By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 10th, 2024
Samsung started working on the chips late last year, collaborating with some of its subsidiaries, including Siemens, Ansys, and Synopsys.
The world leader in semiconductor tech Samsung has announced that it has started producing its new 3-nanometer(nm) mining chips. According to the announcement, this is only the first-phase production. However, the mining chips will come with increased performance of up to about 23% and 45% more energy-efficient.
Samsung to Produce Eco-friendly Mining Chips
Other than being optimized for maximum performance, the selling point of Samsung’s new chips appears to be their energy efficiency. By estimations, the new chips will considerably scale back carbon emissions that are usually associated with the mining industry.
Samsung started working on the chips late last year, collaborating with some of its subsidiaries, including Siemens, Ansys, and Synopsys. And while the 3nm chips already look to be a success story, the tech giant confirms it will also launch the 2nm chips by 2025.
Speaking about the new chips, Samsung’s President of Foundry Business, Dr. Siyoung Choi says his company will continue to work towards the advancement of technology on all fronts. Choi said:
“We will continue active innovation in competitive technology development and build processes that help expedite achieving maturity of technology.”
It might be worthy to note that mining chips have come a long way from when the first mining hardware, Antminer S1 was produced in 2013. At that time, the chip was 55 nm. Presently, however, the best miner in circulation is arguably the Antminer S19X which was produced earlier this year. Interestingly, it comes with a 5nm chip.
Energy Consumption: a Cause for Concern in Mining
One major problem that the mining industry is constantly faced with is energy consumption.
Regarding the energy costs, it should be noted that once Bitcoin price fell below $20,000, mining with tools produced before 2019 was no more profitable. That is, any miner that had chips larger than 7nm could not make enough profits to make up for the amount of energy being consumed for mining. For that reason, many major mining companies had to resolve to selling off some of their BTC holdings to be able to pay electricity bills.
To make matters worse, countries like Sweden and Kazakhstan which used to play host to mining operations, ceased all such operations. This was when they began having power shortages and energy crisis issues.
Now, with its new chips, however, Samsung may be offering a more energy-efficient solution to the current mining situation.