Inside Elitegroup Computer Systems: From Taipei to Shen Zhen
by Kristopher Kubicki on October 4, 2003 12:39 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Biloda PCB: The Birth of a Motherboard
To say a motherboard is “born” would be the actual PCB fabrication itself. As we mentioned earlier, Elitegroup owns its own production facility in Shen Zhen off the ECSM campus. Biloda, as it is called, is one of ECS’ prized facilities. The factory itself has 1,700 workers, and like most factories in Shen Zhen, the workers live on campus in their own dormitories. Remember, Shen Zhen is a work district; so workers come from other providences in China to work even for a mere $150USD per month. Although it would never be allowed in most countries, the workforce is primarily female because studies seem to prove that females have a slightly higher concentration level than males. Accept it or not, ECS is only one of thousands of companies that employ females for manual labor.
However, that is enough about politics for now. As we pulled up to the Biloda PCB factory, it’s very apparent that this factory complex is completely different from the ECSM campus. This is one of the older facilities in the company, built in 1995. The factory chairman is the same Johnson Chiang, President and CEO of PC Chips. Thus, while touring the factory, pretty much everything seemed to have PC Chips still written on it. It is sort of a moot point since this factory is actually slated to be replaced with a newer facility capable of 300,000M2/month of motherboard PCB.
Click to enlarge.
Above, you can see two workers pressing PCB layers together. This is where the motherboard begins its long journey to becoming a final product. In this particular image, 4 layers of PCB are pressed together with insulation between each material. Obviously the more layers, the higher the signal quality of the circuitry of the motherboard. ECS has other facilities in the Biloda complex capable of 6, 8 and even some 10 layer production. You may know that PC Chips recently got into the ATI video card business, and 4 layers PCB just doesn’t cut it. Also for laptops, ECS needs to use 8 and 10 layer motherboards to keep interference down.
At this point, the board is etched for drilling. A black oxide process covers the etched elements, and then the board is finally laminated. Once it is laminated, the board looks just like a flat blank PCB.
Click to enlarge.
Next you’ll see that the pressed motherboard is moved over to the drilling factory. This is a separate building from the rest of the facility and clearly, the part of the tour where everyone goes “ooh — ahh”. Once a board has been pressed and cooled, the motherboard needs to be drilled anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 holes in order for the circuitry to travel from the top to the bottom of the board. Furthermore, any components that need to be mounted on the motherboard itself, such as sockets or jumpers, also get drilled a hole. Right now, the motherboards are in “plates” that usually fit two separate motherboards. Thus, any process from here until the end of printing is actually working twice.
In the particular 4-layer drilling center we were in, about 40 machines drilled 6 to 12 plates at a time (12 to 24 motherboards). The process takes an hour to complete one cycle, thus generating about 500 motherboards an hour. Since Biloda works on two shifts, a daily yield in this 4-layer facility yields at least 5,000 motherboards a day, or 140,000 per month. In fact, the factory has its own technicians that just sharpen the drill bits all day, everyday!
Sharpening drill bits.
That seems like a lot for one little factory, but keep in mind that the boards have not gone through any QA yet. A majority of the boards are rejected, and also a large majority of the boards are used for different clients. ECS itself is responsible for three brands, including PC Chips, ECS and Matsonic. ECS targets PC Chips components at the entry level market, while ECS branded components are for the middle grade components. Matsonic is not terribly popular in the US, but all three brands account for enormous OEM market share (over 15% at time of publication). Furthermore, from time to time we got the occasional glimpse of Abit and Shuttle motherboards in various levels of PCB production. While one in seven motherboards might be from ECS, the chances that your motherboard came from Biloda are even higher!
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Shalmanese - Sunday, October 5, 2003 - link
"In any case, the factory itself does seem extremely considering all of the manual labor around. "seem extremely what?
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
I am using an ECS board AMD XP 2400 CPU. Works well (no problem with Windows 98, XP, or Linux). Cheap too ~$67. I built another for mom and it works great too. ECS provides computer motherboards that are affordable and work great (very stable) and that's what most families of the world want/need.It's good to put people to work by buying ECS. Or else, they would starve because companies will move elsewhere (e.g., India) where labor is cheaper to cut costs (that's why motherboard factories moved from Taiwan to China in the first place).
It may not be perfect wages compared to the U.S. but I'm sure the workers over there appreciate it and the nice clean factories. Living costs are lower too over there.
In the U.S., workers complain too much and half ass too much that's why all companies are shipping the jobs overseas where people work harder, better, and complain less. Sucks for U.S. workers but tough luck for there laziness. Look at Ford and all american cars (sucks bigtime--100% breakdown within 1 year). I know none of you computer users would ever want americans to build motherboards or else all computers would breakdown in a few months and still cost a lot. And every year workers would play the stupid Strike game delaying products. No, no consumers wants lazy, clumsy, greedy game playing americans workers messing with our computer parts.
I would do the same (hire hardworking overseas workers) if I ran a corporation. Why pay premium wages to lazy half ass workers who complain all the time and threaten lawsuits and call in sick every month so they can watch a ball game and file fake workers comp claims which is typical of american workers?
BTW, I went to a post office where there were 4 asian clerk and 1 american clerk. The asian workers were polite and very very efficient and competant easily servicing 1 client a minute (max). The lazy, incompetant american worker took 10 minute per client and kept needing to ask questions from the supervisor. I think that anyone running a business if they saw this difference in work efficiency/competancy would only hire asians since they are most efficent and competant and result in best business profits (for shareholders) and lowest costs and best products for consumers.
I know lazy americans might get angry but if you think rationally, you know I am right and that's what most businessmen think.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Nice! I've always wondered where that crappy motherboard in my Grandma's eMachine came from.AgaBooga - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Its good to see the QA put into their parts, I wonder if any other motherboard vendors will read this article and improve if they aren't as good as ECS in terms of testing. If their parts go through this much testing, then why do people sometimes have to RMA a board like this?Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Forgot to tell about PC Chips history with fake cache on motherboards back in the 486-days...ECS is one of the companies that pay as little as they can to the workers.
Some of their series really have a RMA-problems... but they are cheap. The manufacture a lot for others -- some are good, others are typical ECS-quality.
Seems to me like a big "Thank you for the trip"-article....
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
After the fake cache scandal pc chips was involved with in the earily pentium motherboard days, i'd swore to never touch any of their products again. Be it ecs, amptron, alton, houston tech, etc etc etc.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
"I emailed Anand if we could get polo shirts with that motto on it, but I did not get a response."Anyone who appreciates irony has to be in hysterics over this line.
Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
if ECS went public 10 yrs after creation, why is it 1994 and not 1997 in the first paragraph?DAVIDS - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
Very informative article. It's amazing that many of the workers get only $150/month. I sure hope their room and board is included.Anonymous User - Saturday, October 4, 2003 - link
This is a great article that provides information that i cant find everywhere else.Good job Kristopher!
I never would have imagined that the bulk of the ECS workforce were women.