A recently published presentation reveals that the technology company Intel is seeking to patent a hardware "accelerator" for Bitcoin mining chips.
The request for a "bitcoin mining hardware accelerator" was published on Thursday, although it was originally sent to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in September 2016. In the presentation, Intel describes a method using the which could increase the existing Bitcoin mining process, consuming less electricity, thus spending less money, in the process.
As Intel writes in the presentation :
"Because the software and hardware used in Bitcoin mining uses brute force to perform repeated and infinite SHA-256 functions, the Bitcoin mining process can take a lot of energy and use large amounts of hardware space. The embodiments described here optimize the Bitcoin mining operations by reducing the space used and the power consumed by the extraction hardware. "
The Intel application continues to point out that its "accelerator" approach could reduce energy use by up to 35%, compared to general-purpose processors.
It is a remarkable presentation of a company that was once connected to the mining operation of Silicon Valley startup 21 Inc, which later offered its Bitcoin computer of the same name and then pivoted to a social networking offer called Earn.com.
Intel built chips for 21 Inc in its foundry, although an implied plan to integrate the chips into other products of the company never materialized.
Notably, Intel suggested that the concept is not limited to application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), but also to "processors, on-chip systems and field-programmable gate platforms." Put more simply, the "accelerator" could be applied to a matrix of mining configurations.
Although it did not explicitly focus on cryptocurrency mining, Intel's previous patent application, published in December, suggested that the technology giant believes that the process of genetic sequencing requires a lot of energy.