What is an Integrated Circuit?
An integrated circuit (IC) or microchip is a set of electronic circuits made using semiconductor materials (usually silicon) in small dimensions (generally less than one square centimeter). If thousands of transistors are made in one microchip, they are referred to as highly compact integrated circuits.
Each integrated circuit or microchip performs a specific task or task in a circuit. Each of them has several inputs, and by processing these inputs, they generate output values and place them in their output section. Some microchips work with analog signals, and some with digital signals. The CPU is one of the essential integrated circuits that accommodate billions of transistors in a small area of a semiconductor.
What is ASIC?
As mentioned earlier, particular purpose integrated circuits are chips designed to perform a specific activity far superior to conventional chips in terms of efficiency, operating speed, and power consumption. But on the other hand, they do not have the flexibility and scalability of ordinary chips because a particular application is embedded in them as hardware and can not be changed and expanded.
On the other hand, the cost required to produce these chips is so high that if the number of chips needed is less than a specific limit, their production is not economically viable, and their design takes a long time. On the other hand, if we want to make a small change in these chips, it takes a lot of time and money.
According to research conducted by the Cryptocurrency Team, the world’s largest integrated-circuit companies, including IBM, pronounce the term “application-specific integrated circuit” as “ASIC.” One of the sources that explicitly mention the pronunciation of this phrase is the edacafe website, which writes the word’s accent as “a-sick.”
What is a Hash Function?
It is a function that takes an input of infinite size, operates on it, and then produces a fixed-length output. Each information will have a unique production. The intake of a hash function can be any data, number, file, etc., and its output is called a hash. The hash is represented as a number in base 16 (hexadecimal). Below is the md5 hash function, which generates a 32-hex-based output from the input.
The hash function is irreversible. This means that you can not guess the input by knowing the output unless you try all possible modes. Testing all possible inputs is known as a brute-force attack. Hash functions are often used to prove that the data is unadulterated and equal to the original version.
What is Cryptocurrencies Mining?
The process of approving transactions and adding them to the blockchain, and mining new coins is called. Anyone with an Internet connection and the proper hardware can participate in the mining process. Because cryptocurrencies are inherently decentralized, different people worldwide control their networks known as miners. Still, there must be an incentive to manage the network, and that motivation is the reward of miners.
Since cryptocurrencies and mining are relatively new, the sale of the first bitcoin coins dates back to 2013. Since then, mining ASICs have been developed to mine other currencies, such as Litecoin and Dash. If cryptocurrencies transform the financial industry, ASICs will transform the cryptocurrency industry.
ASICs provide security for China’s blockchain network, but they do so with a lot of electricity. You need hardware and software knowledge to build an ASIC. In the mining process, the miner must guess a 64-digit number based on 16 (hexadecimal) that is less than or equal to the hash, and the first person to guess this number is rewarded with a cryptocurrency. The higher the hash rate of a mining hardware device, the faster it can guess this number.
Mining curves are customized to mine cryptocurrencies. So basically, any mining rig that can mine bitcoin can mine all the other currencies that use the bitcoin cryptographic algorithm, SHA256. For example, Antminers, based on the SHA256 cryptographic algorithm, can mine cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Half Coin, and Pierre Coin.
Comparing the CPU, GPU, and ASICs is complex because the CPU and GPU can be considered ASICs. The only feature that distinguishes mining systems is that it does not have all the CPU and GPU capabilities. Do not expect to install an operating system or video game on Bitcoin, as this chip is only designed to mine a specific algorithm. The efficiency of an e-mining is very high because it uses all the resources without wasting any of them to perform a particular task.
Selection of ASIC
How do ASICs Work?
So far, we have learned that mining is generally guessing a number using complex calculations. Whether an ASIC miner or a GPU mining rig, mining hardware performs many computations to solve the hash function. In work-based blockchains such as Bitcoin, the first person to guess the number wins the block reward and tells the rest of the network to stop solving the hash and move on to the next hash.
Today, many influential people and computer systems are trying to mine Bitcoin. Because of the high cost of hardware resources, miners in mining pools have started collaborating to guess the hash and record the block and reward it. They also divide among themselves.
The faster a hardware miner has, the more revenue he will have. A parameter measures the speed of mining devices called the hash rate, calculated in hashes per second. The higher the hash rate, the higher the mining revenue.
One of the reasons miners are so interested in ASIC is that it gives them a better chance of mining cryptocurrencies than other processors for their capital. Each cryptocurrency has its cryptographic hash algorithm, and ASIC miners are designed to fit these algorithms.
The efficiency of ASIC mining is very high because it uses all computational resources only for a specific purpose while wasting no resources.
Factors Influencing the Selection of ASIC
One of the main things to consider when mining a cryptocurrency is that the value of the cryptocurrency obtained must be greater than the total cost you pay for the hardware and power consumed.
One of the main factors in choosing a miner device is the hash power of the device. The hash rate is the amount of processing that a miner can do per second. Each hash is a component of a block. A hash per second is the number of equations that are solved per second.
Another critical factor is the amount of electricity consumed by the miner, which is very important when buying a miner because it is not the case that buying a miner with a higher hash rate will always bring us more income: the lower the power-to-hash ratio, the more economical the device.
In general, if you want to accurately calculate the revenue of a miner device in one month, you have to divide the purchase price of the device by its output hash; with this amount, we understand how much the price of each hash device has cost us and after calculating The price of each hash of the device We must also subtract the amount of electricity consumed from the total income to obtain the amount of net income.
Conclusion
In this article, we tried to answer the question of what ASIC is in general. Considering the points made in this article, it does not seem rational to use an ASIC miner these days alone. It does not matter if we are talking about atrium mining or bitcoin mining; Doing so will only lead to high costs and even losses.
Cryptocurrency experts think it makes more sense to join a mining pool; Because by doing this, you connect your miner to a network of miners and help increase the network mining power. Remember, before choosing ASIC hardware, be sure to do the necessary research and choose a device that aligns with your resources and goals.
On the other hand, there are many websites to compare the prices of different cryptocurrencies and their progress in the market. Cryptocompare.com is one of these examples that you can use to select your desire based on the data available in the Quinn market.
Now that you are familiar with the general concept of ASIC, to better understand the concept of Bitcoin and mining this cryptocurrency, we suggest that you also read the article “ what is bitcoin halving and influencing on bitcoin prices “.
