4 ms·

saving energy and time among other benefits Wouldn't (bitcoin) miners be a good fit for async circuits? Simple logic, low power, high performance.

• rocqua 9y ago
  The quote totes an advantage whilst waiting for input. I take that to mean having really good idle performance. Miner ASICs don't make money when idle.
  • ithkuil 9y ago
    I don't know the details of the circuitry needed for bitcoin hashing, but it can contain steps that are not executed continuously and hence being idle until they have some work to do (i.e. they have some inputs). Reducing the power consumption of a miner directly translates into making more money.
    • firethief 9y ago
      Pipelining would make those idle circuits useful rather than less costly
      • 15155 9y ago
        And as far as I know, most of these are heavily pipelined already.
  • a_imho 9y ago
    I mean could doing away with the clock improve signal propagation time while reducing consumption while hashing in theory? Maybe even reduce chip size?
• avodonosov 9y ago
  You're reading my thoughts. I'm thinking about usage of that chip for mining for 5 days already (since advertising it in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15249289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15249289 This chip has other good properties in addition to "no clock".