Stating that the mining race is heating up again would be a huge understatement! Last week saw Kncminer announce that they’re currently developing 16nm chips and over the weekend information has emerged that Black Arrow Ltd are going one step further with their new 14nm “Minion” chips.
The project has likely been in development for some time with the company announcing that tape out is scheduled for December 2014, with the finished product likely to be available for shipping in May 2015.
In an interview with Cryptocoinnews, the Hong Kong based company explained about the shift to 14nm, explaining that the silicon industry is beginning to take Bitcoin more seriously than before
[blockquote]We believe that if Bitcoin mining is going to continue, there will be a need for more power efficient ASICs. The silicon industry is taking us more seriously than last year, and we believe there’s a bright future ahead. We do not want to make any speculations into profitability of the Bitcoin mining as our business is in hardware development, not in financial investment.[/blockquote]
Though Black Arrow have a history of both chip and hardware development their latest range of miners have been plagued with issues, ranging from seriously late delivery, to issues with the delivered power supplies causing the hardware to fail, this has caused miners to instantly dub the 14nm development as being fake, with many stating that if the chips do materialise they’ll still avoid the company due to past issues.
Will Black Arrow be able to turn the 14nm chips around on time and more importantly change the minds of their previous customers? We’ll report as and when we hear more information. Stay tuned!