Bitfury debuts new ASIC chip for ‘heightened’ crypto mining

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Cryptocurrency mining giant Bitfury Group has unveiled its latest crypto mining application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip, the Bitfury Clarke.

In a blog post, the crypto company described the 14nm Bitfury Clarke ASIC as “unparalleled in performance and efficiency.” The chip, which is fully customized for SHA256 Bitcoin mining, boasts of 55 millijoules per gigahash (mJ/GH) power efficiency rate and up to 120 gigahashes per second (GH/s) hashrate. It also offers fully integrated controllable clock generation, integrated power-on-reset circuit, and comes in Pb-free 6×6 mm FCLGA 35L or FCLGA 4L packages. Supply voltage for Bitfury Clarke can go as low as 0.3 volts.

According to its data sheet, Bitfury Clarke is “a double SHA256 ASIC designed for Bitcoin mining with optimized package size for smaller PCB designs.” The ASIC can easily switch between two task buffers—one for SHA256 calculations while the other can be filled by “task write” command.

The Clarke chipset will be integrated into the firm’s existing crypto mining hardware, from its mining servers and BlockBoxes to its crypto mining facilities in Canada, Norway, Iceland, and the Republic of Georgia, Bitfury stated.

CEO Valery Vavilos said Bitfury takes into consideration “all factors, including silicon packaging, chip efficiency, optimal power distribution, cooling designs and speed of development,” during the design process. This, Vavilos explained, “will lead to solutions that deliver the best ROI to our customers—regardless of ASIC size.”

Bitfury will offer enterprise-grade professional customer support and design consulting to any customer looking to integrate the Bitfury Clarke ASIC into their mining operations.

Bitfury describes itself as a “leading full service blockchain technology company,” developing blockchain-based platforms that companies can use to digitize their assets. The firm is behind the Lightning Network protocol, which promises to scale BTC “to billions of transactions per day” off chain using a network of micropayment channels. In March, Bitfury secured a deal with the Norwegian government to build a $35-million data center near the Mo I Rana town.