Compass Mining has recently issued a warning to the mining community regarding the updated Antminer S19 series devices.
According to the company’s official blog post, Bitmain, the mining equipment manufacturer, has made some changes to the design of the Bitmain S19 ASIC hashboard, which may severely affect the performance of new devices.
Compass Mining has stated that they view the design decision to move to aluminum plating on hashboards as a negative change that will cause an increase in ASIC failures and maintenance costs.
The lack of Peripheral Interface Controllers (PICs) and the increased difficulty of replacing faulty chips can lead to increased repair costs and downtime for miners.
William Foxley, the company’s spokesperson, explained that the new machines lack a Peripheral Interface Controller (PIC) on the ASIC, which makes managing individual hash panels more difficult than those that have a PIC.
Devices without a PIC will not be able to continue hashing on one or two boards. The new Bitmain devices have also begun to install single-sided printed circuit boards with an aluminum substrate, which can contribute to overheating problems.
According to Foxley, the aluminum coating can cause a significantly higher rate of thermal failure when reaching higher device and ambient temperatures than those built on printed circuit boards (PCBs).
The use of aluminum-coated hashboards can lead to increased maintenance time and costs, as the likelihood of tracks, chips, or other parts malfunctioning increases, and ASIC repair shops that are not owned by Bitmain will face great difficulties in repair due to the use of an aluminum plate.
William Foxley believes that due to the excessive consolidation of all components on one side of the board, the probability of errors in the hashboard increases.
In January, research firm Allied Market Research predicted that the mining equipment market will come close to $1.7 billion by 2031, with a CAGR of 12.6%.
Despite this positive outlook, miners are advised to prepare for repairs in advance as the next generation of devices is actively replenishing the fleets.