Gadgetory

hi my name is Marc tech enough I with Kingston technology and you're here and we're going to show you our SMT process how we manufacture memory for Kingston so the first step of the process basically we're going to take the bare boards the bare PCB so we're going to run them through and we're going to apply solder to each one of the solder points onto the PCBs this process is the same for a USB Drive or whether it be a memory or DRAM application same basic process similar to what you would do with motherboards as well so the first machine basically has a large metal stencil and if you want I can show you real quickly this is what a stencil typically looks like there's a bunch of holes that are laser cut into them based on whatever that particular board requirements are and we put this into the first machine the first machine will then apply the solder through the stencil onto each of the boards and the second step of the process is it's then verified using a solder paste inspection process where we actually will use a laser read the solder that's positioned on the boards and verify and make sure that the proper amount of solder is on there not too much not too little just enough to have the highest quality next step of the process is we will place all the small components caps resistors eeproms onto the motherboards so or memory boards and in this case this machine is very fast with a Gatling gun who picks up the caps and resistors off the backside and places them directly onto the PCBs so all smoke components are placed by the first machine the the next step of the process after putting the small components onto the modules is we you place the DRAM or the large devices and this machine in this machine are used for placing all the DRAM zhan to the DRAM modules and we have to inline basically to improve the overall efficiency two of them twice as fast essentially the next similar process is taking the modules and putting the hood oven and raising the temperature high enough so the solder melts and the parts sticked onto the boards so this particular system here has seven temperature chambers starts at around 150 degrees C and depending on the board maybe around 255 degrees C and at some point the solder reaches the temperature where because molten and the devices that attach next step we cut them off and send to the testing department okay so I just talked about the oven how you set it up the temperature heats up the parts they are attached next steps of the process is another optical inspection this machine here is used to read the location of all the chips onto the boards to make sure that they're in the proper alignment before we take them out to the testing Department so it's one of our inspection criteria to make sure every single device is tested and then verified before we send it out the next step of the process is actually a labeling machine where every single module gets labeled while it's still attached to the large panel so we have all the proper information when it was manufactured where it was manufactured which components were used so when the parts go out to our customers we can verify exactly when and where it was manufactured the last step of the SMT process is basically a giant dremel tool essentially so decided here is a high rpm device basically cuts all the edges off of the modules or USB drives whatever it might be and basically this material gets cut off and all it's left are the modules that go into our testing department so that's the basic SMT process so once the modules or USB drives are manufactured ready to be tested we take them across the room over to this section of the do area and we begin the process of testing every single device 100% electrically and so in the case of USB drives with it it will plug them into a system and verify that all of the bits are working properly and in some cases some of our customers actually asks us to preload their software onto the USB drives that's also done at this process okay so the next step of the process is testing the modules in this case these are desktop systems so what we do is we basically configure a desktop and we apply the proper diagnostic tests for what we're trying to accomplish we plug in the modules turn on the machines run them for the proper amount of time to verify all the bits are working properly run a bunch of different patterns to make sure all type of patterns are working they pass then and they go on to the next step of the process so another area of testing in our test Department is for our HyperX products HyperX cases we typically will use the larger like for example a cooler from Coolermaster where we use it to cool the CPU so we get the higher frequency testing this is in the case where we're testing 2426 66 megahertz for the latest technology like a z87 motherboard okay so now we're in the packaging Department of Kingston and what we're going to show you is some of the processes that we use for our flash products so if we walk over to this machine over here this machine is used for packaging our SD cards for our customers worldwide so as you can see here what we do is we bring in the SD cards from our manufacturing facilities offshore in these large trays and this was she basically picks them up places them into a carrier which then gets mounted into a retail pack and then goes directly into a finished box where we're shipping the shipping box completely so from beginning to end totally automated at Kingston in California and if you look over here through this window you can see as they're getting the final packaging and then here you can see the retail packaging of the devices if you shoot through this window here you'll see the retail packs they'll slide over place the plastic array into here fold it over glue it seal it they get placed into the proper 25 packs which are then sealed and packaged ready to ship to our customers