A leaked brief from Israeli bitcoin miner manufacturer Spondoolies-Tech has surfaced online, revealing more details about the RockerBox ASIC behind its SP-30 unit, which it bills as “the most powerful miner available”.
The manufacturer is gearing up to introduce its SP-30, codenamed Yukon, by the end of summer. With an effective hash rate of 5.4-6.6 TH/s at a nominal power consumption of 2,500W, the bitcoin miner comes in a 2 U rack with two 1,200W power supply units and is cooled by four 80mm fans.
Spondoolies-Tech co-founder Guy Corem spoke with CoinDesk earlier this year on how the company’s non-standard implementation of SHA-256 has lead to substantial efficiency improvements.
The company says the Yukon miner will deliver 2.1 TH/kW (2.1 GH/Watt) – an impressive figure made possible by the use of 28nm silicon and design tweaks. Each SP-30 Yukon unit will feature 30 RockerBox ASICs.
RockerBox ASIC outlined
On its website Spondoolies-Tech has some basic RockerBox ASIC specs. This 28nm part comes in a 19x19mm FCBGA package and it has a has rate of 200 GH/s per chip. The rated voltage stands at 0.7V, while the recommended voltage range is 0.63V – 0.8V. Power consumption is rated at 0.34W per GH/s.
The chip has a wide range of overclock and downclock options. However, the new product brief offers a bit more insight and hard specs.
The RockerBox is a multiple double design, with 193 double SHA low-power, high-performance engines, or cores. Each engine performs a single hash per cycle. The document states the chip can operate at 0.55V-0.8V and each engine can be shut down to conserve power.
The document also features a schematic of the chip and more package info – it is a more or less standard 19x19mm FCBGA design with 480 balls.
Power options
Here are a couple of typical operation parameters outlined in the product brief.
Operating at a core voltage of 0.6V the chip runs at 900MHz and delivers ~174 GH/s. It draws 55W of power, which translates into a power/performance ratio of 0.3W per GH/s.
At 0.7V the chip is clocked at 1,100MHz and delivers 212 GH/s. However, the higher clock and voltage also bring down efficiency, so the chip can draw as much as 90W, or 0.4W per GH/s.
Remember that talk of a range of overclock and downclock options? Well, this is what the company is referring to, although the information is clearly not fit for publication on the product page.
Designing ASICs is not a straightforward process and it is understandable that Spondoolies-Tech does not want to include all details on its site, at least not until the designs are finalized and shipping.
In addition to impressive efficiency figures, the SP30 Yukon also has a competitive price tag of $5,095. The RockerBox ASIC taped out in late May and the company says it is working on a next generation ASIC, slated to launch in Q4.
Disclaimer: This article should not be viewed as an endorsement of any of the companies mentioned. Please do your own extensive research before considering investing any funds in these products.