The name of the game in mining Bitcoins isn’t CPUs, GPUs, or even FPGAs. Now, hardcore miners are moving on to custom ASIC chips like the Block Erupter, For around $100 USD, you as well can mine Bitcoins at 300 MH/s with 2.5 Watts of power as well as a single USB port. This speed isn’t sufficient for some people, like [Jeremy] who overclocked his block Erupter to almost twice the speed.
[Jeremy] begins his tutorial with a teardown of the block Erupter hardware. Inside, he discovered a custom ASIC chip, an ATTIny2313, a USB UART converter, as well as a voltage regulator for the ASIC. By altering out the 12 MHz crystal linked to the ASIC as well as fiddling with the voltage with a trim pot, [Jeremy] was able to overclock the ASIC core from 336 MHz to 560 MHz. Effectively, he’s running two block Eruptors for the cost of one with the prospective to really make back the purchase cost of his hardware.
It must be noted the 560 MHz figure comes from replacing the 12 MHz crystal with a 20 MHz one, as well as this mod only lasted about 20 minutes on [Jeremy]’s bench up until the magic blue smoke was released. He suggests a 14 or 16 MHz crystal, netting a new speed of either 392 MHz or 448 MHz for a steady mod.