ECS Manufacturing in ShenZhen

when i got my new motherboard i was a bit on para about static but after looking @ this article i will be more chilled lol

 

me wants a SMD machine !!!!!! me wants a component placing machine gun

this was a great article to read. very well done.

 

wow it was like bringing my job to bit tech on a slightly lower spec my end believe me its all boring really! and before you say it no i don't have to wear them white hats^^ im in inspection AOI we get away with it

 

Cool read, good job bit-tech

 

I think you missed a stage.

Nowhere is SMD Soldering mentioned. Probably involves big IR reflow ovens.

the article goes straight from SMD placement to adding memory slots.

 

Seems like testing might cost more than the actual manufacturing.

 

what an enjoyable article it certainly made me take a second look at my ECS mobo. the thing has been running solid as a rock since the day i baught it (maybe two years now), and its interesting to see how it was born.

it would be nice to see a few more articles like this if you guys have the opportunity to make them (i guess its not every day you just happen to be passing a manufacturing plant and invited in for a looksie).

 

Very cool to see this... I saw a tour on some other website a while back, but this one is a lot more in-depth. Incidentally, Aqua Computer has a video that has some SMD placement going on their Making of Aquaero video on their website http://aquacomputer.de/content/media.htm (33MB, I won't link direct, for stupidly obvious reasons)

 

They aren't actually soldered (at least a dedicated stage of soldering) - there is solder mask added before going into the Rapid SMD placement machines and the components are fired at high speed. I can only assume that the temperature of the Rapid SMD placement machines is such that they 'stick' when fired.

 

From another visit to a motherboard factory i read
The put a solder paste on the board, then the SMD components are added, and then the board is put in an oven kind of thing, which melts the solder paste, and then when it cools the component is stuck on

 

Balls.

I've often wanted to put that as a reply.

 

It doesnt say anywhere what you have to do with them though, its quite possible you still have to bake it
I dont exactly know where the article is, its a chinese/japanese factory, and there was an article on the web about it somewhere, and they had to bake the boards
Solder paste applied, Components applied, baked, done

 

Why does ECS do full testing on only 1 in 500 mobos? What do Asus and Abit do?

 

I would imagine that ASUS and Abit do the same. Every connector on every board is fully tested and then they take a sample to stability test. I imagine if there are fails, they go back through and track back boards made at roughly the same time.

 

Still it seems that full tests for only 0.2% of the mobos is a lax standard because I read that in the 1970s Radio Shack burned in all of its computers in high-temperature test beds for something like 48 hours. I was also surprised that ECS used common commercial software rather than custom-written diagnostic programs that would especially stress the components.

 

I would expect all OEMs to burn all systems in, but motherboards is a different kettle of fish, IMO. Every function is tested on every board - thus every board 'works' - and they do regular stress tests to check that the build quality is maintained. Most of the process is very automated and there is a lot of build quality checking, so I don't see why every motherboard should be stress tested out of the factory.

However, if boards fail stress tests when they get into the hands of reviewers/consumers... you could say that their stress testing isn't as stressful as it should be.

It's worth noting that ECS also manufacture notebooks/desktop PCs. As far as I know, every single one is stress tested. The volumes are much lower than their motherboard production lines though.

 

In the 1970's computers were very much more expensive then today, they were also a lot less common.

If you want to see burn in tests from every maker for every component then add an extra £100/$200/€150 or thereabouts to your cost for a PC. Testing costs money, and while I would very much like to see testing increase, I'm not sure that personally I'd be happy paying more money on every component.

 

But for many computer components, like chips and hard drives, every piece is burned in, and the last HD I bought, a 160GB external, was $50.

 

Memory is tested, but not what I would call a 24-hour burn in. At most, memory gets a 15-to-30 minute burn in. All of these boards have a similar 'burn in' time, if not more. Video cards are very similar... they will have been 'tested' (i.e. 3 loops of a few apps), but they're not tested as much as you would first think.

 

it makes sense to do somthing like this

a 24hr burn in is going to be very costly, however if you burn in 1 out of each batch (or 1 in xxx if you dont use batches) then you should be able to tell if the batch is bad
you might get 2 returns from each batch of 1000 with this method, but still better then the added cost of a proper test of each board