<blockquote>
  <p>What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Only the exact task they were designed to perform,</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Do they have to be targetted specifically, or will the host machine naturally offload mathematical processing tasks to the ASIC?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>They have to be targeted specifically.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If ASICs need to be targetted specifically, how does mining software target the hardware capabilities of an ASIC?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The ASIC is specifically designed to mine and provides an interface for the mining software specifically to tell it what to mine and to read back the results of its mining.</p>

<p>ASICs, essentially by definition, cannot be repurposed. The whole advantage of an ASIC is that it s totally and completely optimized for a single task and no resources are wasted on the ability to do other things.</p>

<p>For general purpose computing tasks like you're describing, you want a modern CPU or GPU.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T10:20:03.143Z
Okay, so what IS the task that an ASIC performs (in the mathematical sense) - Presumably an ASIC can be reused provided that something is invented that CAN re-use the mathematical capability of an ASIC?
Matthew Layton
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T10:38:44.583Z
@series0ne The ASIC performs the specific task it was built to perform. It is usually entirely optimized for that purpose. For mining ASICs, that's mining. If you want a component that can be flexibly re-tasked, you want a CPU or GPU. A mining ASIC can't sum things for two reasons: 1) It has no hardware that does sums. 2) It has no hardware to output large results. Why? Because mining doesn't require either of these things, so why would they waste space and have fewer mining cores?
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T14:36:35.393Z
Hence the Application Specific part
Wizard Of Ozzie
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T10:14:41.543Z
2014-10-22T10:14:41.543Z
David Schwartz
<p>The ASIC of a miner cannot perform arbitrary maths, they can only perform SHA-256 hash computations. You can hash other things besides the blockchain, but you cannot instruct your miner to give you the result of 1 + 1, or any other arithmetic operation.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T19:30:01.140Z
2014-10-22T19:30:01.140Z
Travis Webb
<p>I'm looking into the re-use of ASIC miners to perform other mathematical tasks; for example, the sum of a prime and a random number producing a massive (arbitrarily long) integral value</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>i.e. sum(121 ^ 98435903485039)</p>
</blockquote>

<p><strong>Note:</strong> <em>I require the result of the sum, not the hash of the result of the sum.</em></p>

<ul>
<li>What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform?</li>
<li>Do they have to be targetted specifically, or will the host machine naturally offload mathematical processing tasks to the ASIC?</li>
<li>If ASICs need to be targetted specifically, how does mining software target the hardware capabilities of an ASIC?</li>
</ul>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-03-16T07:14:17.563Z
possible duplicate of [Bitcoin Mining ASICs used for cryptographic application? Rainbow tables?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7236/bitcoin-mining-asics-used-for-cryptographic-application-rainbow-tables)
Dr.Haribo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-10-22T13:04:04.247Z
> What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform? It can be used as door-stopper in math classroom
amaclin
<asic>
Reusability of ASIC miners
Matthew Layton
# Reusability of ASIC miners

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-10-22)

I'm looking into the re-use of ASIC miners to perform other mathematical tasks; for example, the sum of a prime and a random number producing a massive (arbitrarily long) integral value

> i.e. sum(121 ^ 98435903485039)

**Note:** *I require the result of the sum, not the hash of the result of the sum.*

* What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform?
* Do they have to be targetted specifically, or will the host machine naturally offload mathematical processing tasks to the ASIC?
* If ASICs need to be targetted specifically, how does mining software target the hardware capabilities of an ASIC?

**Tags:** asic

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: > What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform? It can be used as door-stopper in math classroom  
> **username_1**: possible duplicate of [Bitcoin Mining ASICs used for cryptographic application? Rainbow tables?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7236/bitcoin-mining-asics-used-for-cryptographic-application-rainbow-tables)  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2014-10-22. Score: 4 | Accepted answer

The ASIC of a miner cannot perform arbitrary maths, they can only perform SHA-256 hash computations. You can hash other things besides the blockchain, but you cannot instruct your miner to give you the result of 1 + 1, or any other arithmetic operation.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2014-10-22. Score: 4

> What mathematical tasks can an ASIC perform?

Only the exact task they were designed to perform,

> Do they have to be targetted specifically, or will the host machine naturally offload mathematical processing tasks to the ASIC?

They have to be targeted specifically.

> If ASICs need to be targetted specifically, how does mining software target the hardware capabilities of an ASIC?

The ASIC is specifically designed to mine and provides an interface for the mining software specifically to tell it what to mine and to read back the results of its mining.

ASICs, essentially by definition, cannot be repurposed. The whole advantage of an ASIC is that it s totally and completely optimized for a single task and no resources are wasted on the ability to do other things.

For general purpose computing tasks like you're describing, you want a modern CPU or GPU.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Okay, so what IS the task that an ASIC performs (in the mathematical sense) - Presumably an ASIC can be reused provided that something is invented that CAN re-use the mathematical capability of an ASIC?  
> **username_3**: @series0ne The ASIC performs the specific task it was built to perform. It is usually entirely optimized for that purpose. For mining ASICs, that's mining. If you want a component that can be flexibly re-tasked, you want a CPU or GPU. A mining ASIC can't sum things for two reasons: 1) It has no hardware that does sums. 2) It has no hardware to output large results. Why? Because mining doesn't require either of these things, so why would they waste space and have fewer mining cores?  
> **username_4**: Hence the Application Specific part  

---

