ATMEL ATSHA204 Crypto Chip OR INTEL Xeon Phi Co-Processor Mining

[keiichicom]

Hi,

I am going to see if it is possible to develop a fast low power hardware miner based on Atmel's atsha204 crypto chips. I will let you know when/if what I come up with. I am intending this to be a cheaper alternative to FPGA and ASIC design (at least for the crypto chips). The sha256 hashing will be done on the crypto chip and the controller will be an Arduino Uno during the first experiment. I was not able to find any data yet on the speed of hashing of the atsha204. Does anyone know?

Later when I buy one I will try the Intel XEON Phi...



p.s. I have ordered my atsha204's (10 of them) and I am waiting impatiently for them...

Cheers,
Keiichicom  

[termhn]

Your poll is ill-informed... bitcoins WILL be mined out in about 100 years, give or take a decade, no matter HOW MUCH processing power is used to mine them.

[keiichicom]

Thanks, revised the poll...

[LiveJay]

Any luck with the ATSHA204?  I was just looking at it this evening and wondering what it's processing speed would be.

Thanks,

-Jay

[keiichicom]

Hi Jay,

I have my ATSHA204 chips, so I will try very soon and then let you know. So far I downloaded a library for arduino to talk  to the chip and I am currently reviewing the bitcoin mining algorithm to see how it works...

Keiichicom

[MbaseCNC]

Any news on these chips?

[dafky2000]

I am wondering the same thing. I have the ATSHA204 Dev kit with about 10 chips sitting on my desk. The ACES programmer tool allows me to generate SHA256 keys but viewing USBTrace shows that it is not using the chip for the hashing... I am a novice when it comes to cryptography but I will post my progress as well.

[dafky2000]

https://github.com/someone42/hardware-bitcoin-wallet/tree/master/pic32

atsha204.h
atsha204.c
atsha204_bitbang.S

Should prove to be useful as some base codes.

[OnkelPaul]

The Atmel chip will not get you any usable hashing performance.
The bottleneck is probably not its processing speed, but the communication bus speed.
At 1MBit/s, the time needed to compute one hash in the optimal case is:
send 640 bits of block header (80 bytes): 640 µs
receive 256 bits of hash: 256 µs
send 256 bits of first-stage hash: 256 µs
receive 256 bits of second-stage hash: 256 µs

total: 1408 µs

So one chip can deliver 710 bitcoin hashes per second (if you ignore any additional overhead).

Of course, you could theoretically run 1000 of these chips in parallel if you manage to connect as many serial communication lines - that's still only 710 khashes/s, even quite obsolete PC CPUs can do better.

These chips may be great for their intended purpose, but definitely not for bitcoin mining...

Onkel Paul

[dafky2000]

Fair enough, I guess my search continues.. Thanks for the help and explanation!

[keiichicom]

Thanks onkel. I got the chip to wakeup and I was about to
Test SHA256 but I guess if the clock speed for i2c or serial transmission speed for one wire is too slow there is no point.

[animan]

Well, nice try anyways.

[keiichicom]

intel xeon phi also too slow for bitcoin (60 core cpu).
and slow earner  for litecoin

[Eva Braun]

looks like a scam to me, il pass.

[Alexander The Great]

Anyone try these chips?

[keiichicom]

The Intel Xeon phi is too expensive $2599.00 so it woudn't be cost effective for mining.