South Korean giant Samsung Electronics has announced that it is launching the production of 3nm mining chips with performance that could really put its competitors in the shade. With this new model, Samsung already surpasses the latest Antminer, and still plans to manufacture a new 2nm chip by 2025.
Samsung announces new 3nm chip for mining
Samsung Electronics, the Samsung Group’s subsidiary that specializes in manufacturing electronic products and components, recently announced that it has launched production of chips that could significantly reduce the carbon emissions induced by cryptocurrency mining via proof-of-work (PoW).
At a microscopic 3nm in size, these chips are built on the Gate-All-Around Architecture (GAA) and promise revolutionary performance compared to 5nm models: 45% less power consumption, 23% better performance and 16% smaller area size.
These performance gains are due to the materials and technology used to produce these chips. Samsung chose to use nanosheets instead of the usual nanowires, allowing it to optimize the energy used while maximizing performance.
Samsung, which has just started the production of semiconductors, will thus offer the most powerful hardware on the market, beating the Antminer S19X model and its 5nm chip, launched this month by Bitmain.
But that’s not all: the South Korean manufacturer said it is already working on 2nm chips, which are planned for release in 2025.
A multi-lateral production
According to the release, Samsung has been working on these chips since 2021 in collaboration with multiple partners like Ansys, Cadence, Siemens and Synopsys as part of the Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem (SAFE), a network of partnerships that allows the firm to bring new components to market at lightning speed.
Siyoung Choi, president and head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics, emphasizes the company’s competitiveness:
“We will continue to actively innovate in the development of competitive technologies and implement processes that accelerate the achievement of technology maturity.”
Samsung has shown interest in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the past. At the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S22, Samsung decided to offer a commemorative non-fungible token (NFT) to its South Korean customers when they pre-ordered the model.
In January, the company announced a series of smart TVs that would host both an NFT explorer and aggregator, allowing customers to buy, trade and view NFTs directly from their TVs.
