Samsung Enters Volume Production of a Killer Crypto-mining ASIC

[btarunr]

One of the world's largest SoC, DRAM, and NAND flash makers, with its own semiconductor fabs, Samsung, is eyeing itself a large slice of the crypto-currency mining craze. The company reportedly entered volume production of a highly efficient crypto-currency mining ASIC, for an unnamed client from China. The client has placed a gargantuan order for crypto-coin mining ASICs contract-manufactured by Samsung, which appears to be targeted at Bitcoin, for now.

China's largest mining ASIC solutions providers, Bitman and Cannan, have similarly contracted TSMC to manufacture mining ASICs. An ASIC (from a mining context) is a single-chip solution that combines a CPU, a SIMD parallel-processing component tailored for mining, memory, and storage. It has infinitesimally smaller PCB, power, and thermal footprints compared to PCs with GPUs, and can be deployed in extremely large numbers for mining on an industrial-scale.



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[cdawall]

Oh man what if they run out of chips for phones now you took our gpus now your taking me phone?!

 

[Chaitanya]

Oh man what if they run out of chips for phones now you took our gpus now your taking me phone?!

Atleast we will get GPUs back, I dont mind someone taking my smartphone(I use a feature phone without camera as my daily driver).

 

[cdawall]

Atleast we will get GPUs back, I dont mind someone taking my smartphone(I use a feature phone without camera as my daily driver).

This is just for bitcoin. Unfortunately there is no ASIC for the dozens of other algorithms out there

 

[RejZoR]

Cryptomining has to be the dumbest idea mankind has concieved in the last 100 years.

 

[btarunr]

Cryptomining has to be the dumbest idea mankind has concieved in the last 100 years.

No, this is:

 

[RCoon]

No, this is:
View attachment 96591

The fact that the English language calls it a Pineapple is the dumbest idea ever, pretty much every other language calls it something along the lines of ananas.

 

[ArbitraryAffection]

No, this is:
View attachment 96591

Pineapple on pizza is delicious. what are you talking about? I add pineapple on my pizza all the time when i custom order one.

 

[btarunr]

I once had durian pizza in Singapore. You will know true evil when you taste that f*r.

 

[Ferrum Master]

No, this is:
View attachment 96591

It lacks cheese?

 

[dj-electric]

If this thing will mine alt coins im gonna name my kid Samsung

 

[Prince Valiant]

Cryptomining has to be the dumbest idea mankind has concieved in the last 100 years.

Cue incoming posts about how mining is great without explanation past 'because'.

 

[xkm1948]

Crypto coin mining. wasting energy and resources on something that will be easily hacked once quantum computing comes around. Pretty stupid.

 

[RejZoR]

Cue incoming posts about how mining is great without explanation past 'because'.

It's great because it makes free money. Which, by itself makes absolutely no sense. It's like anyone could just print money in their own basement till inflation becomes so high it makes no sense in doing it anymore. That's cryptomining in a nutshell, except they create tons of "byproduct" heat and burn tons of electricity in the process (which still comes from fossil fuels for the most part).

 

[cdawall]

It's great because it makes free money. Which, by itself makes absolutely no sense. It's like anyone could just print money in their own basement till inflation becomes so high it makes no sense in doing it anymore. That's cryptomining in a nutshell, except they create tons of "byproduct" heat and burn tons of electricity in the process (which still comes from fossil fuels for the most part).

It isn't "free money" you are getting paid in coin to maintain a blockchain. It would be no different that opening up a server room full of mainframes for Visa.

 

[R-T-B]

Crypto coin mining. wasting energy and resources on something that will be easily hacked once quantum computing comes around. Pretty stupid.

I'm unsure if there is any info on how crypto will respons to quantum either way, honestly.

I know SHA should be a cinch but there is more to most algos than that. Plus it's easy to shift PoW. I don't see the concern either way.

It's great because it makes free money. Which, by itself makes absolutely no sense. It's like anyone could just print money in their own basement till inflation becomes so high it makes no sense in doing it anymore. That's cryptomining in a nutshell, except they create tons of "byproduct" heat and burn tons of electricity in the process (which still comes from fossil fuels for the most part).

No, it's not "free money."

The money is still by large organically sourced from wall street investors.

 

[Upgrayedd]

It's great because it makes free money. Which, by itself makes absolutely no sense. It's like anyone could just print money in their own basement till inflation becomes so high it makes no sense in doing it anymore. That's cryptomining in a nutshell, except they create tons of "byproduct" heat and burn tons of electricity in the process (which still comes from fossil fuels for the most part).

You know there is a finite number to what can be mined. Unlike gov money, they can print that forever. But only a certain number of coins can be mined.
I had someone tell me if trends continue then by 2020 all the world's electricity will be used on mining. I just laughed. All the world's huh? So my lights won't come on cause of a factory of video cards spinning somewhere? Get real people. It isn't free either, electricity costs,GPUs cost, ASICs cost. You really want some suits telling you how much your hard work is worth based on how much gold the suits can horde in a fort somewhere? If their gold disappears then the value of your same hard work disappears.

 

[R-T-B]

Cue incoming posts about how mining is great without explanation past 'because'.

Sorry to disapoint with so many explanations.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I doubt it'll make a difference, gpus aren't used for bitcoin anymore. On another note, I think miners are now purchasing things like the aorus Egpu box that comes with a 1080 in it (Only costs $700 vs whatever 1080's are going for) and are ripping the gpus out, same thing for prebuilt computers....the scumbags

 

[Prima.Vera]

No, this is:
View attachment 96591

Calling Annanas as "Pineapple" in English language. Agreed 100%.

 

[xkm1948]

I'm unsure if there is any info on how crypto will respons to quantum either way, honestly.

I know SHA should be a cinch but there is more to most algos than that. Plus it's easy to shift PoW. I don't see the concern either way.



No, it's not "free money."

The money is still by large organically sourced from wall street investors.

Any digital coins are inherently vulnerable to hacking. With quantum computing all the coins you mined can easily be taken away by whoever controls the most power quantum computing (aka governments, or Soros). In some sense it is worse than traditional currency. So nope, the future of crypto currency is pretty dim.

Precious metal was, is and will always be the best investment. Unless zombie apocalypse broke out. In that case I would say anti-biotic would be the most valuable thing.

 

[Fx]

When you view it at a fundamental level, it is free money. People are able to create value which enriches them in their currency of choice.

Instead of acquiring money that has already been created through many controls of regulation, they create money with relative ease.

It isn't a sound design for any currency of choice for any government. Our societies are structured for good reason; we shouldn't base our lives off of such volatility.

 

[the54thvoid]

Pineapple on pizza is delicious. what are you talking about? I add pineapple on my pizza all the time when i custom order one.

It's frowned upon in Italy. As I once found out asking (not in Italy but from a genuine Italian) for pineapple and ham - "Pineapple! That's for deserts!".

...You really want some suits telling you how much your hard work is worth based on how much gold the suits can horde in a fort somewhere? If their gold disappears then the value of your same hard work disappears.

That gold is gone.... Reserves are empty. It's all on belief now. Allegedly Fort Knox has no gold reserves and there's no proof either way.

When you view it at a fundamental level, it is free money. People are able to create value which enriches them in their currency of choice.

Instead of acquiring money that has already been created through many controls of regulation, they create money with relative ease.

It isn't a sound design for any currency of choice for any government. Our societies are structured for good reason; we shouldn't base our lives off of such volatility.

^^ This. It requires taxation as well - that will make it less attractive. Right now people are making money that isn't subject to taxation (you know, for schools, police, hospitals, army etc). Bubble is already bursting and it's only a matter of time before regulation tames this wild, wild west. But at that point, it becomes a viable currency.

 

[Boosnie]

I think the point lies elsewere.
The case for Cryptos is the decentralization and deregulation of value; cutting out central banks, governments, big circuit players from the equation of money transfer.
When 2 companies place order for millions of custom ASIC to take control of the blockchain, the underlying value of the crypto-coin is lost because, if their mining power is high enough compared to the rest of the players, they can throttle exchanges and negotiate on the entire value of the coin itself.

That said, I'm waiting for a big burst because I don't want to be rich, I want a damn graphics card.

 

[RejZoR]

You know there is a finite number to what can be mined. Unlike gov money, they can print that forever. But only a certain number of coins can be mined.
I had someone tell me if trends continue then by 2020 all the world's electricity will be used on mining. I just laughed. All the world's huh? So my lights won't come on cause of a factory of video cards spinning somewhere? Get real people. It isn't free either, electricity costs,GPUs cost, ASICs cost. You really want some suits telling you how much your hard work is worth based on how much gold the suits can horde in a fort somewhere? If their gold disappears then the value of your same hard work disappears.

That's not true. If you print more money you create inflation (you have more money, but it's worth less). Which is the exact same shit as crypto mining difficulty (it becomes worth more, but it's harder to obtain it).

It isn't "free money" you are getting paid in coin to maintain a blockchain. It would be no different that opening up a server room full of mainframes for Visa.

I'm pretty sure anyone can throw in a rack for Visa and start making money. Like, tomorrow sounds like a nice day to start...