Kingston Technology is the world's largest independent manufacturer of memory products, with factories and offices all over the world.
Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, Kingston specializes in the design and manufacture of computer memory and Flash-based data storage products
such as solid-state drives, USB Flash drives, Flash cards and embedded Flash chips for mobile phones and tablets.
Kingston offers more than 2,000 products, with a growing database of 41,000 supported devices ranging from mobile phones to notebooks to servers.
Each product originates in the engineering department as engineering teams develop new and improve existing technologies for Kingston's customers.
In this video, we'll focus on the DRAM manufacturing process.
As a member of the JEDEC council, Kingston contributes to industry standard designs for memory modules.
Kingston produces memory built to industry standards and also designs proprietary memory for non-standard devices
and creates customized memory solutions at the request of its customers.
These designs all start in the CAD room, where Kingston's engineers map out each layer of the printed circuit board.
Once the design is completed and produced, a prototype is delivered to the compatibility testing labs.
Here, the engineers test in real-world environments on specific motherboards,
systems or classes of systems they are designed to support, to confirm compatibility.
Occasionally, when systems or motherboards are not yet available to test future technology, Kingston uses its advanced test platforms.
These testers simulate the parameters of future systems using software designed and programmed by Kingston's test engineers.
Kingston also uses these test platforms to qualify new components such as DRAM, NAND, controllers, registers and passive components.
Once a design has been approved, the plans are sent to production for assembly, testing and packaging.
Kingston has the capacity to produce more than 300 million products per year
with more than 64 manufacturing lines worldwide, more than any other memory product manufacturer.
With production numbers that high, its manufacturing process needs to be best in class.
As a contract manufacturer, Kingston has cultivated its process from some of the top semiconductors and PC manufacturers in the world.
The same lines that produce contracted memory for some of the biggest names in technology also produce Kingston branded products.
Throughout each stage of manufacturing, testing, and packaging, Kingston employs strict quality gates to ensure its high standards are being met.
Kingston's quality assurance team and its contract partners conduct regular (internal and external) audits of its processes,
holding them to the highest standards in the industry.
Let's follow the process for a typical Kingston product.
First, Kingston sources raw materials, including DRAM in all configurations, from the world's leading semiconductors.
The Surface Mount Technology lines are where Kingston's products are assembled.
The first step is the screen printer, where solder paste is spread across a stencil screen, transferring it onto the printed circuit boards.
The boards then pass through an automated optical inspection station where they are carefully examined for solder height and integrity.
The next step is surface mounting, where the first of two mounting machines places passive components such as resistors and capacitors.
The next surface mounting machine places the primary components, such as DRAM chips.
After the chips are placed on the printed circuit board, they pass through the reflow oven,
where, based on the specific product design, they are subjected to a seven-temperature cycle up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
The solder paste is cured based on this profile.
After baking, all products must undergo a final automated optical inspection.
Once inspection is complete, the printed circuit boards must be de-paneled.
Kingston uses computer controlled router saws to trim the excess paneling and separate the devices.
The most unique step in the Kingston process is production testing.
The test floor features a full suite of test environments, most of which are automated and patented designs by Kingston.
Kingston holds more than 29 patents for its testing equipment and testing-related processes.
The KT2100 is the first high-volume automated production tester and it was developed by Kingston.
Patented by Kingston's test engineers, this system houses eight motherboards and is capable of testing up to 400 modules per hour.
The KT2500 is the newest, fully automated and Kingston-patented high volume system used for testing DDR3 memory.
This tester can hold 60 motherboards and is capable of testing 1,000 modules per hour.
In addition to production testing, all server grade memory products are required to undergo burn-in testing.
Kingston's unique patented KT2400 test chambers simulate three months of heavy server usage
and stress the memory beyond any environments typically experienced within a data center.
This is done to screen any marginal or bad memory cells and it dramatically reduces early life failures.
At a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit (100 C), every cell is subjected to heavy test patterns.
Kingston's quality standard dictates that one bad cell detected equals a defective memory module and thus does not leave the factory.
Considering a 16GB server memory module can have over 130 billion memory cells, Kingston maintains an exceptionally high quality standard.
Once the product is packaged, it ships out to retailers, etailers, distributors, resellers and customers all over the world.
Kingston's manufacturing facilities are certified to ISO (I.S.O.) 9001 Quality,
ISO14001 Environmental, and OHSAS 18001 Health And Safety standards and comply with environmental requirements for RoHS and WEEE.
As you can see, Kingston's commitment to quality is at the core of its success, today and well into the future.