Technology advancement passes through a steady and fast growth beyond imagination in a number of ways. All advancement aims to explore a new way of getting this done in a smart way. During this process, it does affect and encourage the existing methods and invariably face challenges. Obviously, it did happen with crypto mining with no exception.
What Is Quantum Tunneling?
An electronic device is mainly built using transistors, which is, of course, the basic block. The main function of this unit is to amplify the electronic signals and also to switch them between the on and off states. The power processed by the whole circuit mainly depends on the number of transistors used. The higher the number of transistors, the greater the power. However, there is a limit to use the number of transistors due to ‘quantum tunnelling.’ The dual nature of the electron wave-particle nature forces the electronic component to exhibit ‘quantum tunnelling.’
Quantum Tunneling and Crypto Mining
The quantum tunnelling has a heavy impact on crypto mining. The tunnelling effect increases the power of ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) chips and makes things more difficult.
Even though the electrons exhibit dual nature, the tunnelling effect is closely related to the wave characteristics of the electron. Therefore, an electron can never make a halt at a barrier in a given instant. The electron wave, in turn, passes through the barrier and reaches the other side, if the barrier is considerably thin.
It occurs in the transistors which are less than 5nm resulting in all time ‘active’ state. An electronic device functions properly, only if the transistors are accurate. Very small transistors make the device non-functional.
A Hurdle to Overcome
GMO, a Japanese firm are the ones to develop the 33 TH/s Bitcoin mining rig using 7nm transistors and it is the smallest transistors used on the crypto mining chips till now.
A different technology was approached to make use of 5nm transistor developed by the IBM in 2017. Apart from this, there came another invention of 1nm by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, however, they fail in mass production of the transistor.
No doubt, an entirely new technology can be used to overcome quantum tunnelling. However, the challenge while using transistors on silicon chips is that they have almost reached the limit. Worth reading the Bitcoin tweets in this context and it is clear that quantum tunnelling hinder the advancements in crypto mining chips as of now.
Quantum Tunneling May Deter Powerful Crypto Mining Chips https://t.co/xJxWjqlDI6 #bitcoin
— Bitcoin Bolt (@BitcoinBolt) July 14, 2018
Let us hope that the technology will evolve to a new level.
