After announcing its plans to enter the crypto-mining market with its first blockchain chipset earlier this month, Intel has now announced its first Bitcoin mining chip during the ongoing International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2022 event. The chipset, dubbed the Bonanza Mine BMZ1 ASIC, is the first generation SoC under the “blockchain accelerator” line. Along with this, the company announced a Bonanza Mine System, powered by the Bonanza Mine chipsets, as well.
Intel Bonanza Mine BMZ1 ASIC SoC, Bonanza Mine System
The Intel Bonanza Mine BMZ1 ASIC SoC is a 7nm chipset and can deliver up to 137 Giga HASHes/ second (GH/s) while consuming 7.5W of power. Although Intel claims its blockchain accelerators can allow for power-efficient mining operations, the BMZ1 chipset faces tough competition from other market leaders like MicroBT and Bitmain.
Along with this, Intel also announced the Bonanza Mine System, consisting of 300 BMZ1 chipsets, four hash boards, an Intel FPGA control unit, 4 fans, and a programmable power supply unit (PSU). This ready-to-run Bitcoin-mining computer can deliver up to 40 Tera HASHes/second (TH/s) mining performance while consuming 3,600W of power.
Although it sounds like a good choice for small miners, the performance of the Bonanza Mine System is average as compared to rivals like Bitmain’s Antminer S19 XP unit, which can deliver up to 140 TH/s of mining performance.
Intel also said that the second-generation Bonanza Mine BMZ2 ASIC chipset is also ready for shipping, which can reportedly deliver 40.4 GH/s of mining performance. In fact, the company says that it has already started shipping the BMZ2 chipsets to clients like GRIID Infrastructure and Jack Dorsey’s Block, previously known as Square. The second-gen BMZ2-based Bonanza Mine System will be available in the market later this year and will offer better performance than the current BMZ1-based Bonanza Mine System.
With the BMZ-series ASIC chipset and the Bonanza Mine System, Intel aims to establish its presence in the booming crypto-mining sector. What do you think about Intel’s new Bitcoin-mining chipset and the ready-to-run mining computer? Let us know in the comments below.
