Canada-based Squire Mining said on Tuesday that it had teamed up with Samsung Electronics and Goanchips to manufacture next-generation application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips.
After announcing its transition from physical to cryptocurrency mining, Squire revealed in August that it had engaged an “undisclosed” design fabrication firm to undertake the back-end design, testing and production of next-generation ASIC chips for mining Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and other altcoins. The company has now revealed Goanchips to be its design house and Samsung Electronics to be its foundry partner, manufacturing the 10nm ASIC chips in South Korea.
According to Squire’s Tuesday press release, the field programmable gate array (FPGA) prototype for Squire’s first ASIC chip is expected to be completed by the end of September.
“In addition, once a working FPGA prototype of our initial ASIC chip is developed, we will be able to aggressively accelerate the design and development of our initial mining rig for Bitcoin and associated cryptocurrencies,” Squire stated.
Samsung announced in January it had started manufacturing ASIC chips for “mass production” in China. A few months later, the electronics giant also revealed it is providing ASIC chips for hardware manufacturer Halong Mining, formerly known as Dragonmint T1 — one of the main competitors to the Chinese mining giant Bitmain.
While Samsung has not provided many details of its crypto mining chips venture, the company has revealed strong contributions to its earnings. In the first quarter of the year, Samsung’s semiconductor division accounted for about 70% of total operating profits.
“Demand for the semiconductor division increased due to sales of system LSIs [ASICs] for flagship smartphones and demand for virtual currency mining chips,” Samsung explained at the time.