We fidget like fleas in the cryptosphere. Semiconductor giant Intel is to unveil an “ultra-low-voltage, energy-efficient” dedicated bitcoin processor. The Holy Grail for greener and more economical mining? Not so fast.
A chance discovery while reading the program of a conference. This is how the specialized site Tom’s Hardware presents the ‘case. By looking at the special events that will take place at the end of February 2022 during the ISSCC, the American high mass for electronic engineers, an appointment piques curiosity.
A dozen researchers working for Intel have planned to unveil a new high-performance integrated circuit (ASIC) to mine bitcoin . Hardware that is both less power-hungry and more technologically efficient.
In the absence of an official reaction from the semiconductor giant for the moment, the rumor mill and the social network promise factory is obviously racing. Especially since the Intel scientists were able to put the flea in the ear by entitling their intervention “Bonanza Mine”, an assumed reference to a vein in New Mexico, historically known for its abundance in precious minerals.
⚡️The Techno Giant # Intel is going to unveil an “ultra-low-voltage, energy-efficient ASIC” for Bitcoin. In other words, an integrated circuit designed for power-efficient mining. Whether it’s a consumer product or a research project remains to be seen.
-via @tomshardware pic.twitter.com/QsdAGp3w7C— Francois Remy (@francois_remy) January 18, 2022
R&D for several years
In the early days of bitcoin, hobbyist miners used standard CPUs to participate in the network. As the difficulty of mining increased, the various players learned to adapt their means, resorting to more powerful graphics processing units (GPUs). But the ecosystem had to quickly become industrialized and ASICs appeared around 2012.
Bitcoin since requires hardware accelerators, said ASICs, which are certainly powerful but require a lot of energy. These ASICs process data inherent in cryptographic communication (such as nonces embedded in blocks —for number only used once—that miners calculate to operate the transactions). Despite advances, hardware accelerators still sequence transactions in multiple redundant steps. Optimization work keeps more and more engineers busy.
The giant Intel does not suddenly arrive in this area of crypto rich in announcement effects. Its teams have been working on the subject for several years now. Since 2018, Intel has even held a patent for this famous technology intended to improve support for bitcoin’s own (SHA-256 secure hash) algorithm. And two of the patented inventors just happen to be on the list of speakers expected at the ISSCC next month.
Efficient?Infrastructure computing for bitcoin has evolved phenomenally. In ten years, ASICs have gained in performance, both more powerful and more energy efficient: “about 50 million times faster (H/s) and a million times more economical in energy (H/D) than the processors used in 2009“, had already quantified Michael Bedford Taylor, professor of computer engineering at the University of Washington.
Without getting lost in jargon technique, how would this “new” chip from Intel manage to further optimize the process?
At the time the patent was obtained, Intel researchers had therefore developed developed a new architecture for circuits and data paths that physically and arithmetically reduced the number of calculations. The resulting chip would also be smaller than those currently embedded in mining facilities. Such a system should make it possible to reduce energy needs and therefore consumption by at least 15%.
We can therefore expect substantial efficiency gains. But in these times when the semiconductors have mainly hit the news by the magnitude of the shortages, it remains to be seen whether Intel’s presentation will introduce a much-anticipated new product for a market that remains niche, will provide an update on the progress of an ambitious research project or will offer a tool to reconcile the general public with bitcoin mining.
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