Samsung confirms making ASIC chips for cryptocurrency mining

Yesterday, it was reported that Samsung is entering the cryptocurrency market by making ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) chips for mining hardware companies. Samsung has now confirmed this news to TechCrunch. This news follows Samsung’s Q4 2017 earnings, where its semiconductor business has performed stupendously well to emerge as the largest chip maker in the world by ending Intel’s 24-year reign at the top.

When asked for a comment, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch “Samsung’s foundry business is currently engaged in the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining chips. However, we are unable to disclose further details regarding our customers”. The spokesperson refused to divulge any further details on this.

World’s largest chipmaker enters cryptocurrency market

Making ASIC chips makes business sense for Samsung as it also manufactures many components used to build mining rigs. Samsung already makes high-performance memory chips for GPUs and industry-leading SSDs. While GPUs were traditionally targeted at gamers, they have a found a new market in cryptocurrency mining. In the last couple of years, mining has moved from relying on consumer-grade graphics cards to ASIC chips, which are better suited for mining in terms of efficiency and performance.

Unlike normal computer chips which are designed to perform a variety of functions, ASIC mining chips are specifically built for a single computational task: to compute hashes very quickly. This makes them faster at mining and more power-efficient – both of which are key considerations for building a mining rig.

Samsung now joins the Taiwanese chip maker TSMC in the cryptocurrency space. Samsung will be selling its ASIC chips to companies that build and sell ready-to-use mining rigs in the market. It is not yet clear how big the market for ASIC chips is for the largest chip maker in the world to invest its resources in, and if it makes any significant impact on company’s already impressive bottom line.

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