Founded in 2006, Innosilicon has been in the industry with about 12 years of IP/IC design and development experience. Lately, Innosilicon went into the production of crypto mining devices and has released different types of miners. These miners work with multiple algorithms like Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256), Scrypt, X11, Equihash. Innosilicon released and started shipping the A6 LTC Master in January 2018. 

About A6 LTC Master

The A6 LTC Master is Innosilicon's Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) hardware that mines the cryptocurrency, Litecoin. Released in January 2018, it has a hash rate of 1.23Gh/s and consumes 1500W of power. Litecoin has a market cap of $2.56 billion, gaining popularity for its user-friendly algorithm and faster transaction speeds. 

Due to the recent demand for Litecoin mining hardware, Innosilicon started designing and releasing Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Miners specifically for mining Litecoin. The Innosilicon A6 LTC Master is part of the miners. 

Appearance and Features

The A6 LTC Master comes with the double fan system most Innosilicon miners have with two fans at the front and rear for effective cooling. The design and appearance are like Innosilicon's A9 ZMaster series. The A6 LTC Master weighs about 7.5kg and has 350 x 155 x 500mm.

The power supply has a switch and two power interfaces on the control board. This arrangement enables ease of control for users. The 4-pin interface sends current to the control board, while the 6-pin interface powers four fans for cooling.

The miner's compact design enables ease of operation and is quite suitable for different mining settings, especially in mining farms. 

Specifications

The A6 LTC Master is suitable for crypto mining based on the Scrypt algorithm. The official parameters are a top hash rate of 1.23Gh/s (+/- 8%) and power consumption of 1500W(+/- 8%) at an operating temperature of 25°C. Each twin parts of the miner has four hash boards sharing one controller. From above, you can see the miner controllers, and each hash board comes with the standard two PCI-E 6pin power interface and data cables.

The top controller is the data cable, a 4 pin power cable, and a power supply unit for the controller from right to left. At the miner's back, each hash board's power interface is on the top, and the two fans for cooling at the bottom for cooling. The data cables have a buckle design that provides tight contact for steady data transfer and prevents wear and tear. 

Cooling and Temperature

The cooling method is an essential feature of ASIC miners due to the devices' high input and efficiency. Miners have the potential of overheating while working. Manufacturers like Innosilicon curb overheating by equipping miners with adequate cooling methods. The A6 LTC Master has four 12cm 12C3.4A fans, two at the front and two at the back. This fan arrangement is like the A9 ZMaster fan arrangement is quite efficient in reducing overheating.

The fans in the front handle the air inlet. Thanks to the high-speed fans, the A6 LTC Master has an effective heat dissipation with relatively small temperature differences at the front and rear sides. The indoor temperature during the day is about 15℃ and 8℃ at night.

 
When the A6 LTC Master is in stable mining mode, the hash boards' average temperature is about 39℃, and the air inlet temperature is around 20℃. The air outlet temperature is about 23℃.

Algorithm

The A6 LTCMaster works with the Script algorithm. Litecoin is mined on the Scrypt algorithm. Scrypt is a hashing algorithm that is used on Proof of Work blockchains. It is a memory-hard key-derivation function. This kind of process requires a large quantity of RAM for computation. That means an ASIC chip used for computing Bitcoin's SHA-256 Proof of Work (PoW) would need to keep an amount of space for RAM instead of hashing power. 

Overclocking

The A6 LTC Master comes with two built-in frequencies, default and overclocking frequency. The miner has space for overclocking. For overclocking, the voltage is adjusted to the maximum at which stable mining operations can continue. The overclocking is dependent on the power supply and the miner's qualities. Although auto-adjustment is quickly set, the hash rate in overclocking mode can reach up to 1.29Gh/s, and the miner consumes about 1738W of power. 

Noise Level

Noise is an essential factor for getting a miner. If you are looking to buy the A6 LTCMaster for mining at home, the device can be quite noisy. In normal mining operations during the day, the measured noise about 20cm away from the device is 82dB. To better understand this, most miners come with standard 60 — 80dB noise levels. 80dB sound is equivalent to a city during the day. The miner is better used in mining farms. 

Profitability

Profitability is the primary purpose of getting an ASIC miner. To accurately calculate the profitability of this device, you should deduct the electricity cost of the area. Market conditions also affect miner profitability.