This is THSA, or Tom's Hardware Secret Agent, codenamed Kobe. Thanks to her, we were able to get an inside look at what goes on at Gigabyte.
As many of you already know, Gigabyte is one of the leading manufacturers of computer components. Perhaps best known for its system boards and graphics cards, Gigabyte also manufactures servers, mobile phones, power supplies, coolers, and even networking products.
Today, however, we'll be taking a closer look at Gigabyte's motherboard and graphics card prodution facility. With Kobe being a component guru, she was the obvious choice at Tom's Hardware to do this undercover job.
We start at the entrance, where Gigabyte has an actual model of its headquarters made from CPU trays, heatsinks, and other components that it sells.
The first step in motherboard design is figuring out what platform to design for. After this is decided, engineering teams work with chipset makers like AMD and Intel to come up with a product scheme. Once settled, reference designs are provided, and Gigabyte then goes through its initial work, defining actual board specifications and looking into possible third-party components to add value. Features like onboard RAID, sound, connectivity, and other extras are picked at this point.
Once the specs are finalized, the engineering team begins its layout job in software simulation. This allows for bug checking and other changes to be made before the layout goes to "the wire." During this process, engineers take everything into consideration--even the actual length of traces on a board.
Once done, layers are defined. Typically, you will see four-layer PCBs consisting of the following:
Layer 1: Top layer. This layer carries signals
Layer 2: Copper. Power distribution
Layer 3: Copper. Ground
Layer 4: Bottom layer. Signaling
Signals can be passed through layers by what's known as a "via."
Components, routing, and layout are done on specialized layout software. Often times, several revisions are made to either tune, fix bugs, or change a component.
Of course, this is an oversimplification of the entire process, but this is essentially the major steps before a board enters production.
Above, we see the production facility.
Here the various components that will make up a finished product all gather. Everything from the PCB, resistors, sockets, chips, plugs, and brackets all come together in one harmonious process.
The manufacturing process is actually not entirely automated. There are steps in the process that require human intervention. Certain components are handled by technicians, but most of the work is performed by machines.
Before being allowed in the above area though, Kobe had to hop into a blast chamber to remove foreign particles from her clothes.
A gust of air blasts you clean and particles are pulled upwards.
You come out of this room feeling Zestfully clean.
Above, you can see several people waiting to enter the blast room. They are wondering who the camera girl is.
Above, is a motherboard enjoying the ride through the production line, where it'll be populated with various components, and then eventually make its way over to the wave soldering machine.
The board passes through several chambers, where various components are stacked.
SMT components are actually sent in on reels, like a film reel. This is where the term "tapped-out" comes from. Robots remove components from the reels and place them on the board with surgical precision.
Above, you can see part of a wave soldering machine.
The motherboard is covered with something called a solder mask, which seals the PCB from the liquid solder. The liquid solder immediately adheres to areas of the board where solder mask isn't applied--like connectors and soldering points. For top surface components, a process called reflow soldering melts solder paste that was pre-applied to the surface layer of the board. When the solder paste solidifies, the components are locked in place.
Quick factoid: solder mask is responsible for a board's color, which is typically green.
Click on the next slide for a YouTube video of wave soldering in action.
Above, is a small wave soldering machine performing what's called selective wave soldering. Using this method, components can be selectively soldered onto a PCB.
This isn't the ideal method for large-scale production, used for smaller operations like board fixes.
Above, is typically what a wave soldering line looks like.
Liquid solder flows in an arc, grazing the bottom of the PCB and adhereing to areas where the solder mask has not been applied.
A half-complete motherboard exists one wave soldering section, with the CPU socket and chipset attached.
The next phase is to solder on smaller components like resistors and capacitors. After this phase, the board will pass through a manual assembly line, where technicians populate the board with larger components like connectors and plugs.
Above, you can see a technician manually inserting a 12V CPU power jack.
The technician checks the boards to ensure that components are securely in place.
After this phase, the boards will enter a final wave soldering process to lock in all the components.
Gigabyte's graphics boards go through a similar process.
Sometimes, two boards are attached together and are separated after a preliminary wave soldering process.
Bonus points for those who can tell what GPU is on this particular board.
A technician over in the graphics production area handles cooling. A large GPU cooler is attached to the PCB.
After a complete assembly, motherboards and graphics cards are rigorously tested to ensure that everything works.
From the photo above, you can see that Gigabyte leaves nothing unexamined. All ports, sockets, and connectors go through testing. If an error comes up, the board is sent to the labs to see what can be done. Sometimes, a particular part may be faulty and can be easily removed and replaced. This is where selective wave soldering plays a key role.
Another shot of the test bed.
Notice the twin PCIe CrossFire and SLI test cards.
While manufacturing is occurring, another assembly line prepares the packaging. In this case, motherboard boxes are prepared for each individual product line.
In the above machine, pre-printed boxes are cut and folded into proper proportions before being sent to a manual assembly line.
During this phase, all the necessary accessories, manuals, and discs are brought in.
Completed motherboards and graphics cards are moved to this area for final packaging. This part of the line was the perfect opportunity for us to swipe a few motherboards and graphics cards without being seen. With speed and skill, our agent covertly moves in to bag a few motherboards and graphics cards.
Her mission was made easy though since no one was there.
After workers pack the boxes, they're moved over to the mass packaging line where they're put into containers and then loaded onto pallets.
Labels are attached denoting what models are contained and serial numbers are recorded.
From here on out, where the motherboards and graphics card go are beyond our reach.
We'd like to personally thank our Tom's Hardware Secret Agent for her covert shots. We could not have done this without her. After her run through Gigabyte's production facility, our Agent was nabbed by Gigabyte officials who then identified her as "Sherri 'Kobe' Lee" after she was found to have LA Lakers defender Kobe Bryant tatooed to her neck.