Posts Tagged ‘asic miner’

Is it Time For the Litecoin (LTC) to be Revived

6, Jul 2015

ltc-price-on-the-rise

It he last week or so the price of the Litecoin (LTC) has been growing with a good pace, essentially doubling from its previous long term level and today it has even passed the $5 USD mark. The exchange rate of Bitcoin has also been rising amidst the trouble in Greece and the general uncertainty in Europe, but not as much as the Litecoin. So could this be a signal it is time for the LTC to rise up and start catching up its lost positions? Interestingly enough with the increase in price of the LTC the interest in mining for Litecoins is also increasing, but there are no up to date ASIC miners or even cloud mining services left to offer Litecoin mining. That is not the case for people that have older Scrypt ASIC miners lying around and collecting dust as with the current price of LTC there is a reason enough to dust them off and start mining with them again.

On the other hand the timing of SFARDS Technology’s SF100 Dual-Miner that is expected to be available for order sometime this month could not be better. This miner is capable of providing a hashrate of 47 MHS with a power consumption of just 180W as per the information released from the manufacturer in single LTC mining mode. So the only thing remaining unknown is when it will be released and where you will be able to buy the miner from and for how much as the price is one of the key moments here. Unfortunately since the decline in home mining and end user’s interest in mining hardware there are not much stores selling ASIC miners, so it could be hard for people to get their hands on the Dual-Miner from SFARDS.

SFARDS SF100 – The first 28nm Dual-Mode Miner is Getting in Mass Production

23, Jun 2015

sfards-sf100-miner

SFARDS Technology has successfully developed and produced the first FD-SOI 28nm SHA-256 (Bitcoin) and Scrypt (Litecoin) dual-mode mining chip SF3301, as we have previously reported. After more than one month evaluating, prototyping, and extreme-condition pressure testing, the first 28nm dual-mode miner, SFARDS SF100 is about to start mass production.

SF100 dual-mode miner has 24 SF3301 chips that support the following modes:
1. Dual mining mode, Bitcoin hashing power 1700 GHS + Litecoin hashing power 47 MHS, the power consumption at wall of whole miner is 960W.
2. Bitcoin single mining mode: Hashing power 1700 GHS, power consumption 770W.
3. Litecoin single mining mode: Hashing power 47 MHS, power consumption 180W.

With 0.45W/GHS + 3.8W/MHS, the power efficiency of SF100 is showing really good potential. It is also possible to overclock to certain extent (Sha-256: 2 THS, Scrypt: 55 MHS). Based on recent Bitcoin and Litecoin price, a dual-mode SF100’s revenue is similat to that of a to a 2.8-3.2 THS pure Bitcoin miner, which makes it equivalent to 0.3-0.34W/GHS power efficiency when it is dual mining. Taking June 19th price for instance, one SF100 generates 4.2 USD from Bitcoin and 3.8 USD from Litecoin, or a total 8 USD per day (without the costs for electricity deducted).

SFARDS Technology will start selling the SF100 dual-miner to public in July, though there is still no official end-user price announced and the first batch quantity is limited. The SF3301 dual-miner ASIC chips will be available for sale on August to people interested in using them in their own miner designs, again no pricing has been announced yet.

SFARDS Now Offering SF3301 Sample Chips and Development Boards

4, May 2015

sfards-development-board-1

Thew new ASIC manufacturer SFARDS is now offering SF3301 sample chips for people interested in building their own miners using the dual-mining SHA-256 and Scrypt ASIC chips. The price is currently set at $200 USD per a pack of 2 SF3301 chips. Alternatively you can also purchase a sample Development board set that includes one dev board with a single SF3301 chip, two power supply boards, radiator and fan at a price of $400 USD. The prices are pretty high and do not include shipping, but do note that these are sample chips and development boards for people that want to test what the SFARDS SF3301 chips are capable of or make their own miners based on the chips. The actual volume prices of the chips and the miners based on them should be lower, or they will be pointless…

sfards-development-board-2

Dev Main Board:
– SF3301: 1 chip
– Heatsink: heatsink & 12mmx12mm fan
– FBB Voltage: +/- 0~1.0V
– Communication Interface: RS232 / TTL

Dev Power Supply Board:
– Output Voltage Range: 0.5~1.6V
– Voltage Step: 6.25mV
– Max Current: 120A


top