Recently, Samsung has officially announced that they are now making special chips for cryptocurrency mining hardware. Check out more details right below!
Samsung is making chips designed to mine cryptocurrencies!
In the latest reports on Wednesday, 31st January, Samsung has officially confirmed that they have begun manufacturing the application-specific integrated circuit hardware specialized for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining (ASIC). Their aim is to meet “a “growing demand for cryptocurrency mining chips”. Furthermore, Samsung is going to provide 8nm and 11nm processes to meet customers’ needs in 2018. Additionally, there is a high chance they can start a risk production of the 7-nano in this year.
To be specific, the application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) chip can be used to mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by using a number of computers to solve a series of complex math puzzles. According to South Korean news outlet The Bell, Samsung has started manufacturing the ASIC chips in January with Taiwan-based manufacturer TSMC. Previously, this company already supplied the chips to China-based bitcoin mining company Bitmain.
Samsung’s foundry business includes the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips. However, we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customer”. Therefore, the details of this new project are still unavailable. They also shared that the planning is still “in the beginning stage”. As a result, the proportion of profit from the overall foundry business is small yet. Mining Bitcoin is a complicated process that requires supercomputers to solve complex mathematical problems to mine Bitcoin. Therefore, this process requires special hardware and chipsets. Samsung is the main manufacturers to provide the suitable hardware and chipset.
The future of cryptocurrency mining
Mining is a very profitable business. Undoubtedly, Samsung, one of the largest chip maker, has entered the game. At first, nearly anyone could mine Bitcoin using their home computer. However, since this digital currency became more popular, the mining difficulty automatically increased, at the moment, people can only seriously mine with ASICs. In 2018, Samsung has earned about $350-400 million in revenue in the last quarter from the crypto-mining business alone.