Posts Tagged ‘LTC ASIC’

The Innosilicon 14nm A4 Dominator Scrypt ASICs Coming Soon

31, Mar 2016

innosilicon-a4-dominator

Last year there was some information about the upcoming next generation of Scrypt ASICs from Innosilicon as the company was looking for investors. Back then they already had apparently designed and taped-out the A4 Dominator chips and needed sufficient investment to start making the chips using 14nm production process. Now, about four and a half months later Innosilicon comes with an official announcement of the final specifications and additional details of the upcoming A4 Dominator Scrypt ASICs that are apparently now entering into production.

The next generation Innosilicon Scrypt miner using 14nm ASIC is code-named A4 Dominator as already expected. This is a full custom optimized LTC mining ASIC with a focus on efficiency and cost, that should be capable of delivering up to 4 MHS per chip with as low as 1.5W of power usage per MHS efficiency in a DCDC less daisy chain configuration. This should allow for next gen Scrypt miners to offer 400 MHS to 500 MHS hash power per box, with easily over 300% better power efficiency over the previous generations. Initial batch of A4 ASIC chips is expected to be available in May for miner developer to design PCB and software, mass produced A4 ASIC/Miners should be available in June/July 2016 based on pre-order sequence.

innosilicon-a4-power-efficiency-performance-table

Innosilicon A4 Dominator ASIC and Miner Specifications:
– A4 Miner: 400 MHS per 1 KW power supply in one standard miner box
– A4 ASIC: 3.5 MHS per chip performance at 2.5 W/MHS nominal
– Extreme Low Power: ASIC with large memory running at single rail 0.6V
– One Start and New PCB: eliminate the need of DC-DC components and enable 14 to 20 A4 chips – running off the single 12V DC supply
– PSU Requirements: common PCI-E 8 Pins/6+2 Pins with 12V output
– Included: Raspberry Pi running the user friendly A2 Terminator software
– Server Grid Reliability: Built-in high-procession temperature sensor for automatic chip protection and variable frequency operation to maximize chip life time

There is no word about pricing at the moment, but it seems that Innosilicon is finally going to beat the KnC Titan Scrypt ASIC miners in terms of performance and power usage as the king in Scrypt mining efficiency at the moment. Unlike KnC however whose miners are no longer available and were problematic as hell and quite expensive when launched, based on our experience with previous A2 miners we know that we can expect a more affordable and reliable product from Innosilicon that should not give you a lot of headaches like many Titans did. There is no word on pricing yet, but a somewhat acceptable price would be in the 2K USD range, otherwise there might be not much demand for it with the current market conditions. With the high expectations we had and the total failure that SFARDS turned out to be in making available their products our hopes for Innosilicon finally starting to do something on the LTC and Scrypt crypto currency mining front are high, but let us see what will happen this summer…

– The official announcement of the upcoming Innosilicon 14nm A4 Dominator Scyrpt ASICs…

Litecoin is Still on the Rise, Testing $8 USD

9, Jul 2015

litecoin-price-on-the-rise

The exchange price of Litecoin (LTC) is still on the rise with the alternative crypto currency already testing the $8 USD target and this has caused a lot of speculation about the reasons behind this recent rise. Some people say it could be due to the recent high load on the Bitcoin blockchain and transactions processing slow due to a lot of unconfirmed ones in the backlog. Other say the reason could be just another pump and dump scheme by a big player with a lot of coins. Another plausible possibility is due to the upcoming fist halving of the LTC reward at the end of August, or the unfavorable situation in Greece at the moment or that on the issues with the China stock markets and the list goes on and on…

Regardless of the reason behind the jump in the exchange rate it is already causing increased demand for Scrypt ASIC miners and services offering Scrypt cloud mining, however nowadays these are scarce and had to find. The best thing you can probably get at the moment is an Innosilicon A2 Scrypt ASIC miner at a discounted price if you manage to find yourself a good deal for a SilverFish Scrypt Blade miner. With Bitmain Tech and ZeusMiner canceling their Scrypt ASIC projects last year (maybe they can restart them if the trend continues) and KnCMiner stopping to sell their Titan Scrypt ASICs and any other ASIC miners to end users there is just one new interesting option coming up. The new SFARDS SF100 Dual-Miner ASICs that are supposed to be available later this month, though SFARDS is still keeping silent about their pricing and expected availability is said to be July.

In the end it is good that we are finally seeing some movement surrounding LTC along with some other Scrypt crypto currencies as nothing much has been happening around Litecoin in the last few months, so the recent price jump and revived interest is definitely a good thing for people that are into altcoins. Especially now that Bitcoin mining is moving away from home miners and more and more towards large mining farms, whereas Scrypt mining is still at a phase where it is still focused mostly in the hands of small mining operations. So we are keeping a close eye on the development around Litecoin and so should you…

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.


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