Whatsminer M30S has returned to mass production, Antminer intends to compete with speed in performance

Wu Blockchain exclusively learned that Shenma's latest generation 8nm mining machine M30S has just been successfully taped out by Samsung and is currently in the film return verification period. Mass production will start in the next 1-2 months, with a performance of 30-40 watts per ton and a price of less than 200 yuan per ton.

However, according to relevant sources, although the mass production speed is slow, Bitmain is confident that the Antminer S19 will gain advantages in power consumption ratio and economy.

The chip industry often refers to "tapeout" and "tape out", which means that after the chip passes the design, it will be trial-produced in foundries such as TSMC and Samsung. After the trial production returns to the company, it is called "wafer return". After testing and no problems are found, large-scale mass production can be started.

The founder of Shenma Mining Machine, Yang Zuoxing, was a part-time employee of Bitmain. He founded Shenma Mining Machine because Zhan Ketuan was unwilling to grant him 2% of the shares. In 2018 and 2019, Shenma Mining Machine's market share expanded rapidly. According to media reports, Shenma Mining Machine's revenue in the third quarter of 2019 reached 3 billion yuan.

Previously, Wu said that the next generation mining machine S19 chip of Bitmain has been sent to TSMC for wafer production and will be returned for verification soon. S19 will use TSMC's 7nm technology, and the performance index of S19PRO can reach up to 30 watts per terabyte. (Reference article: Exclusive: Bitmain is about to release the next generation mining machine S19, competing with Shenma M30S)

The competition between Antminer and Shenma is largely a competition between TSMC and Samsung for 7nm/8nm chips. TSMC has superior performance, but because there are too many customers such as 5G mobile phones, it has disadvantages in production capacity and price. In contrast, Samsung's 8nm chip performance is insufficient, but in addition to supplying Samsung mobile phones, only mining machines have a large shipment volume, so it has certain advantages in production capacity and price. Currently, Canaan has also switched from TSMC 7nm to Samsung 8nm.

Compared with Bitmain's team of nearly 2,000 people, Shenma's mining team has less than 100 people. Previously, Yang Zuoxing, the founder and CEO of Shenma, was investigated and lost contact after being sued by Bitmain for violating trade secrets, which had a certain impact on the Shenma mining team. A miner revealed that Shenma originally planned to hold an order conference for M30S in November, but because Yang Zuoxing was investigated and lost contact, the order conference was postponed.

However, Shenma Mining Machine has appointed a CEO and is trying to boost morale through the latest generation of mining machines, the M30S.

Bitmain lost a certain market share in 2019 because of overpricing its products. It is reported that after Wu Jihan returns, he will emphasize the economic efficiency of the products and the price per ton of mining machines will be more advantageous.

Yang Zuoxing once accepted an interview with the media, hinting that the 7nm Antminer led by Zhan Ketuan was not economical: Even if your power consumption ratio is a little better, miners will find that it is not cost-effective to buy your machine after a calculation, so why should they buy your mining machine? In fact, improving the economic efficiency of mining machines is indeed the current focus of Wu Jihan's team.

In addition, Bitmain has also begun internal personnel adjustments. Last week, the head of mining machine sales and the head of AI sales from Huawei resigned. Currently, sales work is handled by Bitmain's early employees.