The effect of the new U.S sanctions against China on ASIC MINERS.

[mikeywith]

Just saw a report on Aljazeera which reads:

The Biden administration on Friday published a sweeping set of export controls, including a measure to cut China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with US tools, vastly expanding its reach in its bid to slow Beijing’s technological and military advances.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/7/us-aims-to-hobble-chinas-chip-industry-with-sweeping-new-rules

I have not read the exact report coming from the U.S but my understanding is that the new sanctions are somehow pretty general and could affect every company in China, the same article also says

The Semiconductor Industry Association, which represents chipmakers, said it was studying the regulations and urged the US to “implement the rules in a targeted way – and in collaboration with international partners – to help level the playing field”.

We also know Taiwan will be the first country to take those sanctions seriously, but whether or not ASIC miners makers are going to be affected by these sanctions or not, It might be just a matter of time before a new set of sanctions hit them directly, do you think it's possible that we wake up one day 'soon' and see Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT run out of chips and thus run out of miners?

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Nope.
The aim of the restrictions is primarily to slow down the evolution of China home-grown microprocessor & memory production, both of which have military applications. China has recently finally built a Foundry that can produce chips at what was the 10nm node which is about as far as they can easily go without relying on advanced double-patterning lithography and for that they will have to design & build their own systems and create their own in-country supply chain for all the materials used.

Even them attempting the 7nm node will be one helluva challenge considering that all advanced lithography gear is made by a handful of companies in the West. As for nodes under 7nm which requires using EUV - only 2 companies make it so China is screwed on that.

[DaveF]

Add to it the fact that there are already foundries producing the chips elsewhere that are being used in miners that are assembled in China so it really is not that big a deal. I don't see as much money going into mining chip design in the current cycle at the moment. There seems to be a push for larger, liquid cooled miners at the moment then there are for smaller more efficient chips. We may have hit the limit of what is commercially viable for chip manufacture at the moment and it may last a couple of years.

Take a look at the latest CPU offerings by AMD and the new 4xxx series of GPUs by Nvidia. Hot power hungry monsters. Yes, I know it's a bit of apples to oranges comparison, but if they can't make them smaller and more efficient with their budgets, what hope does Bitmain have?

-Dave

[philipma1957]

Add to it the fact that there are already foundries producing the chips elsewhere that are being used in miners that are assembled in China so it really is not that big a deal. I don't see as much money going into mining chip design in the current cycle at the moment. There seems to be a push for larger, liquid cooled miners at the moment then there are for smaller more efficient chips. We may have hit the limit of what is commercially viable for chip manufacture at the moment and it may last a couple of years.

Take a look at the latest CPU offerings by AMD and the new 4xxx series of GPUs by Nvidia. Hot power hungry monsters. Yes, I know it's a bit of apples to oranges comparison, but if they can't make them smaller and more efficient with their budgets, what hope does Bitmain have?

-Dave

Good point. Although a cpu drawing 100 or even 200 watts say the Amd Ryzen 9 7950 below

https://www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-9-7950x-ryzen-9-7000-series/p/N82E16819113771?

Is a lot less than a miner pulling 3400 watts on a single c19 plug

https://shop.canaan.io/products/canaan-avalon-miner-a1246-93t?VariantsId=10003

I can see why a cpu maker intel or amd think they can get away with a 170watt TDP cpu.

Toss in 2 nvme .2 ssd's
Toss in a Nvidia 3090 ti
some good ram a set of 4 32gb sticks

You have a monster pc pulling under 1000 watts

While the Avalon does 3420 watts at the plug.

The mentality is a bit different for a killer pc and a good miner.

Having dealt with both,

 I see whatsminer doing the m53 as a top seller sooner  or later.

https://microbt-whatsminer.com/product/whatsminer-m53/

[Daltonik]

Yes, after the imposition of new sanctions on China, this will not allow it to purchase equipment from ASML, but it became known that Huawei is behind a startup from Shenzhen PXW for the production of chipsets, which managed to order equipment for the production of chips from abroad in order to build a semiconductor manufacturing plant https://finance.yahoo.com/news/secretive-chip-startup-may-help-230000785.html.

But the big question is whether the Netherlands will now deliver the ordered EUV lithographic devices. China's largest SMIC foundry claims that it is able to produce basic 7-nm chips without the EVU lithographic apparatus, but it will be difficult to switch to a process below 7-nm without it. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/china-chipmaker-smics-7nm-process-is-reportedly-copied-from-tsmc-tech

[Queentoshi]

do you think it's possible that we wake up one day 'soon' and see Bitmain, Canaan and MicroBT run out of chips and thus run out of miners?

I don't think this is possible but it is possible that we see a hike in the price of miners due to shortage and difficulty in getting materials for it, chips included. Because I believe serious companies will keep seeking ways to survive until there's no way.