Application -specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Chips form the backbone of Bitcoin (BTC) mines sector. ASIC machines are made for a single purpose: to solve Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm as soon as possible to collect block payments.

They are extremely good at it. One of the most commonly used ASIC machines, AntMiner S19, is able to make 82 trillion calculations per day. Second – 820 times the number of stars on the Milky Way. The ASIC production market of $ 30 billion is dominated by Bitmain. The Chinese company’s machines operate about 80% of Bitcoin’s hash rate, according to TheminerMag.

But Singapore-based Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer (BTDR) intends to shake things up with the release of a new Asic chip architecture. These new chips could bring a big leap into efficiency, the company claims while improving transparency in the ASIC making process.

“The two dominant players [Bitmain and MicroBT] are both private companies and very opaque, ”said Jeff Laberge, head of capital markets and strategic initiatives at Bitdeer, Coindesk in an interview. “They don’t really engage with the media or give any kind of guidance on what they are doing from an R&D point of view, and that makes it very difficult for final buyers to plan.”

“We want our customers to know where we are in our manufacturing process, what our roadmap is in terms of new chip design where we are in our production cycle,” Laberge said.

Shanon Squires, head of mining at Bitcoin Hosting Firm Compass Mining, Coindesk told that increased visibility to ASIC production would help miners plan new hardware shipments and make it easier to predict Bitcoin’s difficulty growth. “Bitdeer’s obligation to transparency is great for the mining sector,” she said.

“While Canaan reveals its annual sales volume for different mining models, Bitde takes it a step further by giving more frequent delivery volume updates,” Wolfie Zhao, head of research at Theminemag, told Coindesk. “Although both are smaller players in the hardware market, their efforts show good belief in promoting transparency. Hopefully this will encourage the larger market button to take note. “

Seeking efficiency

ASIC -chips have mostly used the same plan since 2014. In the last decade, the largest increases in ASIC -power efficiency have come to the founding level as the leading global chipmaker TSMC has refined its manufacturing process. While miners have also made changes to chip design, such changes have only brought step -by -step gains.

Still, progress has been huge. The very first Asic ever, Canaan’s Avalon (2013) had an effective efficiency of 6,000 Joules per year. Terahash (J/Th). Bitmain’s Antminer S21XP Hydro, the current most effective machine on the market, boasts 12 J/th efficiency.

Bitdeer, listed on Nasdaq, wants to create a whole new architecture for his Asics. “We want it to be necessary to break into what we call the single -digit area of ​​efficiency,” Laberge said, referring to mining with less than 10 J/th in efficiency.

Scaling up with the traditional plan means using gradually thinner chips. But thinner means that chips are more likely to be defective and yields per day. Batch has a tendency to fall. “You also compete with Apple and Nvidia and some of the largest companies in the world for the same materials,” Laberge said.

Bitdeer’s Chief Strategy Officer, Haris Basit, leads a team of engineers to create a new framework. Some members of this team worked with design found in Bitmain’s first ASIC chips back in 2014 – the chips whose architecture became the standard throughout the industry. (Bitmain did not respond to a request for comment.)

Bitdeer’s research has already had success. The company’s latest product, Sealminer A3, achieved an effective efficiency of 9.7 J/th under the performance attempt, the company reported Monday. This means that the A3 – which still uses the traditional ASIC plan – may end up taking the efficiency crown from the S21XP hydro.

Still, Miner’s Sealminer A4, which will use the company’s new chip architecture, is expected to consume 5 J/Th. It is likely to be the most efficient ASIC machine on the market with a significant margin.

“People have known for a long time that you could recycle [the electric] Fee on a chip, but no one has really been able to figure out how to do it in a way that allows for high performance … We’ve broken 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 delivery of it we use it several times, four, five, six times. So we get [a] 75-80% improvement of efficiency by doing so, ”Basit added.

“Our Sealminer A4 chips will use this technology, but it should also be useful more generally in digital chips, especially digital chips that are very active, such as GPUs and signal treatment chips.”

Manufacturing chips

Making ASICs is not easy. Bitdeer’s research team is divided into two devices (one in Singapore, another in Silicon Valley), both working with new chip design. “For such a simple machine-all it does is to solve the SHA-256 algorithm-is the extremely complicated to design. We have some of the best engineers in the world working on this, ”Laberge said. The company spends about $ 6-8 million on research per year. Quarter.

So far, the company has delivered new products at a fast pace. Bitdeer pushed both Sealminer A1 and A2 out in 2024 and expects A3 to enter mass production in the latter half of 2025. It says the A4 should reach the tape (the last phase of its design process) in the third quarter of the year, with a release that probably in 2025 or early 2026.

When a new chip design is completed, Bitdeer will send the plans to TSMC. Not only is the Taiwanese company the largest chip producer in the world, it is also the most advanced at a technological level, making Bitdeer’s partnership with the crucial.

“You can’t just go to TSMC and say, ‘Hi, I want 100 Exahash chips worth the next three months.’ There is a process to review it, ”Laberge said. “You go in and ask them for chip allocation and they will give it based on priority.”

When it has the plans in hand, the TSMC produces a mask that essentially acts as a template for chips – like the plate in a printing press. The mask is sent to Bitdeer along with risk chips (a small batch chips that the company can use for trials) to make sure the design is working properly. If the company needs changes to be made to the design, it is when it happens. In this case, TSMC makes corrections based on Bitdeer’s feedback and sends over a new mask with new risks. All this happens at significant costs. Bitdeer spent $ 14 million on A2’s tape-out and $ 26 million on the A3s.

When Bitdeer is satisfied with a design, the TSMC Mask uses for mass production discs. Laberge compared slices with sheets, each containing hundreds of chips. Technically, a mask can be used to create an almost unlimited number of slices, but TSMC has limited resources and can only produce a certain number of chips so that companies end up competing for them.

One of the advantages of A4’s design is, according to Laberge, that it should make the company’s chip allocation process easier. “[Basit] challenged the team to come up with a new architecture that didn’t have to go through TSMC’s latest processes, but could go back a few generations, which would allow us to use a knot that is much less in demand, ”he said. A semiconductor hub is basically a specific version of the company’s chip making technology; TSMC is constantly building new nodes in an attempt to refine its processes.

It takes about three months for Bitdeer to receive his mask and risk clashes after first submitting his design to TSMC. Then it is another three or four months for the company to receive its chips when it has given the foundry green light for mass production. Chips are sent directly to Bitdeer’s production facilities in Asia. From there, it can take four to eight weeks for the mining rigs to be fully built and packed.

Aims at the top

Despite all the costs incurred during production, some of the capital required for the manufacture of ASICs comes from Bitdeer’s customers.

Miners who are interested in buying Bitdeer’s Asics typically reduced a deposit of 25% to 50% of the total cost of the order. The production cycle tends to average six to seven months, so it doesn’t take long for the company to get rid of its funds and make money.

Building ASICs also creates benefits for Bitdeer’s own mining. Until recently, the company, founded in 2021, focused on the hosting industry, which means it provided facilities for other Bitcoin mine workers to place their rigs. Bitdeer is slowly changing out of this model and expanding its own mining next to his ASIC making arm.

The acquisition of ASICs is typically the most expensive part of the construction of a Bitcoin mining. These machines usually only last about three or four years before newer models make them outdated, so Bitcoin mining companies are constantly looking to acquire more.

Bitdeer is not only capable of reducing these costs significantly by producing its own machines, but it also has the opportunity to sell its mining rigs to other companies depending on its needs.

Down on the line, Bitdeer is aiming to give Bitmain and Microbt a race for their money and disturb it, Laberge called the duo in the ASIC market. “We want to be the best player in the market, absolutely,” Laberge said. “We think we have the team and technology to do it.”

Update (March 14, 2025, 15:30 UTC): Added the cost of the SEALMINES A3 band.