Bitmain rival Canaan amps up crypto miners with 5nm chip

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Canaan Creative is equipping its crypto mining products with TSMC’s 5nm chip in the first quarter of 2020, 8BTC reported.

The semiconductor chips are designed and manufactured by Taiwan-based giant TSMC. The 5nm (N5) manufacturing technology of TSMC is expected to provide significant benefits in terms of output, power, and area scaling, which is why the contract manufacturer of semiconductors expects a substantial number of its customers to embrace this method. TSMC claims that its N5 technology can ramp up even faster than its 7nm (N7) process.

Earlier this month, Bitmain tested the world’s first 5nm cryptocurrency mining chip. The average yield of the TSMC 5nm testing chip reached 80%, and efficiency improved between 7% and 15% compared with 7nm chip. Bitmain will put the chip into mass production in the first half of 2020, according to the report.

Previously, Canaan was selected to test the first 7nm chip, although the shipment volume was not significant. TSMC will give priority to Apple, Hisilicon, Qualcomm, and other significant customers in terms of production capacity. In terms of production capacity, both Bitmain and Canaan the 5nm is more symbolic than practical.

Canaan is currently the second-largest ASIC-based miner manufacturer following Bitmain. Their goal is to bypass Bitmain to become the number one crypto mining manufacturer by market share. The company also went public recently on the New York-based NASDAQ stock exchange after several failures in the Asian market.

Canaan will be the only major manufacturer of mining equipment in cooperation with TSMC and Samsung. Jianping Kong, a co-founder of Canaan, had stated that Canaan would have a better understanding of the supply chain and more capital investment after their initial public offering (IPO). His company would have opportunities for working with suppliers.