Nick Race12 June 2007, 1:59 AM
Ever wondered what a motherboard production line looks like? So did we, and fortunately Gigabyte was kind enough to throw open its factory doors to us. We went in, camera at the ready...
It wouldn't be Computex without a tour through some of the manufacturer's local factories. Gigabyte organised a walkthrough one of their four factories, this being the flagship, first run factory with the largest turnout of VGA cards and motherboards.
The facility, in Nan-Ping, Taiwan, makes up to 160,000 motherboards a week on fourteen production lines, and transforms a motley assortment of components into a finished and packed product in a surprisingly short amount of time.
The beginning of the process is mostly automated, with the board being sprayed and a solder mask printed on.
(Click on any of the images to get a closer look)
 Fresh out of the printing machine |
Next up, surface mounted components are stamped on to a machine which is capable of placing a part every 0.1 seconds. Like a machine gun, it slams the components down almost faster than the eye can see. Components are fed off film-like reels into the machine, and it gets through a board around every 90 seconds.
 Capacitors ready to be loaded and placed on a board. |
 Ten components a second: and it doesn't even break a sweat. |
 Intel northbridge and southbridge chips: awaiting their turn in the SMT machine. |
At the end of the surface mount process, the boards are tested to ensure each part was placed correctly and the electrical circuits are complete so far.
Once the boards check out, the head downstairs for the next step, which is placing larger components on the boards by hand. Long assembly lines move at a leisurely pace along the lines of women, who place from three to five components on by hand, check everything is in place properly, weigh and cover various parts for soldering and check, check, check.
 Placing parts on the motherboards by hand |
Once all the bits are sitting in the boards, they are soldered using one of my favourite bits of machinary - the wave solder machine.
This glowing monstrosity heats motherboards up slowly (to reduce thermal shock) then passes it briskly over a welling pool of molten solder, which affix the components physically, and connect the electrically to the contacts on the back of the board.
 P35 motherboards surfing the solder wave |
A quick cool-down later, the boards are polished to remove any excess solder, then inspected for any damage. Back on the production line, the boards are checked for any missing components again using a mask, then final pieces are put on, such as Gigabyte's Silentpipe chipset cooling system, CPU backplates and other bits and bobs.
 Any missed soldering connections are fixed by hand |
 Running the board through another electrical test machine |
 Coolers are attached to the board before even more testing |
At this point, the motherboard is pretty much good to go, but there's plenty of testing in its future. Another line of people test each board as a built machine, with CPU, RAM, SLI graphics cards and addon cards to ensure everything works. Once the board goes through this burn in and test stage, it's finally QA approved.
 Now that's a test bench |
From here, all the paraphenalia is packed up, the board is bagged and popped in to the box. Now, it's ready for shipping.
 The finished product |
 This lot is bound for The Netherlands |
The Nan-Ping factory also puts together VGA cards, which is a very similar, but much simpler process. All parts are placed on the cards by hand, and one trip through the wave soldering machine and Bob's your uncle...
 Bonus image: image if you could SLI all of these at once... |