China is hands-down the manufacturing Mecca for a PC {hardware} nerd like me. So once I had the chance to see the magic taking place first-hand I instantly packed a bag and travelled the 6,000-odd miles from the Shire-like West of England to the smog-choked Mordor of Dongguan in China to see simply how such technical wonders are created.
Like many PC players I robotically count on my costly, advanced lump of graphics processing goodness to only work, giving virtually zero thought to the place it’s come from or the way it obtained right here. But once I was given the possibility to see first-hand the newest batch of Nvidia and AMD graphics playing cards being created and examined earlier than my jet-lagged eyeballs I instantly jumped at it.
And yeah, I now have a brand new appreciation for each the engineers who solder, screw, and take a look at each single card in addition to the marvellous machines that assist them do it. Seriously, these little robotic component-placing magicians are mesmerising. I might watch all of them day… which could make me extra suited to manufacturing unit work in China than I may need initially anticipated.
There are quite a few producers promoting graphics playing cards in your gaming pleasure, however in all probability fewer firms truly placing the playing cards collectively than you may assume from shopping Amazon.
Read extra: These are the best GPUs to purchase at the moment
I used to be fortunate sufficient to go to one of many manufacturing services of an organization you’ve in all probability by no means heard of, however have in all probability used one thing it’s created. PC Partner has been making expertise occur since 1997 when it started life as a motherboard provider.
The following 12 months it began its contract manufacturing enterprise and has by no means seemed again. Today it manufactures merchandise for a variety of firms, corresponding to Dell, AMD, Acer, Samsung, Sapphire, LG, Microsoft, in addition to its personal manufacturers: Zotac and Inno3D.
And in graphics card phrases meaning it manufactures each Nvidia and AMD playing cards – dig deep sufficient and tribal roots usually sprout from the identical place. PC Partner is, in actual fact, the most important contract producer of AMD playing cards. Though I wasn’t allowed to {photograph} the AMD graphics playing cards coming off the manufacturing line so that you’ll solely see Nvidia-based Zotac playing cards.
As effectively as graphics playing cards PC Partner additionally manufactures motherboards, mini PCs, flash media merchandise, ATMs and level of sale units. And the numbers are fairly staggering too – PC Partner alone will produce 400,000 graphics playing cards every month and, whenever you see the method every a kind of has to undergo earlier than it reaches our PCs, that quantity turns into much more spectacular.
Each of PC Partner’s graphics card manufacturing strains can create, on common, round 4,000 models per day. But every line shouldn’t be restricted to at least one single product – whereas it tries to restrict line modifications to lower than 5 occasions a day it isn’t remarkable for manufacturing to be switched round that a lot, particularly throughout occasions of high-demand.
So extremely streamlined is the method that for related playing cards it could take as little as 5 minutes to change from one to a different, and if it’s altering from a small card to a bigger one which will nonetheless solely take a most of 15 minutes. That’s an astoundingly fast turnaround within the manufacturing course of from making one utterly totally different card to a different. Though time is cash, so all of it provides up.
The manufacturing unit
The Dongguan manufacturing unit ground is a tightly regimented area the place the one noise is the fixed grinds, whirs and piston-sighs of the manufacturing tools. There shouldn’t be a single human noise to be heard from the various employees populating every of the totally different manufacturing strains on any ground of the big, gray constructing.
Whether that’s a product of the pressured atmosphere the place orders must be fulfilled and failure shouldn’t be an possibility, or purely as a result of there’s a bunch of ignorant journalists wandering round – so attempt to ignore them – I’m not totally certain.
But manufacturing is tightly managed with each side of the manufacturing course of keenly noticed by myriad automated methods feeding right into a single monitoring hub. Here each dip in manufacturing, each error in manufacturing, will be seen and pinpointed and in contrast with earlier days, weeks or months.
Production isn’t all that occurs within the manufacturing unit although, with every kind of preparatory testing carried out earlier than a line is able to roll out 1000’s of the newest graphics card. But that’s why I got here and why I discovered myself standing in a fetching blue anti-static coat and matching cap.
The manufacturing course of
The one a part of the method PC Partner doesn’t do itself is the creation of the person printed circuit boards (PCBs). It has a design division which comes up with the ultimate layouts, however the precise manufacturing is contracted out to different firms, with the naked boards arriving in bulk, prepared for all of the graphical goodness to be connected to them.
Before something is caught onto them, nevertheless, every naked PCB is labelled and set right into a body which can maintain both a pair of boards for longer PCBs or as much as 4 of them for smaller designs. It’s extra environment friendly than particular person manufacturing and means no graphics card enters this world alone.
The first half of the particular course of is the display printing of the solder. This thick goo is printed onto the myriad contact factors of every naked PCB for the following parts to be connected to. Then my favorite machine ever begins its job.
The choose and place machines are the precision workhorses of the method; their nimble fingers place the tiniest of parts onto every board in a dizzying, hypnotic high-speed dance throughout the PCB.
These machines are fed by reels of tape with all the person parts connected to them. A crew of engineers at first of every manufacturing line assemble the person reels to no matter specs are wanted for that specific line.
After all of the smallest parts are caught to the board, the PCB then goes via a course of known as reflow soldering, which lastly bakes the unit to make sure they’re all connected firmly. Once the boards have cooled they’re then handed via an computerized optical inspection (AOI) machine to 100% assure that every miniscule element is within the appropriate place. If they cross, the PCBs are then flipped over to allow them to undergo the identical course of once more for the opposite aspect of the board.
This is when the magical second the place the precise GPU will get dropped in occurs; the second when it stops simply being a plain ol’ little bit of printed circuit board with just a few resistors and reminiscence chips on it and turns into a completely fledged graphics processing monster. For me, that is when these graphics playing cards actually come alive.
But the method remains to be not over. The bigger parts now have to be connected – the capacitors, energy connections and video ports – and that is additionally the place human beings actually need to become involved. Many of those parts are connected by hand, as an alternative of the choose and place machines, earlier than being handed via the wave soldering machines; units with effervescent lakes of molten solder the place the boards are handed throughout them to lastly safe every manually inserted element.
They are all then visually inspected earlier than every board is put via a PCB cleansing machine which makes use of a PH impartial cleansing agent to make sure they’re 100% away from any solder flux residue. This was one of many nastiest elements of the method, requiring critically poisonous chemical substances to scrub the boards successfully, however environmental issues are beginning to filter into such manufacturing.
Finally the GPU cooler will be connected and the ultimate playing cards roll off the manufacturing line… straight into testing.
Every single graphics card that comes off the PC Partner’s manufacturing strains goes via a rigorous GPU testing course of that lasts a full half hour. This is probably the most acquainted a part of the manufacturing unit to me, with open take a look at beds for slotting the playing cards into and totally different testing software program stressing the elements to their limits. It even makes use of among the identical testing software program I do within the workplace, such because the tessellation-heavy Heaven 4.zero take a look at.
Whether it’s on the computerized optical inspection, visible inspection or GPU testing phases, if a card fails for any motive it’s then despatched straight into troubleshooting the place the error is situated. From right here every failed card shall be repaired and dropped straight again into the manufacturing line. There’s little wastage and definitely no sad-looking bins of b0rked graphics playing cards cluttering up the power.
Finally the playing cards are packed up with their cables, adapters and (in all probability never-used) driver CDs earlier than transport out to the broader world to seek out their approach into your gaming rig.
But wait, there’s extra…
Those are the straight mechanics of the manufacturing course of every of our graphics playing cards goes via, however there’s a lot extra that occurs even earlier than the ultimate manufacturing strains can roar into life.
PC Partner additionally homes electromagnetic compatibility, thermal and acoustic testing services at its Dongguan website, permitting it to examine each nuance of a given product’s operational tolerances earlier than it commits to full manufacturing on an costly manufacturing line.
The $1.5m EMC lab is like one thing dragged straight out of Half Life’s take a look at chamberrr. They’re ready for you, Gordon… It’s a sealed room the place units will be examined in full isolation to ensure they totally adjust to all electromagnetic laws.
It’s additionally right here they take a look at {the electrical} stability of their merchandise; intentionally electrocuting PCs and parts to measure how effectively they’ll take it. I concern these will ultimately develop into displays of mankind’s enduring cruelty to machines when our robotic overlords lastly take over.
Though the EMC lab will doubtless be much less of a difficulty than the thermal torture chambers I witnessed contained in the PC Partner manufacturing unit. There are a bunch of various machines pushing tech to its limits, together with thermal shock testers with extremes of temperatures at each ends of the thermometer, long-term, high-temperature stress exams and environmental temperature testing simply to essentially put the boot in.
But the actually scary one is the 5 years accelerated life take a look at. It runs for 144 hours at a temperature of 85°C and at 85% humidity as a way to simulate a 5 12 months lifespan of a graphics card. It’s all labored out utilizing a fancy algorithm and permits the corporate to assemble knowledge on how a given card will fare down the road. Some of the businesses it manufactures for will even need data on the 10 lifespan, however we weren’t allowed to see that machine, saving us from witnessing first-hand the sheer psychological and physiological torment the poor {hardware} inside should endure.
PC Partner additionally has an anechoic chamber during which to hold out acoustic testing on each graphics playing cards and mini PCs. With an extremely low background noise stage of simply 12-13dB it permits the corporate to measure the vibration noise created by the varied followers and coolers manufactured units use. And it’s a critically freaky place to spend any time.
Anechoic chambers take in all mirrored sound waves, reducing noise off sharply. You may assume the additional quiet could be fairly stress-free, however the full change in aural expertise is critically jarring.
A video tour of the identical facility
It’s all too straightforward to disregard the immense work that goes into the extremely advanced gear we’ve got within the PCs we use only for larks. And it’s not simply the element selecting robots that undergo all of it both – every graphics card you’ve ever plugged into your rig has been constructed by many various pairs of palms.
So, your humble graphics card has already been via quite a bit earlier than it even will get into the dusty confines of your PC. Next time it throws a little bit of a wobbly whenever you’re taking part in Hitman or CoD possibly give it a little bit of a break, eh?
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