KnC ASIC will have about 100 GH/s realised with 192 engine IPs (see KnC R&D news from 7/19/2013).

I assume that an engine IP is equivalent to a pipelined hash core. To realise 100 GH/s they must run at a little bit more than 500 MHz, what is feasible in 28nm.

Based on technology scaling (2x more logic on same area form technology node to next technology node) we get based on BFL hash core size (estimated based on BFL die including 16 cores removing spare area and pad frame overhead) from 65(55)nm -> 45(40)nm -> 32(28)nm an estimated area per hash core of 0.6 mm2 in 28nm.

This results in an overall KnC die area of about 115 mm2 (0.6mm2 x 192).
Adding some area for supporting logic, I would say max 120 mm2 would be a good target.

An 28nm 300mm wafer has an area of about 70000 mm2. So we get 583 dies per wafer (assuming 100% yield, not realistic I know, but you can scale it yourself to your yield assumptions).

For 50 wafer:

583 dies/wafer -> 58.3 TH/wafer
50 wafer -> 2915 TH

Minimum ordering at foundries is normally one lot (25 wafer). Maybe also half lots are possible. But keep in mind, additional wafers costs nothing compared to the initial mask costs.

That's The Devil, he came to collect on that soul deal because they hadn't delivered as promised.

+3000TH. That sounds very scary for anyone wanting to meet ROI. Anyway...

Would they need a 55mmx55mm package for a 11mmx11mm chip??

I think you dug up the packaging company, not the fab.

yep, you're probably right.

I don't know why but I've taken for granted that they would ASE Inc facility to produce the chip.

That's marketing: they're a "leader", "full featured", "turnkey solutions" and whatnot THEN you realize they do not actually fabricate the silicon.

I think they'll be using Altera (who's using TSMC) for the fab. They were working on a special deal for the Mars, using Altera FPGA, and Altera can turn their FPGA code (RTL? forgot the exact TLA) into an ASIC.

Please don't mind me, but all companies offering RTL2GDS (standard cell ASIC synthesis and place&route) or FPGA-hardcopy/structured ASIC implementations are in this case just service providers, no foundries with fabs.
 
There is only a handful "pure play" foundries offering advanced nodes (< 65nm) in principle open for every customer. There are only 2 currently offering 28nm their own fabs: TSMC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

All other 28nm (and below) players (like Intel, Samsung, IBM, STM) are so called IDMs, offering their production capacity to some interessting high volume customers from time to time too to get a better workload in their fabs.

Thx for pointing out the flip chip/wire-bond difference. How optimistic are you about the die size? Is that fairly accurate or "fingers on screen" accurate?

120 mm2 in 28nm is really really huge, but can be produced. Approximately 4 dies per reticle. A nightmare were for sure the toplevel layout implementation and power sign-off.

They will have for sure yield issues, but if they integrated suitable redundancy features it should be handleable.

With respect to design complexity the related BIST (built and self test) and redundancy logic, will be as complex as the pure miner logic . I hope they verified that right, because this was probably not part of their FPGA prototype.

EDITED: To your original question. I'm pretty sure, that if the KNC die is bigger than 120 mm2 they did not a good layout implementation job. This is the minimum target that they must reach to take full advantage of 28nm (better smaller).

That only works if the foundry is convinced that you are worthy of credit. Normally this is not the case for start-ups and SMEs in this price category. For them it is cash in advance or no tape-out. Yes, I know what I'm talking about, it's hard to deal directly with companies like GF or TSMC if your are only a small customer.

I doubt that KnC or OrSOC is seen as a big customer for this project, because they probably will not order more than 50 wafers in the first year (which would be already about 3 PH). 1000 wafers a year would be a big customer. Why should a foundry take any risk for a bitcoin mining ASIC?
So I think they most likely have to pay the complete $1.5M to $2M in advance of the tape-out. And because they said tape-out done "some time ago", they probably paid it also some time ago.

From the commercial point of view I see no reason why KnC should not be able to produce a fully designed 28nm ASIC. They collected enough money by pre-orders to pay the complete 3rd party NREs in advance. But it should be clear, that if they are on track as they claimed, a great deal of the pre-order money isn't in their hands any more.