Swedish bitcoin mining hardware KnCMiner is going to commission its new Solar ASIC chips for bitcoin mining in 2015.
Sweden-based bitcoin mining hardware maker KnCMiner has announced the company is planning to launch new bitcoin ASICs in the beginning of 2015.
The new Solar ASIC chip, based on 16 nm FinFET node, will deliver a significant increase in performance and efficiency. The new Solar chips are expected to achieve 0.07W per GH/s and will feature over 5,000 cores.
The firm stated: “The 16nm process represents a step change in processing capability as we’re using several proprietary techniques developed in-house to reach speeds an order of magnitude above today’s levels.”
The first 20 nm Neptune chips that were produced earlier this year represented a significant performance increase if compared to the previous 28 nm chips. The 1440 core chips had a hashrate of 0.57W per GH/s.
KnCMiner did not reveale the names of its production partners. FinFET allows developers using non-planar transistor designs, thus, chips based on the FinFET technology are often said to include 3D transistors.
Various chip producers differently define the FinFET production process, however, the processes are all aimed at achieving higher performance and improved efficiency.
California-based Intel was the first chip manufacturer that started using non-planar 3D transistors in chips, although those chips featured tri-gate designs rather than FinFET designs. Despite the fact that Intel does not use FinFET brand for its 14 nm Ivy Bridge and 22 nm Haswell chips they can informally be defined as FinFET chips.
As Intel does not reveal its production processes, chip makers have to choose between Globalfoundries/Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) processes.
TSMC has begun manufacturing of 16 nm FinFET nodes and noted the profits are high enough. The volume production is anticipated to commence in 2015, although earlier the firm planned to launch production in Q2 of 2014.
Samsung and Globalfoundries announced their collaboration to achieve global capacity for 14 nm FinFET process technology in April, 2014. The companies plan to start production of their first 14nm FinFET products in 2015.
Earlier this month, KnC Miner announced they will expand their business with a new 20 MW datacenter in Boden near the Arctic Circle in Sweden. Named Boden 2, the datacenter is planned to start operations by late 2014 and will be utilized for cloud services and for hosting bitcoin mining hardware.
The Node Pole is perfect region for high tech, electricity intensive constructions, such as datacenters. In addition to a stable electricity infrastructure, the Node Pole region offers natural cooling and renewable hydro- and windpower with low energy costs.
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