TSMC To Receive Strong Revenue Boost on the Back of Extra ASIC Sales in 2018

[Raevenlord]

TSMC is the world's sole ASIC manufacturer for Bitmain - the world's largest ASIC vendor by far, commanding some 70% of the ASIC market share. DigiTimes is reporting that ASIC manufacturing will be a major part of bridging the 10-15% increase in revenue that TSMC's chairman Morris Chang expects for 2018, which will be mostly fed by high-performance computing (HPC), car-use electronics and Internet of Things (IoT) products.

One other interesting tidbit that DigiTimes is reporting on is that Bitmain might be increasing its ASIC orders from TSMC to bring a new Ethereum ASIC miner to market. Dubbed the F3, reports around the internet have placed these ASICs as leveraging TSMC's 28 nm process in a three-mainboard system. Each mainboard is reported to pack six purpose-built ASIC processors, each paired with 12GB of DDR3 memory. Whether or not this makes sense based on Ethereum's Casper update (moving from a Proof of Work to a Proof of Stake mechanism) remains to be seen. Considering the amount of work and investment that would be required towards the development of an Ethereum ASIC, though (a natively ASIC-resistant algorithm) may very well be an indicator that Casper may be longer off in the horizon than previously thought. Let's hope this is true, though; an Ethereum-geared ASIC, even if short-lived, would certainlydraw demand away from GPUs to these purpose-built systems, and there's been nary a time in the PC world where such an event was as needed as it is today.



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[yotano211]

If these ETH ASIC machines have high hash rates it would make gpu Ethereum obsolete. Difficulty rates would increase that would make Ethereum mining unprofitable with any gpu.

 

[happita]

If these ETH ASIC machines have high hash rates it would make gpu Ethereum obsolete. Difficulty rates would increase that would make Ethereum mining unprofitable with any gpu.

Lets hope that this will become a reality. Insane price hikes are one thing, but most GPUs aren't even available anymore because of immediately bought up stock. Gamers around the world including myself need a sigh of relief at some point.
This sounds all good in theory, but imagine the kind of supply they would have to produce in order to keep up with demand if/when it comes to market?

 

[RejZoR]

I'm glad I bought GTX 1080Ti instead of vanilla 1080. It should last me till all this mining BS dies off and graphics market is restored to former glory.

 

[Chaitanya]

If these ETH ASIC machines have high hash rates it would make gpu Ethereum obsolete. Difficulty rates would increase that would make Ethereum mining unprofitable with any gpu.

But it still leaves all the other "altcoins" open for mining using GPUs.

 

[Prince Valiant]

The sooner the better on ASICs coming out to mine coins that are currently GPU only.

 

[blobster21]

Totally OT : I didn't notice until today, but how comes all articles titles are full of caps ? some kind of templates for each new articles ?

It's especially visible with long titles such as "TSMC To Receive Strong Revenue Boost on the Back of Extra ASIC Sales in 2018"

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

But it still leaves all the other "altcoins" open for mining using GPUs.

The same was true when bitcoic ASICs first appeared, but it took years before etherium showed up to jack up prices again. We went though a whole generation without coins screwing it up.

 

[Prince Valiant]

Totally OT : I didn't notice until today, but how comes all articles titles are full of caps ? some kind of templates for each new articles ?

It's especially visible with long titles such as "TSMC To Receive Strong Revenue Boost on the Back of Extra ASIC Sales in 2018"

It's proper grammar. Having the t in to capitalized is the only mistake I see. If you mean TMSC or ASIC, they're abbreviations.

 

[Casecutter]

Woo Ho!
They're using TSMC's 28 nm process and DDR3 memory, not sucking off most recent process manufacturing and memory standards!
Got for it!