How Bitdeer Is Transforming Bitcoin Mining Machines
Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips form the backbone of the bitcoin (BTC) mining industry. ASIC machines are made for a single purpose: To solve Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm as fast as possible in order to collect block rewards.
They’re extremely good at it. One of the most widely used ASIC machines, the Antminer S19, is capable of making 82 trillion computations per second — 820 times the number of stars in the
But
“The two dominant players [Bitmain and MicroBT] are both private companies, and very opaque,”
“We want our customers to know where we’re at in our manufacturing process, what our roadmap is in terms of new chip designs, where we’re at in our production cycles,” LaBerge said.
“While Canaan discloses its annual sales volume for various mining models,
Seeking efficiency
ASIC chips have used mostly the same blueprint since 2014. Over the last decade, the biggest increases in ASIC power efficiency have come at the foundry level, as leading global chipmaker TSMC has refined its manufacturing process. While miners have also made alterations to chip design, such modifications have only brought incremental gains.
Even so, progress has been tremendous. The very first ever ASIC, Canaan’s Avalon (2013) had a power efficiency of 6,000 joules per terahash (J/TH). Bitmain’s Antminer S21XP Hydro, the current most efficient machine on the market, boasts 12 J/TH efficiency.
Scaling up with the traditional blueprint means using progressively thinner chips. But thinner means chips are more likely to be defective and yields per batch tend to fall. “You’re also competing with Apple and
Bitdeer’s Chief Strategy Officer,
Bitdeer’s research has already had successes. The company’s most recent product, the SEALMINER A3, achieved a power efficiency of 9.7 J/TH during performance trials, the firm reported on Monday. That means the A3 — which still uses the traditional ASIC blueprint — could end up taking the efficiency crown from the S21XP Hydro.
Yet the miner’s SEALMINER A4, which will employ the firm’s new chip architecture, is expected to consume 5 J/TH. It will likely be the most efficient ASIC machine on the market by a significant margin.

“People have known for a long time that you could recycle [the electric] charge on a chip, but no one's really been able to figure out how to do that in a way that allows for high performance… We've cracked the code on how to do this in a very high performance application,” Basit told the Coin Stories podcast in December.
“Instead of just using [charge] once and discharging it, we use it several times, four, five, six times. So we get [a] 75-80% improvement in efficiency by doing that,” Basit added.
“Our SEALMINER A4 chips will use this technology, but it should also be applicable more generally in digital chips, especially digital chips that are highly active, like GPUs and signal processing chips.”
Manufacturing chips
Making ASICs isn’t easy. Bitdeer’s research team is divided into two units (one in
So far, the firm has been delivering new products at a fast pace.
When a new chip design is finalized,
“You can't just go to TSMC and say, ‘Hey, I want 100 exahash worth of chips in the next three months.’ There's a process for going through that,” LaBerge said. “You go in and ask them for chip allocation, and they'll give that based on priority.”
Once it has the plans in hand, TSMC produces a mask, which essentially functions as a template for chips — like the platen in a printing press. The mask is sent to
When
One of the advantages of the A4’s design, according to LaBerge, is that it’s supposed to make the firm’s chip allocation process easier. “[Basit] challenged the team to come up with a new architecture that didn’t need to undergo TSMC’s latest processes, but could step back a couple of generations, which would allow us to use a node that is much less in demand,” he said. A semiconductor node is basically a specific version of the firm’s chip manufacturing technology; TSMC is constantly building new nodes in an effort to refine its processes.
It takes roughly three months for
Aiming for the top
Despite all the costs incurred during production, some of the capital required for manufacturing ASICs comes from Bitdeer’s customers.
Miners interested in purchasing Bitdeer’s ASICs typically put down a deposit of 25% to 50% of the total cost of the order. The production cycle tends to average at six to seven months, so it doesn’t take long for the company to recuperate its funds and make a profit.
Building ASICs also creates advantages for Bitdeer’s own mining operations. Up until recently the firm, which was founded in 2021, focused on the hosting business, meaning that it provided facilities for other bitcoin miners to place their rigs.
The acquisition of ASICs is typically the most expensive part of building up a bitcoin mining operation. These machines usually only last around three or four years before newer models make them obsolete, so bitcoin mining firms are constantly looking to acquire more.
Not only is
Down the line,
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