ASIC supplier Bitmain has postponed shipments for its Ethereum ASIC miner, the Antminer E3, from April to mid- or late-July due to the circuit's weaker-than-expected performance, but the company still expects the shipments to reach the original target of 1.8-2 million units in 2018, according to industry sources.
Bitmain will begin accepting pre-orders for the Antminer E3 in April and will start a small volume of shipments in July. The mass shipments of the ASIC miner are planned for the fourth quarter of 2018 after the release of a revised version of the miner,the sources said, adding the ASIC is manufactured on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 28nm process.
Because of the declining value of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, some market watchers are concerned that Bitmain may significantly cut its orders with TSMC. However, the sources from the upstream supply chain revealed that Bitmain so far has not made any major adjustment to its orders. In addition to 16nm and 28nm mining and AI chip orders, Bitmain is currently in talks with the Taiwan-based wafer foundry about manufacturing on its 7nm process.
Bitmain's 16nm Bitcoin ASIC orders have recently been shifted from TSMC's Fab 14 in Taiwan to the fab in Nanjing, China as Fab 14 will be upgraded to support a 12nm manufacturing process. The orders are expected to begin shipments in May, the sources said.
Fab 14 has already obtained orders from MediaTek for its AI-supported Helio P60 smartphone AP and Nvidia for its next-generation GPUs, the sources added.
In addition to the Antminer E3, Bitmain's Sophon BM1680 AI chip is also manufactured on TSMC's 28nm, the sources noted.