Reference

ASIC mining glossary

The vocabulary you need to read a spec sheet, argue with a quote, or file a warranty claim. Written from what we see in orders and repairs rather than copied from a manufacturer brochure. If a term you need is missing, tell us and we will add it.

Performance and economics

These are the figures that decide whether a machine earns. Everything else on a spec sheet is secondary to them.

Hashrate (TH/s, PH/s): How many trillion (tera) or quadrillion (peta) hash attempts the machine makes each second. It measures work done, not money earned — a high hashrate on poor efficiency loses to a lower one on good efficiency wherever electricity costs money.
Efficiency (J/TH): Joules of electricity consumed per terahash of work. This single number is a machine's competitive position: a unit at 11 J/TH does the same work as one at 22 J/TH on half the power, so it stays profitable at twice the electricity price. Lower is better, and when difficulty rises the least efficient machines stop paying first.
Power at the wall: Actual draw measured at the outlet, including fans and the power supply's own losses — always higher than the chip-level figure. It is the number that sets your circuit, breaker, cooling capacity and noise, and the number your electrician needs.
Hashprice: Network revenue per terahash per day, quoted in dollars or in coin. It falls as difficulty rises and moves with coin price, which is why any payback estimate built on a single hashprice figure is a snapshot rather than a forecast.
Difficulty: The network's self-adjusting target, retargeted roughly every two weeks on Bitcoin so blocks keep arriving about every ten minutes. When total network hashrate grows, difficulty rises and each machine's share of the reward shrinks.
Payback period: Hardware cost divided by daily margin. Useful for comparing two machines under identical assumptions, misleading as a promise about a date, because it holds difficulty, coin price and your power rate constant for the whole period.

Hardware and firmware

Terms that come up in warranty conversations, repair quotes and secondhand listings.

Hashboard: The PCB carrying the mining chips. A modern machine has two or three. Most hardware faults are single-board faults, which is why board-level repair is far cheaper than replacing a unit — see our repair service for what is economical to fix.
Control board: The small computer that runs firmware, talks to the pool and monitors chip temperature. A dead control board looks exactly like a dead miner and is one of the cheapest parts to replace.
PSU (APW series): The power supply. Bitmain's APW range is the common reference. Most units expect 200-277V and will not run from an ordinary 120V household outlet.
Derating: Deliberately running a machine below rated hashrate to reduce power draw and heat. Often the difference between a summer that hashes and a summer that throttles.
Underclocking and overclocking: Firmware profiles that trade hashrate against efficiency. Underclocking usually improves J/TH; overclocking almost always worsens it and shortens chip life. Third-party firmware may void the manufacturer warranty.
Chip bin: The quality grade of the silicon in a given batch. Identical model numbers from different batches can differ by several percent in efficiency, which is why we bench-run and photograph each unit before dispatch.

Cooling and infrastructure

The hardware is the easy part. These terms describe the systems that decide whether a site holds rated hashrate through summer.

Hydro cooling: A sealed water loop with a cold plate on each hashboard, a manifold per row, and a dry cooler or chiller rejecting the heat. It carries far more heat per unit of volume than air, which is what allows 500 TH/s and above in a single chassis.
OD10 / OD14 fittings: The outer diameter in millimetres of the quick-connect couplings on a hydro machine. Mixing units on one manifold means matching fittings or fitting adapters; check before ordering across generations.
Return water temperature: The temperature of the water coming back out of the machines, typically 45-55°C on a healthy loop. It is the single best health indicator for a hydro row: a rising return temperature at constant load means fouling, air in the loop, or a failing pump.
Immersion cooling: Submerging machines in a non-conductive dielectric fluid. It removes fans entirely, so the room goes quiet, dust stops mattering and heat transfer improves. It requires a tank, a pump loop, a heat exchanger, and a plan for handling and storing the fluid.
Dielectric fluid: The non-conductive oil used in immersion tanks — usually a synthetic or mineral-based single-phase fluid. It has a service life, needs filtration, and must be compatible with the machine's gaskets and thermal pads.
BTU/hr: Heat output. Roughly 3.41 BTU/hr per watt drawn, so a 3,500W miner rejects about 12,000 BTU/hr — enough to heat a large room and enough to cook one if you have not planned the exhaust path.

Buying, shipping and support

Terms that appear on invoices, freight documents and warranty claims.

DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): An Incoterm where the seller covers freight, export clearance, import duty and taxes to the delivery address. It is the term we use for most destinations so the price you agree is the price you pay.
HS code: The tariff classification that determines the duty rate on imported mining hardware. Declaring the correct code is what separates a two-day clearance from a four-week hold.
Allocation: A manufacturer's committed batch quantity for a future production window. Current-generation machines are usually sold from allocation rather than shelf stock, which is why lead times and prices move week to week.
Batch / lead time: The production run a unit comes from and how long until it ships. Earlier batches of a new model sometimes carry firmware quirks later batches have fixed; ask which batch a quote covers.
RMA: Return Merchandise Authorisation — the process for sending a faulty unit or board back under warranty. Ours runs on photographed bench tests, so keep the dispatch photos we send with your order.
Hosting: Running your hardware in someone else's facility on their power contract. It changes the economics more than the choice of machine does, because electricity is the dominant lifetime cost.

Put the terms to work

The two numbers that matter most are efficiency and your power rate. Rank stock by the first on the efficiency comparison, then plug in the second on the profitability calculator.