September 21, Bitmain, the world’s dominant cryptocurrency mining chip producer has launched its new 7nm application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining chip for the SHA256 algorithm that used by a series of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin. Obviously, the firm is consolidating its position in the mining world. However, its strong rivals are not going to surrender easily in this arms race.

Jihan Wu, CEO and co-founder of Bitmain announced the new chip BM1391 at the World Digital Mining Summit on Last Friday. According to Wu, the BM1391 chip is so effective that, it uses the advanced 7nm FinFET semiconductor manufacturing technology, contains a billion of transistors and achieves an energy/hash ratio of 42J/TH.

Wu also noted that the mass production of the BM1391 chip will begin and this 7nm ASIC chip will soon be applied to the new generation of mining rigs to improves the new miners’ performance in power and power consumption.

Many industrial insiders believe that the mining rigs houses the BM1391 will be much faster and energy efficient than the past mining devices.

Notably, the China-based Ebang Communication, one of Bitmain’s biggest rivals has also announced at the World Digital Mining Summit the next generation of its flagship mining rigs: the Ebit Miner E11, E11+ and E11++.

According to Ebang, the E11 series features a 10nm chip, the E11++ may achieve a power consumption as low as 45J/TH at 44TH/s while the lower-end E11 offers a 30TH/s hashrate at an energy ratio of 65J/TH.

The three new ASIC mining devices are also designed for SHA-256 compatible coins and the E11 series sales will be forthcoming according to its official website.

According to the specs, the E11++ may outperform Bitmain’s new mining rigs with the BM1391 chip. In addition, a Chinese-Canadian Bitcoin proponent Samson Mow also indicated that Bitmain’s 7nm processors are expensive to produce and the figures (1 billion transistors, 42J/TH) may not “hold much value in the real-world scenarios”. As thus, Mow predicted the BM1391 may not perform as the firm may expect which may effect Bitmain’s IPO

He also adds that, “Ebang has maxed out gains for the 10nm process node, and it far exceeds Bitmain’s 7nm stats.”

Nevertheless, it is still too early to say which mining device is better than the other before the machines eventually launch publicly.