<p>Litecoin uses scrypt instead of sha as its crypto function.
Scrypt is a memory hungry algo, so it's very difficult to have efficent implementation on ASIC or FPGA at current technology.
This choice was made to prevent ASIC and FPGA specialized mining in favour of more diffuse and generalized mining with standard hardware.</p>

<p>UPDATE
After just about 3 months my answer is old.
There are company working on ASIC chip for scrypt promising release during current year</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-04T09:31:40.903Z
2014-01-30T23:57:27.630Z
2014-01-30T23:57:27.630Z
Riccardo Casatta
<p>Yes, there are designs for Litecoin mining FPGA bitstreams, but they are not very efficient currently. ASICs are much more efficient and if anyone finds it lucrative to invest in development of Litecoin mining ASICs, they will push out GPU mining. (The efficiency ratio between ASIC and GPU will be lower than with Bitcoin though).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-25T03:00:20.170Z
What would an ASIC implementation look like for scrypt, technically speaking? My understanding is that the comparatively large memory requirement would need to somehow be addressed in an ASIC design.
nitrl
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-25T09:09:44.280Z
@nitrl: I don't know all the technical details, but presumably the board that houses the ASIC chips will just also need to include a sufficient amount of RAM.
Meni Rosenfeld
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-24T17:46:12.973Z
2013-09-24T17:46:12.973Z
Meni Rosenfeld
<p>I know that Litecoin was designed to be mined with a CPU but then someone figured out how to mine it with a GPU. </p>

<p>Has anyone figure out how to mine Litecoin with an ASIC or FPGA boards, and if not is it conceivably possible? (and by that I mean would it be more effective)</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-24T20:33:35.493Z
I found [this discussion](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204956.0) on bitcointalk very informative. Meni is correct but for those of you building rigs, I think FPGA/ASIC's for litecoin are still far off.
Loourr
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-11T19:15:41.847Z
So say a 1TH/s Bitcoin miner attached to a PC with 128GB RAM and 2GB Graphics card could not run scrypt with any edge?
user898617
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-11T22:17:56.937Z
@user898617 Nope. The limiting factor to how fast you can mine is how many scrypts you can do, and Bitcoin mining ASICs don't do any scrypts.
David Schwartz
<litecoin><asic><fpga>
Can ASIC or FPGA boards be used to mine Litecoin?
Loourr
# Can ASIC or FPGA boards be used to mine Litecoin?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-09-24)

I know that Litecoin was designed to be mined with a CPU but then someone figured out how to mine it with a GPU.

Has anyone figure out how to mine Litecoin with an ASIC or FPGA boards, and if not is it conceivably possible? (and by that I mean would it be more effective)

**Tags:** litecoin, asic, fpga

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: I found [this discussion](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204956.0) on bitcointalk very informative. Meni is correct but for those of you building rigs, I think FPGA/ASIC's for litecoin are still far off.  
> **username_1**: So say a 1TH/s Bitcoin miner attached to a PC with 128GB RAM and 2GB Graphics card could not run scrypt with any edge?  
> **username_2**: @username_1 Nope. The limiting factor to how fast you can mine is how many scrypts you can do, and Bitcoin mining ASICs don't do any scrypts.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2013-09-24. Score: 6 | Accepted answer

Yes, there are designs for Litecoin mining FPGA bitstreams, but they are not very efficient currently. ASICs are much more efficient and if anyone finds it lucrative to invest in development of Litecoin mining ASICs, they will push out GPU mining. (The efficiency ratio between ASIC and GPU will be lower than with Bitcoin though).

> **Comments:**
> **username_5**: What would an ASIC implementation look like for scrypt, technically speaking? My understanding is that the comparatively large memory requirement would need to somehow be addressed in an ASIC design.  
> **username_4**: @username_5: I don't know all the technical details, but presumably the board that houses the ASIC chips will just also need to include a sufficient amount of RAM.  

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### Answer by username_3 on 2013-11-04. Score: 4

Litecoin uses scrypt instead of sha as its crypto function.
Scrypt is a memory hungry algo, so it's very difficult to have efficent implementation on ASIC or FPGA at current technology.
This choice was made to prevent ASIC and FPGA specialized mining in favour of more diffuse and generalized mining with standard hardware.

UPDATE
After just about 3 months my answer is old.
There are company working on ASIC chip for scrypt promising release during current year


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