Anyone demonstrated a 28nm ASIC mining bitcoin yet?

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm not so sure there will be that many incremental changes made to chips once they start to hit the process limit. I say this as I expect the margins on chips to become so slim that it would be financial ruin to invest in the NRE for another 28nm chip once you already have one.

I guess it all depends on how "good" existing designs are.  Taking HF just because they provided die size, hashrate and power info.

One 18x18mm die is able to do 400 GHash (nominal - more overclocked**)
   Hashing per square mm:
      18x18mm = 324mm^2
      400 GHash / 324mm^2 = 1.23 GHash/mm^2

Reported power consumption (at the chip) is 400 GH / 250 W = 1.6 GH/W.

So HF claims their silicon is good for 1.23 GH/mm^2 and 1.6 GH/W @ 28nm.  
While they are impressive compared to 65nm tech it remains to be seen how "good" those are compared to what is possible for 28nm tech.  Are they very good, or barely adequate in the grand scheme of things?   

If the run some simulations on an improved die and it shows to only be marginally better (say 1.4 GH/mm2  and 1.8 GH/W) then I agree the chip probably won't be made before moving to a smaller process. On the other if they came up with say >2.0 GH/mm^2 and >3 GH/W) it may make sense to produce a second 28nm chip.   I just wonder how much improvement is possible,  I guess once we get a couple of vendors with real 28nm silicon we should have a better idea.

[1714842511]

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[1714842511]

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[Gomeler]

I'm not so sure there will be that many incremental changes made to chips once they start to hit the process limit. I say this as I expect the margins on chips to become so slim that it would be financial ruin to invest in the NRE for another 28nm chip once you already have one.

I guess it all depends on how "good" existing designs are.  Taking HF just because they provided die size, hashrate and power info.

One 18x18mm die is able to do 400 GHash (nominal - more overclocked**)
   Hashing per square mm:
      18x18mm = 324mm^2
      400 GHash / 324mm^2 = 1.23 GHash/mm^2

Reported power consumption is 400 GH / 250 W = 1.6 GH/W.

So HF claims 1.23 GH/mm^2 and 1.6 GH/W @ 28nm.  It remains to be seen how "good" those are for 28nm.  Are they very good, or barely adequate?

If their simulations show an improved version is only marginally better (say 1.4 GH/mm2  and 1.8 GH/W) I agree it wouldn't make sense to try and squeeze out more efficient chips.  On the other hand say >2.0 GH/mm^2 and >3 GH/W) are possible.   Once we get multiple vendors with stats based on real silicon we can start to get a better idea of relative efficiency.

Just responding to say that I agree on all points. I imagine the first 28nm designs may be more safe than elegant to minimize risk, leaving performance on the table. 2014 will be exciting, 2015 maybe not so much.

[TheSwede75]

Bitfury has the smallest demonstrated chip at 55 nm.

I can't find any demonstrated hashing output and power consumption examples for Bitfury, only claims 

Obviously not been looking. Bitfury's private pool is hashing at 65TH using the 55nm as we speak.

[Fuzzy]

I'm not so sure there will be that many incremental changes made to chips once they start to hit the process limit. I say this as I expect the margins on chips to become so slim that it would be financial ruin to invest in the NRE for another 28nm chip once you already have one.

I guess it all depends on how "good" existing designs are.  Taking HF just because they provided die size, hashrate and power info.

One 18x18mm die is able to do 400 GHash (nominal - more overclocked**)
   Hashing per square mm:
      18x18mm = 324mm^2
      400 GHash / 324mm^2 = 1.23 GHash/mm^2

Reported power consumption is 400 GH / 250 W = 1.6 GH/W.

So HF claims 1.23 GH/mm^2 and 1.6 GH/W @ 28nm.  It remains to be seen how "good" those are for 28nm.  Are they very good, or barely adequate?

If their simulations show an improved version is only marginally better (say 1.4 GH/mm2  and 1.8 GH/W) I agree it wouldn't make sense to try and squeeze out more efficient chips.  On the other hand say >2.0 GH/mm^2 and >3 GH/W) are possible.   Once we get multiple vendors with stats based on real silicon we can start to get a better idea of relative efficiency.

Just responding to say that I agree on all points. I imagine the first 28nm designs may be more safe than elegant to minimize risk, leaving performance on the table. 2014 will be exciting, 2015 maybe not so much.

Maybe in terms of bitcoin mining. But the snow globe's only just started to shake as far as crypto-currency goes 

[Loredo]

I hafta say:  some of the replies on this thread contain the kind of information and informed opinions I came to this forum to read. 

Thanks to...I don't have to say; you all know if I'm referring to you.

[CoinHoarder]

I'm not so sure there will be that many incremental changes made to chips once they start to hit the process limit. I say this as I expect the margins on chips to become so slim that it would be financial ruin to invest in the NRE for another 28nm chip once you already have one.

I guess it all depends on how "good" existing designs are.  Taking HF just because they provided die size, hashrate and power info.

One 18x18mm die is able to do 400 GHash (nominal - more overclocked**)
   Hashing per square mm:
      18x18mm = 324mm^2
      400 GHash / 324mm^2 = 1.23 GHash/mm^2

Reported power consumption (at the chip) is 400 GH / 250 W = 1.6 GH/W.

So HF claims their silicon is good for 1.23 GH/mm^2 and 1.6 GH/W @ 28nm.  
While they are impressive compared to 65nm tech it remains to be seen how "good" those are compared to what is possible for 28nm tech.  Are they very good, or barely adequate in the grand scheme of things?  

If the run some simulations on an improved die and it shows to only be marginally better (say 1.4 GH/mm2  and 1.8 GH/W) then I agree the chip probably won't be made before moving to a smaller process. On the other if they came up with say >2.0 GH/mm^2 and >3 GH/W) it may make sense to produce a second 28nm chip.   I just wonder how much improvement is possible,  I guess once we get a couple of vendors with real 28nm silicon we should have a better idea.

I would venture to say that HashFast's implementation of 28nm process is not as good as it gets, and is more of a race to the market type design.

I think Cointerra will beat them in electrical efficiency judging by their resumes. "CoinTerra boasts a highly experienced engineering team of semiconductor architects and designers who have previously designed some of the world’s highest performance CPUs, GPUs and chipsets for NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm and Nortel. Having worked on several generations of low-power mobile devices, our team brings tremendous experience in power efficient circuitry, design methodology and implementation to the exciting new frontier of Bitcoin mining. "

They are claiming "significantly less than a watt per Gh/s" on their 28nm product.

[Fuzzy]

I would venture to say that HashFast's implementation of 28nm process is not as good as it gets, and is more of a race to the market type design.

I think Cointerra will beat them in electrical efficiency judging by their resumes. "CoinTerra boasts a highly experienced engineering team of semiconductor architects and designers who have previously designed some of the world’s highest performance CPUs, GPUs and chipsets for NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm and Nortel. Having worked on several generations of low-power mobile devices, our team brings tremendous experience in power efficient circuitry, design methodology and implementation to the exciting new frontier of Bitcoin mining. "

They are claiming "significantly less than a watt per Gh/s" on their 28nm product.

Considering we already see <0.7w/GH on 55nm parts, qualifying the claim with "significantly less" as rather arbitrary for 28nm tech. I want to see these come down to fractions