Intel, the semiconductor manufacturing giant, could make a big push into the world of cryptocurrencies at the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) next month, where the company plans to introduce a new “Bonanza Mine Chip,” possibly a is energy. Geared towards efficient bitcoin ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) mining. There is little information to go on thus far, but according to a docket with presentations from offices in Hillsboro, Santa Clara and San Diego, Calif., Intel has a slot for February 23 under the highlighted chip release category. is defined.
it is not clear that Intel Will offer a viable product or simply unveil a prototype chip. As mentioned in a report Tom’s HardwareIntel has been working on entering the bitcoin market for quite some time. In 2018, the US Patent and Trademark Office awarded the chip giant a patent for efficiently mining cryptocurrencies using the SHA-256 algorithm. Intel also disclosed a small stake in major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in August 2021.
Unlike CPUs or GPUs, which are geared towards multiple use-cases, an ASIC is a type of chip designed for a specific type of task – in this case, bitcoin mining, They only do one thing, but they should be particularly good at it.
Often, graphics cards or GPUs are the chips associated with mining cryptocurrency. In fact, many attribute ongoing GPU shortages to Ethereum mining, as cards are sold out before any regular users can get their hands on it. However, for now, Intel’s special mining chip labeled Bonanza Mine won’t solve that problem as the ASIC is geared only to bitcoin mining.
Raja Koduri, senior vice president and general manager of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) group at Intel, said in a statement. last month interview That being able to do more efficient blockchain verification at a much lower cost with much less power is a solvable problem. “And it is not a GPU thing, so try not to confuse it as a GPU thing. The GPU will do graphics, gaming and all those wonderful things,” Koduri said. “We are working on that, and At some point, hopefully in the not too distant future, we’ll share some interesting hardware for that,” he said.
That said, Intel will face stiff competition from the world’s largest manufacturers, Bitmain and MicroBT. Bitcoin Mining Hardware.
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