Bitcoin mining hardware giant BitFury has announced that the testing of its 16 nm application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) has met expectations.
The company unveiled the chip several months ago, stating that it can attain energy efficiencies of 0.06 J/GH (1 J = 0.000000278 kwh, 1 GH = 109 hashes), which would be unparalleled in the industry. The company said the chip will herald the "exahash era", whereby the total Bitcoin mining network Hash Rate reaches 1 EH/s (1 EH = 109 GH). In a press release today, the company stated:
"On average, the measured power efficiency of tested engineering samples of the new BitFury Chip ranges from 0.055 joules per gigahash to 0.07 joules per gigahash."
The company also stated that each chip delivers a minimum 100 GH/s. A maximum hash rate of 140 GH/s is attainable with air cooling, and 184 GH/s with immersion cooling- a technology developed by a startup acquired by BitFury earlier this year. Each chip is capable of running on 0.35 V.
BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov claimed: "We understand that it will be nearly impossible for any older technology to compete with the performance of our new 16nm technology."
The company partnered with Global Unichip Corporation (GUC), a Taiwan-based ASIC designer, to develop the chips.
BitFury said it will begin producing the chip en masse and is targeting Q1 2016 to bring it to the market through "integration and reseller partners."
