chip is about the same size as the Apple A10, so in terms of silicon area it's in the consumer domain, but price will only come down to consumer levels if shipments get into millions of units. Big companies take a leap of faith and build a product hoping that the market will get there. Small companies get one shot at that. With University volumes and shuttles, we are talking 100x costs. So the $300 GPU PICe type boards become $10K-$30K with NRE and small scale productio folded in.

You should look into alternative financing methods.

How long is the period from needing the cash to pay for production to availability in retail, roughly?

If it's all about volume, accumulating orders over a long period using some non-reversible payment method could, perhaps, get you into millions of units. It's all about how long people are willing to wait in order to save on per-chip unit costs.

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