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I am new to this and have searched this question to no avail. Please someone explain to me in detail and if you would provide links to how I would go about utilizing say black arrow minion chip(s) for mining. Obviously they are chips and requires one or more to be connected to something such as a PCB or what not. I am an electrician and am familiar with electronics but how does one go about getting these chips to function in mining? Do I have to solder something or is there something to just plug it in to? Please help me I will greatly be appreciative! OnlyDap@Gmail.com

Just buy Bitcoins. Mining died in 2013, its only for corporations with datacenter style mega-rigs now.

Dont try to compete, you cant. You will lose money.

Want BTC? Buy some. Best advice you will get.

cdog gives good advice! I've lost more Bitcoins mining than anything else!  :D

But to answer your question the ASIC chip is stuck to a board using a reflow oven, and the board provides clocks, power regulation and USB controller, then you plug the USB into a low powered Linux PC that can run mining software and proved network access, like a Raspberry Pi or TP-Link TL-3020.

Try the Bitmine A1 DIY thread, you'll find a circuit board, and useful people to help you build a 28nm miner there.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=294235.0

Hey OnlyDap, welcome to the forum!

The first thing you need to know about using bare chips is that you'll need a PCB designed specifically to house whichever chip you purchase. PCB design can get very expensive, very quickly; my advice, if you're looking to do some DIY, is to check out the Nanofury project by this forum's own vs3 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321287). Several people have licensed the design and brought devices to market around it (including myself), though of course it's free if you want to get some PCB made and build them yourself at home. In fact, if you're only looking at doing a small amount of DIY, I've got some spare boards (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9817077/IMG_20140121_153254.jpg) that I'd be happy to send to you for the cost of postage.

Otherwise, if you're up for some circuit design, read the data sheets for the chip you'd like to use and design a board around it. I unfortunately can't give you any advice on that front, but I'm sure there are plenty of members here who could. And if you are up for some circuit design, PM me - we should have a conversation  :)

Do you "mining is bad don't mine buy bitcoin instead" zombies even read these threads?  The guy is saying he already owns the chips!  lol

Do you even read these threads? The Black Arrow ASICs are not even made yet so he cannot own the chips! LOL  :P

I'm taking for granted that he has them on order.

http://www.blackarrowsoftware.com/store/minion-asic.html?sl=en

so... Scam site?? lol

Back to the question...
You will need the following to use these ICs
1) A board that is set to connect each IC to either USB ( using mining software on a pc/PI/Router/whatever to connect to a mining pool )  OR Ethernet and associated weirdness to have a web page to set the settings for mining.

2) access to the components to support the IC to do the connections to get/send the actual mining.  All should be surface mount.

3) reflow workstation or equivalent to put the parts on the board ( chec hackaday.com for info on surface mount reflow on the cheap )

4) patience to track down what let the smoke out of parts when things go horribly wrong ( and they usually do for the first few iterations )



The ASICs on their own do nothing, they need a circuit to connect it to a chip ( PIC16f or higher or some other 16 bit IC to also connect to either USB or Ethernet ) so that the controller IC sends specific info as predefined packets of info to the ASIC ( check the data sheet for more info on what/how this is done and what lines need caps to ground/power to lower line noise ).  Almost all ASICs do NOT RUN ON 5V and need to have that dropped down to it's ' working voltage ' with some kind of regulator ( google overclock AntMiner as a good primer on power and overclocking an ASIC  then check the hackaday link on overclocking a Block Erupter for more info ).  You will NEED SOME kind of Heat Sink and fan to remove excess heat from the mining with the ASIC and it is NORMAL for them to be warm/hot to the touch due to the shear transistor count doing actions.  Assuming you got a cheap Block erupter, removed it's ASIC and hot wired yours to it, the clock rate could still be too low or too high to actually mine with it.

There are more steps involved from going from buying a raw ASIC and mining than what that paragraph mentions, they will be discovered while going through all of that.  I wish you the best of luck with it.

If this was helpful, feel free to donate  some small fraction of BTC ;D
Message me if you would rather donate mining time ::)