World Wide Memory: A Tour of Kingston Taiwan
by Wesley Fink on June 16, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Memory
Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California, Kingston is by far the world's largest independent memory manufacturer. From its beginnings in 1987, Kingston has grown to a 27% market share in 2004 and almost $2.5 Billion in sales - which is more than 3 times larger than #2. Perhaps even more important was the 35% growth in revenue for Kingston from 2003 to 2004.
Kingston today manufactures memory at four manufacturing locations: US, Malaysia, China, and Taiwan. The four manufacturing plants have more than 35 Surface Mount Technology (SMT) lines for producing virtually every kind of memory available in the world. This includes the DIMMs, So-DIMMs, and flash memory that are of most interest in the Computer and Digital Imaging markets. Within these product categories, Kingston manufactures a full range of products, from OEM parts to their popular Value RAM series to Enthusiast-oriented Hyper X products.
Since we were in Taiwan for Computex, Kingston kindly invited AnandTech to take a closer look at their Taiwan manufacturing facility.
Kingston Taiwan is a memory assembler, which means that finished memory chips are shipped to the plant where they assemble the memory using SMT technology. There are no wafer manufacturing capabilities in the Taiwan plant.
Kingston today manufactures memory at four manufacturing locations: US, Malaysia, China, and Taiwan. The four manufacturing plants have more than 35 Surface Mount Technology (SMT) lines for producing virtually every kind of memory available in the world. This includes the DIMMs, So-DIMMs, and flash memory that are of most interest in the Computer and Digital Imaging markets. Within these product categories, Kingston manufactures a full range of products, from OEM parts to their popular Value RAM series to Enthusiast-oriented Hyper X products.
Since we were in Taiwan for Computex, Kingston kindly invited AnandTech to take a closer look at their Taiwan manufacturing facility.
Kingston Taiwan is a memory assembler, which means that finished memory chips are shipped to the plant where they assemble the memory using SMT technology. There are no wafer manufacturing capabilities in the Taiwan plant.
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Wesley Fink - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
#6 - Without wafer-making at Kingston Taiwan the process is pretty straightforward. We kept looking for the laser Samurai warriors, but they just weren't there. There are already enough sites who invent or embelish the truth. That's why you come to AnandTech, yes?wien - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
Logic wouldn't give you the pictures though. :Psemo - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
well i'm a bit disapointed. where are the videos and at least some technincal details or some interesting back story (with laser-sword wielding samurai warriors and hot princesses perhaps, no?).raw materials are brought in.
raw materials are glued together.
glued together raw materials are labeled, tested and packaged.
the end.
logic alone can tell me that
faboloso112 - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
neatarfan - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
Good Article, and Oh... they use Dell Computer too....Calin - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
"...but Kingston is the only memory maker that we know whose name is recognized in every corner of the globe as the world’s largest memory maker"Maybe because Kingston sells its products under the same name in the whole world. Other producers (mainboards mainly) have different names for US market and European market.
Anyway, very interesting article. I remember seeing (in Romania) an ad about 5 years ago, for Kingston memory for Sun workstations.
jm20 - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
I always enjoy reading on the companies that manufacture technology like this. It feels comfortable knowing they tested my USBkey before I bought it.Rapsven - Thursday, June 16, 2005 - link
Interesting look on how our RAM is being made.Good article.