Cost of Developing Bitcoin ASICs in 2022

Hey everyone! I'm curious about building something similar to the Antminer S19j Pro at 104TH/s with 3068W. Thinking it's based on 5nm tech. Let’s get into: 1) minimum funding for a 5nm ASIC design 2) timeline from concept to product 3) tech specs like transistors per TH 4) cost of a 300mm wafer 5) other relevant questions. If you know of similar threads here, point me to them!

For starters, the Antminer S19j consumes 3068 Watts. Let’s compare that with a 5nm AMD CPU. Take the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, which has a consumption of about 4.15. Just imagine the differences.

You got cash to burn? You’re looking at several hundred million to get started. Look at the Canaan A921 miner for a lesson. Its 10nm chips barely hit half the performance they promised. Designing high-performance chips isn’t for the faint-hearted, especially if you’re new to it.

NotFuzzyWarm, I get you. Chip design is a mystery for most of us. But I think many folks here are keen on the costs involved in building ASICs. Your numbers don’t reveal much. What’s the transistor count in a 28nm chip? Or a 7nm system-on-chip? For instance, Russian quasi-CPUs cost around 25 million USD to develop.

Loving your thoughts here. Why do we let China dominate this space? We should have US-made miners already. Making these devices isn’t rocket science, but we need our chip fabs to avoid dependence on China!

Come on, guys. There’s a reason chips get made in Taiwan. Launching a product like this is costly and complex. You’ve got to have serious backing for your R&D and prototyping. It’s not easy.

You really think there are US miners? I’ve never seen one. Heard a few rumors from a Telegram group, but that’s about it. Most brands seem to be from China. Maybe there’s something else out there, but it’s not widely known.

Yeah, there were US miners like Butterfly Labs and Cointerra, but they ended up being scams. KNC in Europe started strong but fell apart. All these companies depended on TSMC and Global Foundries for their chips.

Buying the rights to designs from failed companies might be cheaper than starting fresh. But you still need funds and development to compete with big names like Bitmain. Efficiency should be between 20 and 40 J/TH to stay competitive!