Blockchains: An overview of the technology, circuit primitives, and future opportunities

Le résumé fourni par la source

Blockchain technology, generally associated with cryptocurrencies, has unique properties that have the potential to disrupt a wide variety of domains spanning finance, governance, health care and supply chains. The research and development of hardware and IC design for blockchain applications have so far been limited to accelerating cryptocurrency mining operations. Researchers have demonstrated significant enhancement in the energy efficiency of cryptocurrency mining systems using novel circuit technologies, such as dynamic latches, three-phase nonoverlapped clocks, optimized hash engines, and voltage stacking. However, the applications of blockchain technology are much wider, and underpinning this powerful technology are silicon embedded root-of-trust circuits that deliver the security assurances that form the foundation of blockchains. These hardware primitives are responsible for generating secure keys/IDs, encrypting/decrypting blockchain data, and efficiently handling verifiable compute algorithms. The emerging applications of blockchain technology present a great opportunity for the IC design community to engage and innovate across circuit design, architecture, and algorithm co-optimizations. In this article, we present an overview of blockchain technology and its applications, followed by a discussion of the state of the art in mining ASIC circuits, foundational circuit primitives for crypto wallets, and future circuit research.

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