Tech giant Intel has won a patent for a processing system that claims to conduct energy-efficient high-performance Bitcoin mining.
In the document by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office or USPTO, the maker of computer processor outlined that it is a system to perform Bitcoin mining by employing energy-efficient hardware accelerators including SHA-256 engines.
The application for the patent, named "Optimized SHA-256 datapath for energy-efficient high-performance Bitcoin mining", was filed June 29, 2016.
Cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are mined by solving complex mathematical problems as a means to verify virtual currency transactions. The miners will be rewarded with new digital tokens or coins, called cryprocurrency.
The mining can be done with any processor, but application-specific integrated circuits or ASICs are used by serious miners for its speed benefits, but it requires large amount of energy.
The patent explains, "Dedicated Bitcoin mining ASICs are used to implement multiple SHA-256 engines that may deliver a performance of thousands of hashes per second while consuming power of greater than 200 W. Embodiments of the present disclosure employ micro-architectural optimizations including selective hardwiring certain parameters in Bitcoin mining computation."
The document shows that hardwiring of these parameters eliminates the need for recursive rounds of computations of these parameters and reduce the overall circuit area and power consumption by about 15 percent.
The resulting chip would also be smaller than the ones presently used.
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