Bitcoin Forum

Am I correct to say this is the latest asic technology?  any word of a newer more advanced  asic coming down the road and if yes when?

not yet.
KNC Neptune is only one announced and release date is unknown.
 

Not only KnC! Hashblaster releases a 20nm ASIC too!  ;D (...not)

https://www.hashblaster.com/

Unless someone can get Intel to use there 14nm process then yes 20nm is as small as it gets right now  ;)

It's not just the size that counts.

The numbers you should care about are delivery time, BTC/GH, and W/GH.  Technical details are interesting, but if they don't improve those three numbers they're not really relevant.

Yeah yeah. That's what all the guys say. ;)

Lol J/K, but you really are right. It always amazed me how KNC was a 28nm ASIC, and yet the BitFury chips are 55nm and consumed less power (per GHs). What's the advantage of a small 28nm process if a competitors 55nm chip is more efficient, and runs cooler?

(yes, I know the actual answer of how BitFury is more efficient, but I still think it's funny).

I facepalm just a little bit every time I see someone brag that KNC was the first to 28nm. (hell, if you're going to be that liberal: there were people running on 28nm _FPGAs_ a LONG time before KNC shipped :P )

Where did I say that KNC was the first to use 28nm? I don't even own any KNC hardware. I was just saying that 28nm SHOULD be more power efficient, but in the case of KNC vs BitFury, they're not.

I also face-palm when I agree with someone and say 'yea right, and don't you also hate it when' and they think I'm saying they're doing it.  I'm not. The fact that bitfury is more efficient at 55nm is a concrete example of why bragging about 28nm is silly.

Yes most of the good chips are on a 28nm die. 20nm is going to be very overpriced sense its newer process. but the reason you go for the smaller process is you get a better yield on the wafer.         

Ah, I gotcha now. Sorry I was a bit tired and out of it last night, so when you quoted me, I was like huh? ;)

yea thats what I think about,LOLOLOL

The correct unit is J/GH  you may also say W/(GH/s)

But the pedantry doesn't extend to correcting $/GH? Or do your miners only perform a fixed number of hash operations during their lives? :P

I think that $/GH or BTC/GH are well formed units.

Intel's Labs have a 10nm chip, but that doesn't mean we'll see anytime soon! :)

What everyone forgets is that an efficient 28nm design will, for sha256 at least, outperform an inefficient 20nm one. KNC, for example, did  a conversion from an FPGA for their 28nm design - soon to be ported to 20nm, and if you calculate back from their watts/GH metric, you can see that their pipelines must contain about 35 - 50% more switching gates than normal. So what's the advantage in paying twice as much NRE and probably three times as much for the silicon? This to be expected from a conversion.

Likewise, in certain circumstances a full custom 40nm design could easily outperform a 28nm (or even 20nm) design done at gate level, but it's an order of magnitude more difficult to implement unless you really know what you're doing, and not many asic designers nowadays have the necessary skills.

Mmm could you imagine a BitFury chip or something similar at 20nm?

maybe thats the correct unit of measurement but it is shit to say because you dont pay joule on your Energy bills. the pricing is in kwh.
W/(GH/s) is better

$ per GH/s that is the real important number along with delivery date especially when you are making that miner.