Re: first bitmain antminer S10 speculation thread (probably)
Well, Avalon's supposedly going to make a 16NM miner sooner or later, the Avalon 7. Not sure if that's true or not, but if Avalon actually make a miner capable of rivalling the S9, they might start researching the 10NM tech in hopes of making a more efficient miner. Bitfury's also purported to be making a 16nm miner, although those things cost your soul to buy. ASIC technology will get to 10nm sooner or later, but the 16NM process is still young and maturing; chips can only get more efficient even in the same gen.
If that is the final truth
, also Qualcomm and Mediatek would not go for 10nm so early for their smartphone processors. They are doing this because they are expecting more performance and better efficiency (longer battery run time) at lower production costs (ideally). This drives the semiconductor industry since 50 years. You will get for sure higher performance and better efficiency at 10nm compared to 16nm. But that the production costs are reduced in parallel is very questionable. This good old Moore's Law effect disappeared already at the 28nm to 16nm transition.
I bet, that Bitmain pays more for the pure 16nm silicon than they did for 28nm normalized to a TH/s.
And a Bitcoin ASIC is much more sensitive to production costs than a smartphone processor, especially if you have free or almost free power.