what are AMD and Intel waiting for?

[btcusr]

What are these microprocessor giants like Intel, AMD or other ARM vendors waiting for?

Bitcoin valued close to $3 billions, not attractive enough for these guys to jump in, and release ASIC products?

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[coinslut]

Still too risky for them
Besides they could wait another year and still beat BFL to shipping... 

[btcusr]

Would be great, if someone put / open source verilog implementation,  so that any fab. could start fabrication.

I was expecting total hash power to grow with the exchange rate, but it's lagging behind.

[DrG]

Waiting for? They're not waiting.

All of my i5-2500Ks and Phenoms are hashing away at 20KH/s 

[shiv]

Bitcoin is yet to prove itself being more than a fad/bubble.
Even hardcore Bitcoin fanatics acknowledge the fact that it can all crash tomorrow.
Nothing for these respectable companies to bother putting effort into.

Open your mind. Just because Bitcoin is like this today, does not mean it was like this 4 weeks ago. Or will be 4 weeks from now.
Only kids think like that; Putting their attention on something and going "It's going to be like this forever".

[DigitalDoom]

Would be awesome...Never gonna happen!

Not only is Bitcoin and other similar too volatile and risky, but mining is a micro-niche market. Factories like Avalon and BFL (if they are a real factory) will do well because they work on small scale. AMD/Nvidia are just too big to invest in a micro-niche market.

[Operatr]

AMD and Intel wouldn't have much interest in such a tiny market. They are geared for multi-purpose GPU, processor, and controller chip production, not FGPA or ASIC, investing in it for them would be quit expensive and risky, especially in a precarious economy at large.

But, we're seeing the rise of a new cottage industry, and we will have enough supply from them (assuming BFL lifts it's smokescreen soon, they have delivered product in the past so I have faith they will make it. New chip design and relatively new business, and new industry, there are bound to be setbacks and delays at this stage, get over it or go home! Everyone involved with Bitcoin at every level is taking a risk).

Companies like Avalon and BFL could someday be the new Intel or AMD of the ASIC/FPGA world for all we know down the road.

[jerethdaminer]

Would be awesome...Never gonna happen!

Not only is Bitcoin and other similar too volatile and risky, but mining is a micro-niche market. Factories like Avalon and BFL (if they are a real factory) will do well because they work on small scale. AMD/Nvidia are just too big to invest in a micro-niche market.

true but they said that about agaia and physx, that it was too niche and never would catch on if a asic chip was simple enough and cheap enough to manufacture they might do asic addin cards at some point especially if someone else does the legwork expect avalon to be under the microscope if bitcoin carrys on like this

[shivansps]

Why in hell they gona make a money making machine and them sell them? it does not make any sence.

Same for the Avalon guys, even at the last price, its just not profitable to sell them.

[jerethdaminer]

thats the trick asic is valuable at the moment because of the raw brute power if gives quickly after if gets into the hands of enough people and the difficulty corrects itself it wont be as valuable but it will be more valuable then gpu mining

atm amd is selling crap tons of mid range cards to miners
thats a piece of the pie they'd like to keep , if it goes back to gamers buying gpus there profits will lag and if asic can be made simple or molded into another chip like the ppc from agiea was folded into cuda cores then there may be something there so if the asic can be made pasic  programmable application specific chips then soc will come into play and they may be integrated into next gen by 2 gpus or something similar.

remember cell gave a huge boost to the idea of parrallellazation which gave gpus as workhorses a boost its not to far of a stretch to see it happening again.

not saying it will be done but it could be done maybe i dont fully understand how software interacts with the chip in them but a chip is just a bunch of switches so  maybe making them programmable to do different things and only that is a branch it may take.

other then mining what use do the asic miners have anyways

[MashRinx]

Would be awesome...Never gonna happen!

Not only is Bitcoin and other similar too volatile and risky, but mining is a micro-niche market. Factories like Avalon and BFL (if they are a real factory) will do well because they work on small scale. AMD/Nvidia are just too big to invest in a micro-niche market.

true but they said that about agaia and physx, that it was too niche and never would catch on if a asic chip was simple enough and cheap enough to manufacture they might do asic addin cards at some point especially if someone else does the legwork expect avalon to be under the microscope if bitcoin carrys on like this

Not a bad point.  Not sure about agaia, but at least PhysX were bought by nVidia too, and I am guessing they came out okay in that deal.

[dg2010]

Intel roadmap is like 20 years long.

Intel building ASICS for Bitcoin is the most ridiculous thing I've heard all day.

[Mylon]

Still too risky for them
Besides they could wait another year and still beat BFL to shipping... 

ROFL

Intel roadmap is like 20 years long.

Intel building ASICS for Bitcoin is the most ridiculous thing I've heard all day.

True, but anything more then 5 years ahead is still subject to changes. Also if Intel would go for making ASICs for Bitcoin, it would be some little side project not their main focus. (they most likely would put a couple of interns on it under supervision, and still get better hash ratings and power usage than BFL and ofc as mentioned before they could start next year and beat BFL to shipping.)

[Rishodi]

Same for the Avalon guys, even at the last price, its just not profitable to sell them.

Yes it is. Certainly, keeping ASIC devices to mine with them is the more profitable course of action at current price points, but selling them is profitable as well.

[clicksmoney]

Intel ASIC? What are you drinking?

[Marrs]

What are these microprocessor giants like Intel, AMD or other ARM vendors waiting for?

Bitcoin valued close to $3 billions, not attractive enough for these guys to jump in, and release ASIC products?

Intel or AMD could both easily develop and manufacture Bitcoin ASICs. (Note that ASIC means application specific integrated circuit, which both Intel and AMD already produce for applications other than Bitcoin mining. For example, graphics cards are graphics specific ASICs.)

But why would they?

They could make them for their own use, and easily have enough hash rate to 51% attack the chain and take all the coins every day, for a total profit of (let's say at $250/BTC) $1.5 M per day. Given that Intel's profits last year were $2.5 B, that would increase their profit by 0.09%, at a significant cost to their reputation.

Of course, they could also sell their Bitcoin ASICs to the general public instead, but to them, it would be such a niche market that it's not worth the investment. They would get more bang for their buck by spending the money on more advertising.

The same logic pretty much holds true for AMD.

[sv4ol84a6v79a46ilby]

Bitcoin is yet to prove itself being more than a fad/bubble.
Even hardcore Bitcoin fanatics acknowledge the fact that it can all crash tomorrow.
Nothing for these respectable companies to bother putting effort into.

Open your mind. Just because Bitcoin is like this today, does not mean it was like this 4 weeks ago. Or will be 4 weeks from now.
Only kids think like that; Putting their attention on something and going "It's going to be like this forever".

no less than USD or any other currency is just a bubble and could die any time. currency on a macro scale has no real stability besides its founding in human behavior.

[bitcoins...BIIITCOINS]

They are waiting for bitcoin to become more mainstream and widely accepted and less stigmatic.  Don't count them out in the long run, but then again don't count anything out in the long run when it comes to bitcoin.

[dataphile]

Bitcoin is yet to prove itself being more than a fad/bubble.
Even hardcore Bitcoin fanatics acknowledge the fact that it can all crash tomorrow.
Nothing for these respectable companies to bother putting effort into.

Open your mind. Just because Bitcoin is like this today, does not mean it was like this 4 weeks ago. Or will be 4 weeks from now.
Only kids think like that; Putting their attention on something and going "It's going to be like this forever".

no less than USD or any other currency is just a bubble and could die any time. currency on a macro scale has no real stability besides its founding in human behavior.

In principle, but not in practice. Despite what people on this board want to believe, fiat is more secure because it is accepted by well over 99.9999% of the global economy and is backed by military power.

[hoplouie]

Still too risky for them
Besides they could wait another year and still beat BFL to shipping... 

this

[shibaji]

Bitcoin is not mature enough and stable enough for a large scale viable business.