Why aren't AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc. interested in ASICs?

[Bizmark13]

Because they certainly had (and still have) the resources and infrastructure to design and fabricate them. Instead, the mining scene is dominated by newer, less established companies that were all formed after Bitcoin was launched like Butterfly Labs, Avalon, BitFury, ASICMiner, AntMiner, etc. with the older semiconductor companies like Intel and AMD practically ignoring it.

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[beatljuice]

One thing I can think of is that the market is tiny.

[IamRichard]

Market too tiny.

Why chase less than 1 billion revenue when you pretty much own 90% of all CPU market worth 10s of billions.

[thresher]

They didn't have to change anything they were doing, nor did they need to advertise when scrypt blew up.
If they were really smart, they would create an altcoin with a gpu prioritized algorithm and pump the shit out of it for a few months

Well amd at least. 

[LAMarcellus]

I would suggest that they weren't involved or paying attention when the ASIC was innovated.

I would also not be surprised to see them move into the space. Especially, my opinion here, when the alt-coins die away due to side-chains.

Also the OP suggests they have the 1 resources, 2 ability to design, and 3 infrastructure to create an ASIC chip or finished product. That's seems like a far fetched assumption to me.

Just my 2 satoshis.

[The Doktor]

Also the OP suggests they have the 1 resources, 2 ability to design, and 3 infrastructure to create an ASIC chip or finished product. That's seems like a far fetched assumption to me.

Just my 2 satoshis.

You're kidding, aren't you? All 3 of those companies have 1, 2, and 3. I'd say it's an uncertain market, that's definitely 1 reason the majors don't get involved. Also market size. AMD and nVidia might have a little interest, if they were sure the market would last a few years. Intel would consider the market way too small, even if they could have 100% of both sha256 & sCrypt sales. They probably make way more on just their LAN chipsets.

ASICs will be the realm of small, fly-by-night companies for quite some time. Notice how quick the prices drop? What successful company wants that?

[Abdussamad]

They've probably got some group in their vast orgs working on it just in case. I bet for both sha256 and scrypt. They'll never let on though. Big companies usually have people working on all sorts of stuff in secret that outsiders never hear about. Some of these pan out. Most are discarded.

For example we now know that Nokia was working an Android version for years. They have now released it. Google's famous floating datacenter has been outed. Stuff like that.

[-ck]

All of the big companies have long term plans around sustainable growth and stable business models. ASICs for bitcoin mining has not remotely evolved into that biosphere. For the time being it is mainly get rich quick rapid development to marketing/release new hardware companies the likes of which we may not see for more than a year or two. Down the track if/when bitcoin mining reaches some kind of evolutionarily stable set, you can bet these companies will be there front and centre.

[nostradamus]

First the market was too small.
Now, there is a market, but too risky. Be sure that the conversation has occurred over at AMD.
Once there is a stable market of sufficient size, you will see the entry of established operators.
 

[tzortz]

All of the big companies have long term plans around sustainable growth and stable business models. ASICs for bitcoin mining has not remotely evolved into that biosphere. For the time being it is mainly get rich quick rapid development to marketing/release new hardware companies the likes of which we may not see for more than a year or two. Down the track if/when bitcoin mining reaches some kind of evolutionarily stable set, you can bet these companies will be there front and centre.

I think you say exactly the same like ckolivas.

[googlemaster1]

If AMD wasn't in the middle of a turnaround play with their new CEO, I could see them bellying this risk due to market cap/profit capability. 

As for the others, their market cap is too large to take a risk that could potentially go to 0.  Publicly traded companies don't take this level of risk, they buy companies that prove their competence in this market, and can you name an ASIC company that has?  The litigation risk and being stuck with unsellable hardware is HUGE in this business.

[2112]

How about a different point of view?

Intel, AMD, etc. are smart enough to know that a miner chip is out of their area of expertise.

With the expected error rate under load of about 1% ASIC miner is much more like an analog IC than a digital IC. Those types of chips are designed by rather small boutiques specializing in mixed-signal and power ICs, for example: tower-side cellular telephony or synthetic aperture radars.

I may be out of date with the current situation in IC design, but the only big, household name with such an expertise that I know of is TI.

[Light]

The demand simply isn't there. To us it might seem as if we are clambering to buy ASICs but in all probability we don't even represent 1% of the market that nvidia and AMD sell to. I can bet my last penny though that if we get to a point where we could represent a significant portion of their profits they will acquire and produce the technology necessary. Right now though, they're making way more from GPUs and rendering solutions.

[Equate]

Miners are not as much as gamers.

[fattypig]

Because if they are wrong, the CEO would be in big trouble. So they always go into super safe buisness...

[tristartek]

Too risky and they have shareholders to explain themselves to.

[tzortz]

It is a so small market for them, and also unstable.

When the btc reaches minimum $2000 , and the mining market goes to at least a billion per year, then maybe will start looking at it.

[DubFX]

It just isn't worth anything to them at all they control way bigger markets.

[Natium]

Because they are selling GPUS?

[Noruka]

market is too small and they have a set business plan/dedicated assets with boards that have to approve actions to achieve their dividend payout to stock holders.

no board in their right mind would risk such a huge change of business plan when their current plan is working great.