HOW IS A USB FLASH DRIVE MADE ? - USB PRODUCTION IN A KINGSTON PLANT
This podcast demonstrates the manufacturing of USB flashdrives in Kingston production plant.
1. The first step in the process is loading a premade USB printed circuit board onto a magazine.
2. Solder paste printing is a process in which Solder paste is applied on a printed circuit board to connect the leads of surface mount integrated chips to attachment points in the circuit patterns.
3. SPI or Solder paste inspection is a computer integrated method of testing the solder paste deposits on PCBs. SPI systems measure the volume of the solder pads before the components are applied and the solder melted..
4. In surface mounting, a robotic machine, commonly called a pick-and-place machine or P&Ps is used to place surface-mount devices (SMDs) onto a printed circuit board (PCB). It places broad range of electronic components, like capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits onto the PCBs with high speed and high precision
5. An insertion mount machine moves the rotary head to necessary positions for component insertion into the board. It’s used to mount integrated circuits onto the USB pads.
6. These integrated USB pads are subjected to heat treatment in an Oven. As it can be seen, the operating temperature varies with the location of the slots. The conveyor belt in the oven moves at 70 cm/min and takes about 5-6 min to seal the internal components. At this stage, the USB pads are rearranged and put into new magazines to get them ready for the next machining process in the production line.
7. Automated optical inspection (AOI) is an automated visual inspection of PCBs (Printed Circuit Board), where a camera autonomously scans the device under test (DUT) for variety of surface feature defects such as scratches and stains, open circuits, short circuits, thinning of the solder as well as missing components, incorrect components, and incorrectly placed components. This is the final check before encasing the USB pads.
8. The UBS sticks are still joined together in the pads and they need to be separated before they can be processed into individual units. They are cut using a preprogrammed CNC milling machine. The extra material from the excess PCBs is clipped off and discarded.
9. In the testing stage, the USB sticks are written, read and rewritten to ensure storage functionality of the drives.
10. In the encasing stage, varied colored casings are stamped onto the top and bottom of the USB stick.
11. In this phase, a structural integrity test is performed to ensure structural stability of the flash drives and their resistance to perpetual wear and tear.
12. In this last step of manufacturing process, flashdrives are labelled with Kingston stickers and then they are ready for packaging. Packaging is done using a set of automated mechanical arms. At this stage, flashdrives are ready to be shipped out.