Post
Topic
Board Mining speculation
Re: SHA256d IC design question
by
2112
on 25/03/2018, 00:37:12 UTC
Right now I looking into on-chip temperature sensors and voltage regulation to use in a feedback loop that may require outside IP if feasible which would require a license.  Those licenses may forgo the ability to use the non-profit approach.

Something I pulled up after a quick search.  It has digital output.  Not sure if that is an issue and how to calibrate it.
https://www.design-reuse.com/sip/temperature-sensor-series-6-with-digital-output-tsmc-7nm-ff-high-accuracy-thermal-sensing-for-reliability-and-optimisation-ip-43229/?login=1
Don't make a mistake of putting nontrivial control logic onto the same chip as the mining circuitry. In case of failure you won't be able to distinguish between the real fault or bogus fault induced by the noise and/or heat from mining logic. By definition the mining logic has to work at the edge of starvation or hyperthermia death, otherwise it is operating far from optimal.

Helveticoin did something like you are thinking (including an on-die ARM controller) and it was completely non-competitive. It had to be severely underclocked to maintain the reliability of the controlling SoC.

Spondoolies included on-die power-on-self-test and then had to create software workarounds for mining engines that fail the POST but operate correctly after a warm-up. Some desperadoes resorted to preheating their miners with a hair dryer.

You'll be much better off with just temperature-sensing diodes or averaging multiple low-accuracy temperature sensors located in far-away corners of the die.