How Motherboards Are Made

Techno-consumerist writes "Ever wonder how motherboards are made? How all those little electronic bits and pieces are put in place, and how each board is tested? PCstats takes a look behind the scenes of the Nan-Ping Gigabyte factory in Taiwan, and documents the amazingly complicated process from start to finish. Very cool, but surprising about how much labour goes into each board."

Comments

Heh

[ASkGNet]

The article is 2 months old
Nice nevertheless

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing Slashdot it's probably how long it took the submitter to read and understand the article...

Did any of the articles mention

[syntap]

the phone numbers of the girls testing the boards at the factory in Testing Stage 2?

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[kkumer]

Yes. It's 1-800 MOBOCHICKS

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[Anonymous Coward]

those were girls????

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what the chemicals used in the production of these motherboards have done to their chromosomes, right?

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[digitalchinky]

Mmmm, nothing like that new motherboard smell, fresh out of the silver anti-static bag... Hot asian taiwanese chick writing on the little green 'QC OK' sticker...

If only motherboards were as soft and good looking as the testers, complete with dual breast cards as a standard option...

(In real life I'm not that much of a deprived geek, I am living in asia though)

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[MidnightBrewer]

Those two ladies look to be in their thirties or forties and are probably housewives making some extra cash.

I've been living in Japan for three years now, so I'm used to it. If you think the ladies pictured are cute, then seeing twenty-year-olds would probably kill you. :)

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[d474]

From TFA: "Each worker handles two test stations at once..."

That is sooo HOT.

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[Kuro-Bishounen]

We geeks demand more WOMEN! or possibly men... depending on taste.

Re:Did any of the articles mention

[pnutjam]

No...
Seeing a 40, 50, or even 60 year old will probably kill you, asian women don't age well.

I always thought....

[O-SUSHi]

Aren't they made when a motherboard has sex with a fatherboard and have another(mother)board?

Re:I always thought....

[Irashtar]

no, thats how you make video cards!

Re:I always thought....

[glitch23]

Those are daughterboards.

Profit margin?

[Mortiss]

With the amount of work going into making of each motherboard and cosidering the amount of automation in the process how much does it exactly cost to make a single m/b? What is the profit margin when it arrives at my local computer store counter?

Re:Profit margin?

[northcat]

Compared to how much they pay the workers who manufacture them, almost all computer parts are highly overpriced. HIGHLY. Especially the ones manufactured in developing countries. (No, not sweatshops in developing countries. The employees are paid well. The economical differences work out very well for the manufacturers.)

Re:Profit margin?

[imsabbel]

Yeah right. I mean, 50$-70$ for a Motherboard whose chipset alone costs 20$ from intel or via, not to mention the few 100 little (or not so little, like the elkos and fets of the voltage regulation stage) other parts, assembling and testing,...
Its way overpriced, i see...

Re:Profit margin?

[roman_mir]

Compared to how much they pay the workers who manufacture them, almost all computer parts are highly overpriced - aha, but you want your cheap motherboard, don't you? Imagine how much that factory cost to engineer. A billion dollars? 2 billion? I don't know, but it looks very expensive to build and maintain and run on daily basis. So the firm has to recover the cost and then make a profit. So now if you paid your average US or Canadian or German worker salaries for running this factory and building these devices, wouldn't the MBs cost at least 10x as much? And you know what, they are worth the money. But you know what? Many people wouldn't buy them then. So the process depends on the economy of scale - the firm needs to sell to everyone, so the prices go down. The firm competes with a dozen other manufacturers, so the prices go down.
Of-course the manual workers are underpaid, but the robots are paid nothing at all, do we have to cry about it too?

Re:Profit margin?

[northcat]

And they get all those parts for much lesser than they cost in the market. They also buy a lot of parts in the same developing countries which, again, reduces their costs. And most of these are manufactured in developing countries where they have to pay much lesser slaries (why else do you think they manufacture there and there is a boom in offshoring?). No, I'm not trolling, I'm from one of these developing countries too. I'm stating a fact. Oh and BTW, the chipsets are also overpriced.

Re:Profit margin?

[hvacigar]

As a person who works in the US Circuit board industry, I am offended that they start the production at the stuff stage on this explaination. Agreed, PC motherboards are not as complex as the boards we make for telecommunications and servers, but the actual beginning of this porocess starts with copper sheets and laminate material. The circuit board is produced before the stuffing with components. If you want to talk about margins, you have to factor in the complexity of this manufacturing as well. Some boards have 40 layers, each with dense circuitry and 30000+ 0.0010" holes per panel. If anything goes wrong with any of this, the time, labor, and material used in this board is lost. I can tell you that once you get to more difficult designs, chronic issues begin to eat into your margins a little bit. The reason motherboards are so inexpensive (yes I said inexpensive) is because they are not as complex as the othe types of main boards (or ICs), and labor in China is cheap.

Re:Profit margin?

[Klivian]

>Compared to how much they pay the workers Not so, the profit margin on the manufacturing part are low compared to the other cost. Having worked for 5+ years in that particular industry, in a non low cost country at that. As a rule of thumb we said 20-15% or less of the profit, depending of the amount of manual labor on the boards, was from the manufacturing process. Even with manufacturing in developing countries, you don't get that much higher profitmargins. Although very very very high volume does help a lot, when you accumulate the profit:-)

Re:Profit margin?

[northcat]

aha, but you want your cheap motherboard, don't you? Imagine how much that factory cost to engineer. A billion dollars? 2 billion? I don't know, but it looks very expensive to build and maintain and run on daily basis.

It looks expensive? That's something I'd expect to hear from an uneducated, unwise, five year old kid. At most these plants cost tens of millions. And this is usually recovered within the first few months. And the operating costs other than salaries aren't much. They get raw material cheaply (some of them even have their own electronics division which manufacture electronic parts.) And, as I said, the salaries are really really less.

So the firm has to recover the cost and then make a profit. So now if you paid your average US or Canadian or German worker salaries for running this factory and building these devices, wouldn't the MBs cost at least 10x as much? And you know what, they are worth the money. But you know what? Many people wouldn't buy them then. So the process depends on the economy of scale - the firm needs to sell to everyone, so the prices go down. The firm competes with a dozen other manufacturers, so the prices go down.

Sure, jump on me. Nice going. Did I say that they should be priced less or that the workers should be paid more? (your) Grandparent asked about the profit margin and I told about it to him. That's all

Of-course the manual workers are underpaid, but the robots are paid nothing at all, do we have to cry about it too?

How is this, in any way, related to the discussion at hand?

Re:Profit margin?

[mboverload]

They also have to licence tons of technology.

Re:Profit margin?

[JesseL]

This really isn't all as expensive as you might imagine. I work for a small electronics manufacturing company here in the US (The website is out of date, we currently have two Assembleon Opal XIIs and a seven zone BTU Pyramax oven). Among other things I program, set up, and maintain the Pick-and-Place machines. A simple production line capable of producing around 5-8000 motherboard sized boards a month may cost less than $750,000. A facility like the one shown in the article should cost well under $50 million. Interestingly, I expect a lot of this kind of manufacturing may move back to the US, since the cost of equipment is the same everywhere and the degree of automation makes labor costs nil.

Re:Profit margin?

[roman_mir]

It looks expensive? That's something I'd expect to hear from an uneducated, unwise, five year old kid. At most these plants cost tens of millions. - oh really? The building itself where they are located is tens of millions of dollars. Tens of millions doesn't even begin to address the basic product line layout problems, you dolt. At Christie Digital where I worked on a contract the double door air shower itself cost over 50K. And that's not including the maintenance contract. It's not even about any single expensive machines (like their automated 8floor storage facility) it's about putting it all together. During my last contract the engineers I worked with talked about their experience of setting up much simpler plants for semiconductor manufacturing. That is in order of a few hundreds of millions.

Re:Profit margin?

[Klivian]

Another very important factor helping bring down the cost of motherboards are the high volume manufactured. That said when it comes to circuit boards and things going wrong, I have first hand knowledge of the amount of "fun" you can have when management tries to increase profit by buying cheaper boards. Not only are the defects usually hard to find when the board is fully mounted, it's also a component you can't replace.

Re:Profit margin?

[starman97]

A big part of the cost is hazardous waste disposal.
In the US you have to deal with all the lead and chemicals used in PCB manufacturing, in China, they basically flush it down the drain.

Re:Profit margin?

[imsabbel]

And what?
What is your point?
yeah, they buy the stuff with mass rabattes. Yes, the stuff comes from cheap countries (or it would be even more expensive).
Chipsets are too expensive?
Well, you only need 200mm^2 of monocrystal SI fabbed a 0.13um grade fab (pricepoint 1Billion$ min). Even if it would cost nothing to grow the SI and run the vast cleanrooms (a cleanroom can cost a few millions per month only for the electricity of the blowers),also people work for free, no maintainmence, ect, you would need to sell 50 million of those chipsets to only get the fab in.
The only reason why those things are only 20$ is because old CPU fabs/lines can be recycled.

Maybe its BECAUSE you are from one of these "developing countries" (a VERY vague thing, btw) that you have such a warped sense of price/overprice.

A mainboard costs less than filling up the gastank of my car, or a ticket for a bigger concert, or an dinner for two.
They are REDICULOUSLY cheap compared to any other kind of machinery.

Re:Profit margin?

[burnin1965]

With a little research I think you will find that you are wrong about the pricing of computer parts. If you were to look at individual offerings for a company you would find that some parts have high margins while others have low margins. But the overall effect of the mixed margins and the extreme pressure of competition in the hardware industry is resulting in very low margins.

And for some facts to back it up, take a look at Gigabyte's 2001 - 2002 financial statement at http://www.gigabyte.de/Company/Stock/pdf/fs_093001 _02.pdf

Or to make it quick, in 2002 their overall gross profit margin was a mere 18%. $94,639,000(USD) / $498,739,000(USD) = 0.18975...

As a worker in the hardware industry I have the opportunity to see first hand the extreme pressure placed on workers to keep costs down all in the name of maintaining market share and sustainability. So you can imagine that when I hear some bozo from Microsoft telling the media that hardware manufacturers need to cut costs further because the cost of a PC with Windows is too expensive for the developing nations I look at the 80% profit margin at Microsoft and think that perhaps the solution is to dump the expensive Windows.

Anyhow, I'm starting to rant. I just wanted to point out that competition in the hardware industries is rather extreme and the result is very inexpensive components. In some cases they are inexpensive to the point at which sustainability of a business model becomes questionable.

burnin

Re:Profit margin?

[mOdQuArK!]

What exactly is a "gross profit margin"?
How does it compare to "net profit"?

Re:Profit margin?

[Klivian]

One more thing to consider when dealing with boardmanufacturers are where they earn their proffit. It's actually only a small part of their income who stems from the actually work done manufacturing the hardware. Most of the income comes from the parts/components, taking profit from every part soldered to the board. To illustrate, if you can get the workers to work 10% faster requiring 10% less staff it amounts to no more than being able to buy components 1-2% cheaper.

Re:Profit margin?

[Kuro-Bishounen]

Net profit is 'usually' much lower than gross, as it is taken when all taxes, costs, PR, R&D, depreciation is added/subtracted. I say 'usually' because in some countries many of these costs can be claimed back against the tax.

Re:Profit margin?

[burnin1965]

Gross is before other considerations, it varies depending on how accounting principles are applied but it is usually a good measure of how well your current products are doing.

Net profit will be smaller than gross and comes after deducting other expenses such as research and developement.

On the 2001 - 2002 financial statement for Gigabyte they factor in R&D expenses, general and selling expenses, interest expenses, taxes, and a few other items after the gross calculation. Basically what it comes down to is while the gross profit for the year was $94,639,000(USD) the actual net after these other expenses was only $54,813,000(USD).

burnin

Re:Profit margin?

[burnin1965]

Agreed, however, these considerations are factored into the financial statements. Its possible they would not be included in the gross profit but they would definitely be included in the net. If you look at their financial statement you will see that net profit is significantly lower than gross so there is no magic bullet here for profitability. When it comes right down to it competition in the hardware industry is hardcore.

burnin

Re:Profit margin?

[Anonymous Coward]

A dictionary is only 5$ with which you can learn the wonders of properly spelled words like RIDICULOUSLY and REBATES! It's amazing, I tell you, amazing!

Re:Profit margin?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a PCB designer, I am offended that they didn't start with the schematic. Getting the data sheets for each of the parts on the board, creating the schematic symbols and making sure there are no errors, creating the footprints, setting up the PCB software with all the DRC rules and power net information, getting a stackup and dielectric information from the manufacturer, making the IBIS information available to the EMI simulator, routing the damn mess by hand or with some help from the auto-router, then running simulations for jitter and noise and cross-talk....

Re:Profit margin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try and make a chipset yourself. Better yet, just try doing the logical design. See how far you get then decide if its really worth less than $20.

..great

[mrsev]

Well I for one find this story great. I find it very interesting how the process is done. Finaly the 1st April shit is over.

Re:..great

[MBAFK]

Last year I read an interesting article reporting on a tour of Abit's Motherboard factory. Although this story seems more comprehensive you might want to check it out anyway.

Re:..great

[Strolls]

I find it very interesting how the process is done. Finaly the 1st April shit is over.

In that case you might enjoy this Panorama clip about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.

Re:..great

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Gotcha. Motherboards are actually created by magic, by the Keebler elves.

See? We post 20 really dumb April fool's articles, and then one that sounds believeable, and everybody buys it...

Does posting the same link twice in one story

[marat]

mean they'd be no dupe? Or is it like modern computer architectures being multiway both via multicore and multichip at the same time? (Or is it only me loading all story links in new background tabs first?)

Where are the fatherboards?

[Bongoots]

From my understanding, motherboards can have daughterboards.. but where are the fatherboards?

Illegitimacy seems rife in the computing world! o_O

Re:Where are the fatherboards?

[Anonymous Coward]

stick to your day job

Re:Where are the fatherboards?

[AndroidCat]

There was the SS-50* bus which used molex pins sticking up from the main board and socket connectors on the sub cards. A father board and daughters?

* SS-50 was used by the 680x side of the first Intel-Motorola Holy Wars.

Re:Where are the fatherboards?

[ozbird]

It's possible that boards are asexual and daughterboards "bud" off from motherboards, or there's a queenboard and a few drones hoping for a chance to father the next generation of boards.

Re:Where are the fatherboards?

[mysticwhiskey]

My guess is that the fatherboards refuse to perform garbage collection, misinterpret the communication protocol with the motherboard, and are constantly scolded for eyeing off the newer models of GPU's.

Thus they are kept in solitary confinement far from the eyes of the public and are used only to pump out offspring. It's solely for the XY86 chromosome, I'm sure.

MB most complex part?

[Bender_]

from the articles: Without a doubt, motherboards are the most complex and essential part of the modern PC.

I dont know, I think the manufacturing process of the CPU and memory is slightly more complex. The entire process from wafer arrival to package shipments takes 2 to 3 month.

Re:MB most complex part?

[RaffiRai]

Most of that is simply sitting in vats of chemicals, physically making the Silicon ready to be turned into a processor.

Re:MB most complex part?

[imsabbel]

Sorry, no.
The 3 months turnover STARTS with finished, nicely polished monocrysal wafers.
The zone-melting and crystal growing stuff doesnt even count into it.

Re:MB most complex part?

[pipingguy]

Yeah.

Where are the exotic industrial gases used? I'm assuming the stuff is used as a blanketing environment in the clean room manufacturing, but I don't really know.

I only help to design the plants that make the more mundane stuff like LOX, LIN etc. and never got involved in the really esoteric stuff.

Apparently, liquid nitrogen is used in the testing booths for checking operation at low temperatures.

Re:MB most complex part?

[rah1420]

IIRC, the "exotic industrial gases" are generally used either as dopants or cleaning agents.

I think regular old non-exotic inert gases are used for environmental air wherever it's needed in the wafer chambers, like for ion deposition and the like.

Re:MB most complex part?

[Anonymous Coward]

With the popularity of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) as a deposition technique, you get some really exotic gases. Silane (for silicon, or insulators like silicon dioxide or silicon nitride), metal-halides, organo-metallics, etc. Basically, gaseous reactants that leave behind the desired solid product and have gaseous waste products. Really weird, and really, really, really dangerous (pyrogenic, explosive, corrosive, and/or toxic) stuff.

Re:MB most complex part?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of your shitty tone, you've earned an overrated mod. Enjoy, snob.

Next time, think to yourself, "Maybe the esoteric bullshit I know isn't common knowledge, and being snotty about it isn't the best way."

This life lesson brought to you by the anonymous moderator.

Re:MB most complex part?

[imsabbel]

Well, because of you being an anounymous ASSHOLE, you get a 0 mod and dont even apear on my screen if i dont click on the "1 reply below your threshold" link.

If people talk shit about stuff they dont know SHIT about, its only just to tread them like the shitheads they are.

Re:MB most complex part?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oooo you used capitalized dirty words. I'm telling the lameness filter on you.

Re:MB most complex part?

[halldav3]

The most complex? Not even close. The disc drive is way more complex. The hard drive has a mini motherboard of its own, complete with processor, flash memory, dram (or ROM), high speed data channel, motor controller, etc. Oh, and did I mention the there are spinning discs in there with read/write heads moving a few nanometers above the surface?

Nice poster

[Anonymous Writer]

Check out that "fine motivational strategy" sign on page 10...

Be more responsible
Complain less
Be more attentive
Make lesser mistakes

Yay. I feel so motivated just reading it.

Re:Nice poster

[Lisandro]

"Demand less pay" is cut from the picture too.

Re:Nice poster

[ettlz]

Make lesser mistakes

All your motherboard are belong to us.

Re:Nice poster

[Rolo Tomasi]

The sign they didn't show:

This is no place for loafers.
Join me or die.
Can you do any less?

Re:Nice poster

[devilspgd]

Make lesser mistakes?

I don't know about you, but I'd rather they don't make encourage mistakes big or small.

Re:Nice poster

[Storlek]

I liked the air shower sign:

Air Shower Using Rule
When You Enter Air Shower
Please Push and Pull the Door Tenderly

Re:Nice poster

[novakyu]

Check out that "fine motivational strategy" sign on page 10...

Be more responsible Complain less Be more attentive Make lesser mistakes

Yay. I feel so motivated just reading it.

Rather, notice the Chinese part. See how it's all four characters long? What you are reading in English is a badly translated motto which must be at least somewhat decent (I can't read Chinese either---I only have some cultural awareness). Most Chinese proverbs and mottos are designed to be four characters long---it's almost like a poetry (with meter and rhyme) and it has to be translated as thus...

(But, of course, we "enligthened" Western overlords like to look at badly, unidiomatically translated piece of "exotic" Eastern writing, point at it and say, "Awww, look, they write and speak funny. How cute." You have yet to read a badly-translated English in another language.)

Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[ferrellcat]

FTA..."Without a doubt, motherboards are the most complex and essential part of the modern PC." Wouldn't you say that the design and manufacture of CPUs are at least a level of magnitude more complex than mothermoards?

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[vidarlo]

FTA..."Without a doubt, motherboards are the most complex and essential part of the modern PC." Wouldn't you say that the design and manufacture of CPUs are at least a level of magnitude more complex than mothermoards?

Absolutely. A motherboard is a assembly of other parts. Although it requires some care to design it so all fits together, it is still just a assembly. Even southbridge is more complex than a motherboard...

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[big_groo]

I'm willing to bet that a lot less people are involved in the manufacturing of CPUs. Here, there is a greater chance for mistakes - more hands are involved. Can you imagine installin DIMM sockets for 8 hours per day?? You thought cleaning spyware was bad...

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[starman97]

All the parts on a motherboard are installed by pick and place machines. I wouldn't be surprised to find that on high volume runs, no human hands ever touch the board or any of the parts on it.

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[HadenT]

You haven't read article then, big parts are mounted by hand, and then run through soldering machine.
In fact, my brother operates such solder, and sees women mounting capacitors/etc. all day long - it is hard and very monotonic job.

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean monotonous

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[CProgrammer98]

This is slashdot, so of course, you didn't bother to RT(very intersting)FA did you.

You are SO wrong... go read it...

Re:Motherboards most complex part of PC???

[Anonymous Coward]

As a CPU designer, I can answer this easily...

YES!

It takes THOUSANDS of man-years to develop a world class CPU. Think 2000 highly-skilled engineers (average experience level = MSEE + 5 yrs of experience) working for 5 years.

CPUs are one of the most complicated things mankind has ever created.

Motherboards are trivial in comparision.

PCB

[LittleGuernica]

Gigabyte out sources the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards)

So THAT'S what PCB means, after all this time... Is this in Wikipedia yet?
Why, yes it is Guess I was just to lazy to look it up..

Re:PCB

[imroy]

Wow! And all this time I thought it was referring to Polychlorinated biphenyl. Man, they really cleared that up for me!

Re:PCB

[FudRucker]

Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)???

Re:PCB

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever you have an acronym (you know, these capital letters tied together and meaning nothing) you can use the google "define:" feature :
Google define:PCB

It works with plain words too : this one could be of some use to the average ./er
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3Awoma n

Re:PCB

[Rhinobird]

This one time my friend did some PCB and he started kicking the crap out of his computer, while screaming something about deamon windows or something...wait...are we talking about the same thing?

Re:PCB

[Anonymous Coward]

..shouldn't you define girlfriend

# a girl or young woman with whom a man is romantically involved; "his girlfriend kicked him out"

.. LOL

Re:PCB

[shirai]

If you have a chance, you should check out the link above on the definition of woman. It is unintentionally funny.

No respect I tell ya. Here are some (admittedly selective) excerpts:

• "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
  
• charwoman: a human female who does housework; "the char will clean the carpet"
  
• a female person who plays a significant role (wife or mistress or girlfriend) in the life of a particular man; "he was faithful to his woman"
  
• was "taken out of man" (Gen. 2:23), and therefore the man has the preeminence. "The head of the woman is the man;" but yet honour is to be shown to the wife, "as unto the weaker vessel"
  
• but one sure-fire way to remember this word is to think of basketball player Kobe Bryant, who is the guaranteed epitome of feminine
  

I like the definition that includes "mistress" then, for an example sentence, says "he was faithful to his woman." I can count at least three things ironic/funny about just that one definition. :)

Re:PCB

[mcknation]

In the interest of brevity you can find the deffinition in the top right hand corner of your screen if you just type in

PCB

or

Woman

Results 1 - 20 of about 105,000,000 for woman [definition]. (0.09 seconds)

ymmv, works for me about 90% of the time. /McK

Re:PCB

[charon_1]

The best for defining Acronyms is AcronymFinder

must be the same guy.

[the_mind_]

The Guy that made the sign on the airshower door must be that same guy that translates the manuals that comes with the motherboards.
"Please Push and Pull the Door Tenderly" :-)

Re:must be the same guy.

[rob_squared]

Always be tender to your doors.

New Intellitext - Aauughh!

[Anonymous Coward]

The new filter to add to your Firefox Addblock extension is "contextclick".

Re:New Intellitext - Aauughh!

[Anonymous Coward]

/(double|value|fast|ad|context)click/

You don't need their phone number - just use any

[marat]

If you ever been to Taiwan you'd know most girls there look absolutely great (it's not only me noticing this). I don't know how did they achieve it.

Education required for designing these plants?

[Radiate]

I was really facinated by the article and I'm curious as to what kind of education is required for designing these manufacturing plants?

Not that I'm an overoptimistic daydreamer but just curious..

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[Legion303]

And since the designer gets local wages, you'll be swimming in a pool of money a la Scrooge McDuck in no time! Oh boy!

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[malkavian]

At a rough guess, a combination of Architecture, Mech Engineering, Civil Engineering and Electrical Engineering are the main culprits.
Get your degree, then spend 10 years doing the legwork to get you enough experience, and maybe, just maybe, you'll end up designing a small part of a building like that.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[pipingguy]

Probably start with a degree in mechanical engineering and work up from there. Or just get an entry-level job as a janitor and work your way up via brown nosing. Of course, janitors at these places are likely a few levels up from emptying wastebaskets and fishing out unrepentant turds from toilet bowls.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[Anonymous Coward]

Used to be split into Mech, Elec, Civil, Environmental and Arch.

Now there's a spec field of Industrial Engineering that tries to incorporate general knowlege in all to develop design. Some of the new kids in the field are pretty hot, but it's got a ways to go. They're often overridden by committee.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[Rostin]

I would add one discpline no one's mentioned: Industrial engineering.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[chang3]

From my second (or third) hand knowledge. Formal education (sitting in the classroom, etc) is not the main point. It really requires studying the problems at hand very hard and constantly tweaking and refining. They may speak lesser English, but they do know to pool experiences from all the displines mentioned in this thread together.

This is NOT to say whoever designed and maintained such a plant do not have education. Most of them have advance degrees. Typical job opening needs a college degree just to get the resume in. AFAIK, the salaries for entry-level engineers starts around US$15,000/year. Not great, but certainly not pennies per hour that some /.ers thought. And the compensation is HEAVILY loaded with bonuses and stock options. It is not unheard of the bonuses being several times of salary for a good year.

Oh, for those who are interested in some certain phone numbers: send some Karma over and I'll see what I can do.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[LighthouseJ]

Some people say Industrial Engineering but that Engineering discipline isn't as widespread as the Electrical/Computer, Civil, Mechanical Engineering disciplines. If you want to get into fabrication, you should look into Electrical Engineering if you cannot find a discipline closer to manufacturing. For example, my school has an option to take fabrication classes under the Electrical/Computer engineering program where you design and then build a custom IC. You pick the size, how many pins and then put whatever electronic components (resistors, capacitors, inductors, or maybe logic gates) and then actually fabricate your device within a semester.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[mako1138]

Picking the size and how many pins? That might be true, but most fab classes would focus on modern semiconductor technology, meaning MOSFETs, and MEMs. At least that's the case at my school.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[LighthouseJ]

Here they do that too, I'm saying how far back in production they start, beginning at deciding what they want (MOSFET's included) and then the dimentions of the chip, arrangement of pins and then until the chip is actually made. So, to summarize, my school is just as good as your school, probably better because you don't go to it.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[Brooklynoid]

Probably enough to know how to spell "fascinated" correctly and to know that question marks do not go at the end of declarative sentences.

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[Black Acid]

What school is that?

Re:Education required for designing these plants?

[mako1138]

Whoa, chill. I'm sorry if you interpreted my post as vindictive. I just found it curious that design would start with the number of pins. In general you would start with a purpose for the chip, which would determine the minimum number of pins.

Actually, if you would tell me more about the course, I have a feeling it has a completely different focus from the one I'm comparing it to.

And true, with my GPA, you probably don't want me dragging down your school's reputation.

I find this...

[ErZo]

Delicious! This is a snack for my brain. Awesome :)

Re:Hmmm

[Swedentom]

When two mother boards fall in love and get married, a new board is produced.

Yeah, but that would be a daughterboard, right? :-)

Awesome

[ksilebo]

Not to sound like an ingrate, because this is really cool, but I'd love to see a video tour of this. Growing up in the 80's I have fond memories of randomly catching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and watching him tour some factory. I'd like to see that in the factories today.

Re:Awesome

[rah1420]

I have been fortunate enough to work once in a line sort of like this (although much less complex) but also in a microelectronics fab where they make the chips. Manufacturing is some way cool shit.

Too bad I only got to page 8 of TFA before the site got slashdotted. Oh well, I'll check it out later...

Re:Awesome

[binarybum]

agreed. some of the video footage on MRN was really superb. Some of that stuff was completely mezmorizing - I specifically recall a tour of a tri-cycle assembly line that was beautiful. watching robots work is like listening to a good drum machine rhythm.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I never realized how cool this stuff was. My first job was as a Co-op at a PCB manufacturer, I worked in almost all the departments at the facility (press/etch/expose/drill/fab/plating/quality/shipp ing/ and IT). Now I engineer software that controls SMT placement machines. I take all this stuff for granted, and I see stuff now, that won't be used for a couple of years (for example machines that pick/place components half the size of an 0201'2)

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get Discovery channel, they've got this show called "how it's made". There's a lot of factories being shown on that show.

I've even seen one about Matrox. Quite cool. I've also seen the "pick-n-place" machines in person. You won't believe how fast those things really are until you see it (or a video).

Re:Awesome

[NickDngr]

Not to sound like an ingrate, because this is really cool, but I'd love to see a video tour of this. Growing up in the 80's I have fond memories of randomly catching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and watching him tour some factory. I'd like to see that in the factories today.

Check this site out. I think it has what you are looking for.

how much labour goes into each board

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of labour that goes into a board depends entirely on the relative cost of labour and machinery.

For a long time, we have been able to build completely automated board facilities. Since the seventies, we have been able to build and test boards completely untouched by human hands. Automation is really expensive so even in North America such facilities are rare.

Re:how much labour goes into each board

[rcs1000]

Actually, you need to add (at least) component sourcing as well. Lets assume that the finished mobo is sold for $80 to Dell or whoever. This has to cover:

(1) The Intel (or nVidia, etc.) chipset - c $40
(2) Various other components from Murata, Rohm, etc. - $10
(3) Labour
(4) Land, rent
(5) Manufacturing equipment
(6) Employees used to make the mobo
(7) Employees in R&D
(8) Employees in sales and marketing
(9) Management
(10) Taxes
(11) Random other overheads (telecoms, bandwidth, auditing fees)
(12) Transportation of the finished product to the US, or wherever
and, finally,
(13) Profit

Automation doesn't help that much. The cost of the employees actually making the mobo is tiny. Depreciation of components, or even shipping, are probably bigger expenses.

Little wonder that motheboard manufacturers make so little money. This a super-competitive industry. And we - as consumers - benefit mightily.

Cheers,

Robert

check

[tofucubes]

Are you sure it isn't being made by Oompa-Loompas?(the foreign race of people who are happy to work for basically nothing in a closed-off factory far from inspectors)

Re:check

[j_sp_r]

They are not making chocolate are they?

Re:You don't need their phone number - just use an

[a16]

If you ever been to Taiwan you'd know most girls there look absolutely great (it's not only me noticing this). I don't know how did they achieve it.

How do you know he's interested in their looks? This is slashdot - he probably just wants a free motherboard ;)

Be happy but be aware

[awfar]

Cheap hardware relies on someone willing to do it that cheaply; how long can this last?

Re:Be happy but be aware

[antikristian]

as long as we keep some people poor...

Re:Be happy but be aware

[Glowing Fish]

Typical monthly salaries in Taiwan are from 500-1500 dollars.
Prices there are often much cheaper (ie a two bedroom apartment in the city is 200-300 dollars), and when that is factored in, the people in Taiwan have a standard of living that is about equal to Americans, and exceeds it in some ways.

Re:Be happy but be aware

[Anonymous Coward]

How long can it last?

As long as there are rich people in power that understand that the way to make money is to keep a large class of people impoverished and thus willing to work cheaply.

Don't worry about a lack of cheap goods of all kinds becoming scarce. Worry about how to keep yourself out of your nation's large class of impoverished people, whichever nation that might be.

Testing

[netrage_is_bad]

I find it interesting how much time they put into testing each motherboard. It looks like they spend more time testing it than assembling it.

Re:Testing

[orkysoft]

Maybe because RMAs are expensive and give the brand a bad name?

Re:Testing

[Klivian]

Yes, that's usually the case. Perhaps not time as in manual handling, but as time spent in automatic test systems. Burn in tests usually takes hours. You fill up the test machine with boards in a few minutes, and while they are tested you go do another job. Testing is the most likely suspect in creating the additional cost when you see two nearly identical motherboards with big difference in price.

Taiwan MOBO vs China MOBO

[GomezAdams]

I had to start checking when buying parts or finished computers where the MB was manufactured. The China boards had a big failure rate before the equipment was rotated out but the Taiwan boards had a nearly 100% chance of being working and in shape to sell or donate at the end of the cycle. Things may have changed since I was involved at that level but you couldn't give me a mother board (or power supply) made in China

Damn

[Daxx_61]

Slashdotted already.

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in the US. Two MOTHERboards ?!? Sanctity of marriage !!!

Stress Tested

[Paska]

Each system is run through several hundred loops of 3D Mark 2001 in 40C temperatures. This tests stability under the most grueling of conditions.

Now I know why I've never had much luck with Gigabyte boards, they arn't tested to Australian climates, they really need to test these things in 50+C temperatures as you can bet my room in Australia gets that high in summer.

Re:Stress Tested

[mysticwhiskey]

For the love of God, get an air-conditioner! Think of the poor CPU! They don't yet have beer-cooling!

Re:Stress Tested

[Dogtanian]

Now I know why I've never had much luck with Gigabyte boards, they arn't tested to Australian climates

Actually, I think you'll find your problem is that Gigabyte motherboards aren't designed to work upside-down.

Re:Stress Tested

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFLOL, funniest reply in years.

Mod that guy +10, for crying out loud. :D

Re:Stress Tested

[Infinityis]

Also, when you have electrons flowing towards ground, the designers implicitly assume that the electrons will spin clockwise. That whole counter-clockwise spin must produce extra heat...

Re:Stress Tested

[Anonymous Coward]

Where the hell in Australia do you live? I've only ever seen it get to about 40-45 outside in direct sunlight in the hottest summers. For it to be 50 degrees Celsius inside your room, I'm surprised you still live.

Cool, my company have been slashdotted (sorta)

[Mark Gillespie]

I work for a company called DEK (www.dek.com), and our machines are featured in this article http://www.pcstats.com/index3.html Can we now claim to have been slasdotted?? (indirectly)

readme:

[Creepy Crawler]

If yous opens it, please carefully closed

you thanks us.

Other factories

[sm8000]

Abit: http://techreport.com/etc/2004q2/abit-tour/index.x ?pg=1 ECS/PC-Chips: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1891&p= 1 AOpen & Asus: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/mobofactories/ Chaintech: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/articles/cha intech_taiwan/

Their website....

[cokemaster]

must be hosted on a half complete motherboard... their website is very slow.

Interesting...

[zappepcs]

Design for manufacture is an engineering process that I've learned a little bit about, but doing the math... 22 8hr work days in one average month means they can produce 75+ motherboards per work minute! That is something to think about. Its always amazing to me to see the factory equipment, test benches look like stuff I've got in my garage half the time.

Re:Interesting...

[jimbo3123]

What makes you think that they only work one shift?
5 day work weeks, Ha!

Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[thebes]

Gigabyte out sources the PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) it uses for its motherboards to a PCB manufacturer. These arrive already etched with the necessary circuit traces, pre-coloured and pre-drilled with the holes that are needed to insert components like the CPU socket and PCI slots. Other than this though, they are completely bare, containing no components or solder.

For the ignorant ones, the making of the PCB's themselves is not a simple process. Think about the traces you see on the surface, then place about 4-6 layers on top of each other. The fact that the PCB's are outsourced takes a huge load off the remaining process.

Re:Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[Anonymous Coward]

4-6 is a conservative estimate. The company I work for has 14+ layer designs for our telcom boards...

Re:Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[spaceyhackerlady]

For the ignorant ones, the making of the PCB's themselves is not a simple process. Think about the traces you see on the surface, then place about 4-6 layers on top of each other. The fact that the PCB's are outsourced takes a huge load off the remaining process.

I wouldn't have minded seeing that part of the process. Modern boards have zillions of layers for circuitry, power distribution, grounding and shielding. It must take some doing to get them right, let alone manufacture them.

The first Pentium III motherboard I owned (an Intel SE440BX-2) looked like the product of an alien civilization. I still have the computer I built around it; I'm using it now, in fact. Slackware 10 (kernel 2.6.9), 550 MHz Slot 1 Pentium III, 768 MB RAM, 110 GB disk (80 + 30), ADSL. It serves me well.

...laura

Re:Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I work for a company that has a division making circuit boards. Its a LOT more primitive then you would suspect.

Re:Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[protohiro1]

The PCBs are printed on with a photographic process. It is a lot simpler to manufactur than you might think.

Re:Writter oversimplified PCB Process

[Anonymous Coward]

Solectron is one of the major board makers in the US.

Good advice

[No Such Agency]

These are all solid ways to be better at your job... of course these motivations are never aimed at management, only workers.

pollution

[hildi]

wheres the poop chute?

Coral CDN

[gfilion]

Spare that poor server, use a mirror from Coral CDN

page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4 page 5 page 6 page 7 page 8 page 9

page 10 page 11 page 12 page 13 page 14 page 15 page 16 page 17 page 18 page 19 page 20

MB most complex part?-Cheap Lust.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I dont know, I think the manufacturing process of the CPU and memory is slightly more complex. The entire process from wafer arrival to package shipments takes 2 to 3 month."

The most important lesson to walk away with, is how much work goes into satisfying the consumer's lust for cheap goods.

yes a great story

[Anonymous Coward]

and to think that motherboard costs 30-100$, seeing that humans are involved in quite a few stages you have to admire their dedication and efficiency, its not hard to see why the west cannot compete at that level, lets hope their workers are treated well

P0rn

[Anonymous Coward]

Those Fuji SMT machines sure looked slim, nicely curved and very hot. These images should be a part of any true Geek's p0rn collection.

Live Facility Tour?

[drwhitt]

Very interesting process... Anyone know of any facilities that host public tours? In the US? In Europe? Etc.?

Re:Live Facility Tour?

[Adult film producer]

Do they even have these in the u.s. anymore ?

Re:Live Facility Tour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they do. The company I work for (in Boca Raton, Florida) makes all of our products on site. We have two SMT lines, one line having two high-speed Samsung pick and place machines.

Solder spreading and everything else is all automated. We sold our wave solder oven so through-hole stuff is done by hand. We produce automotive electronics.

The compressor used to supply the lines is so loud we can hear it kick on in the engineering building! Truely impressive.

well you see

[FidelCatsro]

Well you see little Johnny , It all starts when Granfather-Board and Grandmother-Board Decide they love each other ...

Re:well you see

[fostware]

Urgh! And don't get me started on when motherboards and daughterboards get together...

Re:well you see

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a joke about female to female conectors

Re:well you see

[serutan]

You read my mind, or what's left of it.

how much [birth control] goes into each board

[Anonymous Coward]

"Little wonder that motheboard manufacturers make so little money. This a super-competitive industry. And we - as consumers - benefit mightily."

As long as there's competition. Now if any drop out for whatever reason...

Re:Yawn.....

[AKAImBatman]

what is so special about the whole setup? Motherboards have been around for more than 20 years.

True, but what's up with the blue boards? They've been green for 20+ years, and yet in the past couple of years they've all been coming out blue. Are they using different materials of some sort, or is it just stylistic?

Lead Solder Paste Hazardous to Health?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd hate to be the person handling the solder paste, which almost assuredly contains lead. They wear gloves but, as the photo shows, there's no way they can avoid getting it on their skin, inhaling it, etc.

Speaking of RMA's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of RMA's... I had a Gigabyte board that I had to return twice cause it kept going bad. I managed to lose a lot of time that should have been spent on school work, and $30-35 that it cost me to ship it to them. Then Gigabyte wouldn't even return it via express shipping.

first comes love then comes marriage...

[UlfGabe]

You take a daddyboard and a motherboard...

oh wait, that's for babyboards.

sorry. i forgot that The Technician created the first motherboard and fatherboard. Placed them in SilicEden and let them be.

Re:You don't need their phone number - just use an

[marat]

So my message somehow became offtopic despite both parent and reply are +5 Funny? (doesn't it mean I should have been ROFL from each joke?) I'M probably new here...

(feel free to mod this bitching down, thank you)

kinda seems like nya nya nya nyaaaa nyaa

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, kids! These are the people taking your jobs! On the upside, they may become your future employers :)

high tech

[binarybum]

are those load bearing paper clips?

Number of testing stations?

[kb9vcr]

The article leaves me curious as to the number of testing stations they have for any given production line?

It seems like they can really pump out the boards at break neck speeds but once that's over, each individual board is tested for electrical connectivitiy, then later for complete functionality and finally, the 3D stress test in the chamber. I can only guess that they have an enormous number of test stations or maybe it's that they don't run the board production lines 24x7 but the testing stations are?

"lesser"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Make lesser mistakes? (emphasis added)

Are you sure that wasn't from a programming manual at Microsoft? Had it read less mistakes I could have accepted it, but since it didn't, I for one will not even consider a gigabyte mobo ever again (not to mention their name is misleading - I never got one with a gigabyte of memory).

*yawn*

[nurb432]

Havent anyone ever seen a modern manufacturing plant? ( or supported )

Sure the end products may vary, but in principle they are all about the same.

Pretty boring stuff.

Re:*yawn*

[Cid Highwind]

Sure the end products may vary, but in principle they are all about the same.

Yup. I was surprised how similar the whole process was to the Nokia phone plant where I used to work. Same concept, just bigger boards with more components. ...and if anyone hasn't seen a modern electronics factory, you should try to arrange a tour sometime. Thumbnail sized photos can't do justice to how the geeky cool factor of pick-and-place machines or wave soldering.

Solder resist

[msgmonkey]

The boards themselves are made from fiberclass and are opaque. What gives a board its green colour is the solder resist that is used to stop solder sticking to the tracks during wave soldering and stop the copper from oxidizing. So basically yes it is a stylistic change and not due to any change in the manufacture process materials for pcbs.

Doesn't surprise me, the MB *is* the computer

[cbreaker]

The mainboard is the computer. Especially now a days, with all the integration - gone are the days of a CPU slot, two chips, and some ISA slots.

The CPU is obviously important, but it's almost secondary to the duties that modern mainboards perform.

Re:You don't need their phone number - just use an

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and if you've ever been to the mainland, you'd know that most girls there look like they've been beaten with the ugly stick. Maybe that's why China wants to invade Taiwan so badly...

Re:Yawn.....

[Matt_Bennett]

In general, board color doesn't make any difference- the color comes from the solder mask- you can use any color you want. Where I work the color of the solder mask tells you what revision the board is- red boards are the first iteration, usually pretty buggy, lots of reworks. It freaked me out at first when I saw all the red motherboards at Fry's- my first reaction was ACK!-- stay away!

What?! You mean....

[urlgrey]

... it's not just twigs, bubble gum and duct tape inside a computer box thingy? (Oh, and blinky lights?)

But... but... but.. What's all this talk of 'transistors'? And what am I going to do with all this extra duct tape I bought to fix things in there when it breaks?

I'm a little afraid to open it now, and I thought I'd just worked up the courage.

[sigh] Now what? [/sigh]

Temperature control and other notes

[Animats]

It's impressive that they can run boards with SMT components already soldered down through a second pass, a wave soldering machine for the components with leads. That must take really tight temperature/time control. Especially with the newer lead-free solders, which have higher melting points.

It looks like they put their automation budget into the SMT part of the operation. The components with leads are inserted by hand. Automated machinery exists for those jobs, but they may not want to be stuck with it as it becomes obsolete. As more parts go SMT, more of those manual jobs will be eliminated.

It's unusual to see a modern factory with eight floors. Note how they use their automated warehouse as a vertical transportation system for parts. That's unusual, too. Factories designed around automated warehouses were once more popular. The original Apple plant in Fremont was built that way. But it tends to lead to too much work in process in storage. It's the opposite of the "just in time" approach. However, "just in time" works well only when the assembler has more clout than their parts suppliers, as in the auto industry.

Re:Temperature control and other notes

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about ? The factories start with high temp solder and then work their way down into cooler melting solders, the high stuff isn't going to melt as it passes over a low temp wave solder machine. It's not that hard to figure out.

blast to the past

[Anonymous Coward]

15 years ago i worked on similar assembly lines.

nothing on this scale, and older versions of the same kind of equipment. it was multilayer boards, solder paste, wave solder, auto pick and place, reels of components...handled big custom ICs, too.

that was in san diego, california, some of the techs that came in to service the equipment called our shop "small" and mentioned some huge places in san jose (i think) and also texas that were cranking out huge numbers of mobos for HP, IBM, SGI etc.

if you open up a big iron "unix" box from the late 80s/early 90s you will see much of the same components described in this article, with the same silscreen placement targets, etc!

All that work but....

[Bootard]

They can't even hire someone who speaks english well to translate the manual. The last couple of motherboards I've bought have been Gigabytes. They work ok, but the manual that comes with them is one of the worst translated things ever. Here's just on of MANY gems:

Have you ever updated BIOS by yourself? Or like many other people, you just know what BIOS is, but always hesitate to update it? Because you think updating newest BIOS is unnecessary and actually you don't know how to update it.
Maybe not like others, you are very experienced in BIOS updating and spend quite a lot of time to do it. But of course you don't like to do it too much. First, download different BIOS from website and then switch the operating system to DOS mode. Secondly, use different flash utility to update BIOS. The above process is not a interesting job.

Re:All that work but....

[real_smiff]

...Besides, always be carefully to store the BIOS source code correctly in your disks as if you update the wrong BIOS, it will be a nightmare.

lol, yep this really is in their newest manuals. and i think it looks horribly unprofessional, but maybe english speaking retail market is small enough for them not to care? Do G-B have much OEM market share? i wonder what their spanish, french etc. translations are like.. if they're translated from the English, it makes you wonder :p

Just bought a Gigabyte board because i've found them reliable and cheap. feel bad 'cos i'd like to support makers who put more effort into localisation (or indeed, are local! MSI and DFI are european i think? or at least, their manual writers are - but their boards are hard to find)

For such wonderful software*, how much it costs? Impossible! It's Free!

*it's their windows BIOS update util in case you're getting excited.

Re:All that work but....

[Bootard]

I really think it's funny. I've bought a couple GB motherboards before and I know they are the cheap Taiwan motherboards. I can always follow everything. If GB can save some money by apparently getting a fortune cookie company to translate the instructions into english, I'll take it.

Soldermask

[Anonymous Coward]

The board material is a fairly neutral color. The color that you see is the soldermask layer deposited on top of the board. Its purpose is to mask off everywhere that you don't want solder, helping to prevent shorts between close traces and pads. It also protects the traces from minor scratching , corrosion, and dirt, but not as well as the clear conformal coating that's used for boards that will be exposed to harsh environments. Soldermask is available in many colors. Translucent green lets you see the traces underneath the soldermask, but provides a good contrast to the board material seen through the openings in the mask.

The reference designators and other text are silkscreened on top of the soldermask. The ink is called 'legend' or 'silkscreen', and also comes in many colors. White text on a green background is easy to read, and photographs well. Quick trick - to keep a record of jumper settings, IC part numbers, or firmware labels, scan them with a flat bed scanner before installing them. It makes it easy to check revisions or jumper settings without opening the case.

Hidden trade secrets

[fostware]

Did anyone see where they rip off some chemical companies formula for capacitors? I must have skipped that page...

Last one out please turn off the light....

[FLOOBYDUST]

Missing from the article

1. Local regulations concerning emissions and chemical handling

2. State/ Federal regulations

3. Local colleges/ school providing trained labor

4. Managers who know how to manage and make good decisions.

This article could have been written in the late 70's early 80's about any of the hi tech businesses that used to dot the Silicon Valley or Route 128 belt .This looked like the DECs, Teradynes, Western Electric/ LUcent/ATT , Wangs and Prime Computers of the 70s and 80s Circa 1983 I attended an auction preview at a Data General board fab plant. Similar equipment and processes, but DG was dying as was all the other electronic manufacturing capability. Today the same decline is seen in the design part of the business. .

The once vibrant pc board business in New England is as dead as the textile business. Once again the US is facing the results of not investing in the manufacturing base of basic industries. AS the manufacturing base declines so does the support industries and eventually the design jobs.

Engineering as a profession is not as attractive as it was 30 years ago. A recent Wall Street Journal article ( no link) told how today's senior hi-tech executives can't get their own children interested in enrolling in engineering school. So what is the point of this rant? If you are in the engineering profession today your chances of employment are average to good; there is no one coming up behind you but you better stay up to date . For those thinking of entering the profession; You had better love it and get a minimum of a masters degree in your chosen field of study and whatever you do avoid manufacturing and industrial engineering. There are no factories left. They are all gone.
.

Re:Last one out please turn off the light....

[Anonymous Coward]

Solectron is an American company....

Ever wonder how motherboards are made?

[BorgCopyeditor]

By a largely automated industrial process comprising several distinct stages?

How naïve. Motherboards are constructed by a series of blowjobs.

(stolen from Mr. Show, like most good things.)

Re:Chinese Women are Hot - Not!

[d474]

Dude, I lived in Japan for a 1.5 years. Among other nationalities, I hooked up with 2 Japanese girls, one of them was my girlfriend. They were both very sexual, so WTF are you talking about?

You are wierd.

Re:Chinese Women are Hot - Not!

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan.... China.....

Hmm, they're different.

Much like any engineering discipline.

[Inoshiro]

You should test software longer than you write it. You should verify building layouts longer than you take to make them. You should ...

Verification of correctness is very important, otherwise you get a poor reputation quickly and won't be purchased by people anymore. Unless you're a monopoly.

20 year old asian women - dangerous!

[Rassendyll]

I have to agree with you on the dangers that young asian women pose to the cardiovascular system. I know one charming young taiwanese lady who would likely cause several thrombosis' per day if she wasn't so darn pleasant, friendly, and down to earth...

They forgot a few steps...

[Anonymous Coward]

First, if any one cares, PCB manufacturing goes like this:

1. A "core" of fiberglass coated in copper, is coated in a light-polymerizable "photo-resist".
2. Each side is exposed to an image (often in UV light) of the desired wiring for the board's inner layers.
3. The photo-resist that was NOT hardened by the image is washed off.
4. The entire board is dunked in a tank of etchant, which dissolves the copper where it's not protected by the resist.
5. The hardened resist is washed off with a special solvent.
6. A resin-impregnated sheet of uncured fiberglass is placed on both sides of the board.
7. A thin layer of copper foil is placed on top.
8. The sandwich is placed in a heated press to squish it together and cure the foberglass resin, hardening the newly added layers.
9. Holes are drilled in the sandwich everywhere a plated-through hole is desired in the final board. Plated-through holes are used to connect the layers together, as well as to install through-hole components.
10. The board is then placed in an "electroless copper" drposition solution, which deposits an extremely thin layer of copper everywhere, particularly over the walls of the judt-drilled holes.
11. The board is then attached to an electrode on one corner and dunked in an electroplating talk, which plates extra copper on the entire board, including the holes. Because of this additional copper, the outermost copper foil is extra-thin.
12. If card fingers are to be gold-plated, they are etched and the gold electroplated on while the remainder of the copper is still present to short-circuit them all together.
13. When all the copper needed in the holes is deposited, the board is coated with photoresist and the outer layers etched just like the inner layers.
14. Then the board is coated with a differnet kind of photo-polymerizable plastic, and a "solder mask" layer is placed on both sides. Again, this is by coating the board, exposing it to an ultraviolet image, and rinsing off the unpolymerized coating. When you buy a funny-coloured PC board (red, purple, or whatever), this solder mask is actually what's coloured.
15. Then any text is printed on the board, usually using a silkscreen process and white ink.
16. The ink is fired in another oven.
17. The entire board is dipped in solder to protect the exposed copper from oxidizing.
18. The excess solder is blown off using a "hot air knife".
19. Any holes not designed to be plated are drilled, and the board is cut to size. Also, any tapered edges like on the bottom of PCI cards are milled.
20. Electrical testing. There are various ways involving flaying-probe robots or custom test jigs, but every pair of solder pads on the board that are supposed to be connected are checked to make sure that they are connected, and a number that are not supposed to be connected are likewise checked to make sure they aren't. The latter is done based on which wires pass closeest to each other, as checking every possible pair would be very difficult.

Note that small boards are often made in arrays, which are assembled and soldered as a unit before being pulled apart. Also, side rails to hold the PCB during automated assembly are often included in the bare PCB, which are cut off after it's assembled.

The above is for a 4-layer PCB, which is typical of PC motherboards. You can make a PCB with dozens of layers, but the fewer layers, the cheaper, and PC motherboards are very competitive, so designers have worked really hard to reduce the layer count. Motherboard chip designers know they have to pay careful attention to the order the pins come out of their chip so it won't cause layout problems!

Anyway, once you have the bare boards, the process goes:

1. Cleaning. Clean is very important! If the board isn't clean, you get bad solder joints.
2. Solder paste printing. This is done with a metal foil (0.006" = 0.15 mm thick is typical) placed over tha board, an

well, i thought it was interesting

[hyperstation]

but why are motherboards not made in the US?

Re:well, i thought it was interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Environmental cost. There are no rules for chemical waste dumping in China or Taiwan. They can just dump it in the ocean without anyone protesting. This would be unthinkable in the U.S. or Europe. This saves the manufacturing companies *alot* of money.

Re:well, i thought it was interesting

[kasmoie]

Extremely cheap labor.

Re:You don't need their phone number - just use an

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even mention free motherboards, don't be giving anyone ideas... After free iPods, free minis, free LCDs - free motherboards! Wouldn't even surprise me...

As corny as this may sound

[theolein]

Thanks slashdot for posting a nice geeky article for a change.

I wonder...

[fmobus]

Why it's called "mother-board"? What if it were called "uncle-board" or "granpa-board"?

thanks troll boy

[fliptout]

More action for me when i am living in china.

I have no idea where you get your ideas laser brain. Chinese women are traditional, yes, but they like sex too.

and now you know...

[Anonymous Coward]

"surprising about how much labour goes into each board"

and now you know why they are made in taiwan.

You are clueless, Sir

[Donny Smith]

What the fuck are you blathering about?

Mobos lose money because margins are pathetic (and they're pathetic because of too much competition). And price competition is fierce not only in mobos but in virtually all components and parts that go into one (resistors, PCBs, capacitors, on-board chips, etc.). Even chipsets don't make money (at least in case of VIA - just look at their less-than-stellar results).
Because of all that, mobo manufacturers are extremely cost conscious.
For same reasons, there are almost no mobo factories left in Taiwan - they've all moved to China or (a few) to SE Asia. There's no way a company can afford to make mobos (at profit) in Taiwan. (I bet the factory in that article won't survive beyond 2005. In fact I was very much surprised to hear that there actually is a mobo factory in Taiwan that is still in use.)

Being the Gigabyte factory

[Trogre]

We must remember to include plenty of JPCON and GSC capacitors to get that healthy swell and electrolyte ooze after a year or so.

Re:You don't need their phone number - just use an

[Infinityis]

So you're saying he wants a MILF? Motherboard I'd Like Free?

Re:Chinese Women are Hot - Not!

[Omniscientist]

I can't speak about China, but I have a girlfriend who is from Thailand and she is extremely horny all of the time.

What about processors?!?

[kasmoie]

I was wondering, does anyone know about similar articles concerning how they make processors? I think that would be interesting to read about. Thanks!

TAYEH and Chhsi Electros Fail too - how to repair

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply replace with higher values, both volts and next Uf up. Wetting the PC with copious amounts of flux before desoldering with a very hot iron is wise.