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I have always wanted to show you guys the inside of a GPU Factory and thanks

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to power color and framework we're finally doing it but there's one small

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catch in order to show us absolutely everything from start to finish they

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have to shut down absolutely everything from start to finish meaning that it is

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costing them hundreds to thousands of dollars a minute and we are going to

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absolutely get kicked out after 3 hours

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I think you can take notes faster than that with the constraints it's going to

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be a bit of a speed run but maybe that's the fun speed fun like the Speedy segue

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to our sponsor seic you know seic for

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their reliable and power efficient power supplies but now you can know them for

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affordability too their vertex lineup is on sale now at the link in the

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description okay it's not completely shut down be pretty boring to an

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abandoned Factory but uh we're told that this line would be running it anywhere

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from 2 to three times the speed during regular production you can see just

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waiting for it while they're better known as powercolor tul has been around

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since 1997 and has produced graphics cards under multiple of their own Brands

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as well as for partners like diamond in the past they won't disclose their total

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manufacturing capacity to us but let's put it this way they're a tier 1 AMD

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Manu manufacturing partner and even this small taiwan-based manufacturing line

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can turn out about 20,000 units a

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month they did invite us right when you're operating at this kind of scale

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every little detail matters even the very small ones here's a real good

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example of that shipments of surface mount components get inspected via x-ray

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to ensure that they are exactly what they say they are and that the right

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quantities are on each one of these tapes this is done for both new

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shipments as well as reels that have been used multiple times for small

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production runs so you can see this one has multiple count stickers on it and is

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now down to 3,728

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V's they also perform manual spot checks for both incoming surface mount

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components as well as pcbs this is an

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engineered what flatness meter I guess

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it's a super super flat piece of granite and

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basically see that if the variance from

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one end to the other is more than2

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mm it's done it's out now that all our components are validated all we need is

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a quick antistatic shower and we're ready to visit the smt line where

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they're going to be mounted to our

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boards for step one we take those trays of pcbs and load them into the end of

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the line our timing is so good we actually get to see that happen right

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now here we

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go oh look there it goes next up we need

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to apply solder paste to every point on

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the board where a component will be placed this is done by essentially just

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scraping a squeegee that is covered in paste over a stencil with the board

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sitting underneath now something to note is that these stencils wear out after a

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th000 or 10,000 placements so every time

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they run a new model of GPU through they have to inspect it to make sure it still

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has the appropriate thickness looks pretty good to me but no one asked me

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they asked the machine in here they inspect the application to ensure that

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it is accurate and it's the right quantity and if an error gets noticed

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the information is looped back to the previous stage so that it knows hm

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something's not going quite right next we get reunited with our old surface

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mount component friends who are loaded into the pick and place machine in the

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optimal locations in order to reach the maximum placement speed of

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77,000 components per hour holy crap

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look at this thing go I have never seen a machine this fast which makes sense

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because this is a state-of-the-art machine that runs at nearly double the

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speed of their main lines and you guys have got how many of these things here 1

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two three four five of them but this

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this investment makes a lot of sense when you consider what this facility is

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for they're just 15 minutes from their R&D headquarters so they will often do

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things like quality analysis so they can transfer that knowledge to the main line

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or development of new products so speed and efficiency is of the essence as you

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can see the biggest components go on last with this side of the machine

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handling vrms and this side handling display connections and the really good

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stuff like memory and GPU dies which I'm

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told I get to load into the machine oh

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there we go uh oh too far let me you one one time

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and you is it in the wrong spot oh I missed you unlock

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oh hey okay well I did it mostly right

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if your GPU is in the wrong spot you'll know who to

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blame and there it is a finished board

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at at least in the sense that a pizza with all the toppings on it is finished

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now we cook but not in no regular oven

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boys this right here is the world's most advanced Pizza Oven not only does it

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have different temperature control for the different zones but they build a

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special profile for every board that goes through it to ensure that the

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solder melts absolutely perfectly and by

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perfect I really do mean perfect at the

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end of the baking proc process they ensure that the solder melted correctly

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and that every component was positioned exactly perfectly by doing a 3D freaking

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scan as you can see this one no good

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it's got a lifted lead that is so precise now it's done JK

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we still don't have a power connector and there's no capacitors there are

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still some components that are better placed by human hands so let's go visit

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that line at least most of the will 10

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to 15% will get pulled aside proactively

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and sent to the X-ray inspection room where they can use this machine to get a

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3D view my God that is so cool of the

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BGA joints under components that cannot be visually inspected like the memory

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and the GPU die now they let me in at

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the first station each jig gets two gpus and any 8 Pin PCIe power connectors then

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we get our fan header followed by capacitors capacitors some more

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capacitors and finally

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capacitors once that's all done the back side of the board gets sprayed with flux

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then it gets pizza ovened again until

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the end of this machine where oh my God that is the coolest thing ever the back

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of the board runs across a liquid solder

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waterfall in order to solder all of the through board components man I feel like

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a kid in a digital candy store here after the backside gets soldered our

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little tray gets popped onto this little green belt and goes down for manual

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inspection oh for some reason I thought it was going to slide but that makes

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more sense if there's adequate coverage of solder it goes into the middle and if

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there isn't it goes to the next station sometimes there just isn't quite enough

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solder or two of the points are accid entally bridged and that can be quickly

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repaired by a skilled technician the touched up boards then get cleaned all

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the shoo gets removed then all the boards come back together for a final

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visual inspection and our QA technician at the end of the line scans a QR code

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and says hey I check this it's definitely good to go moving upstairs

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you can see we've upgraded the gpus we're working on a little bit here these

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are bound for 7800 XT hellhound Sakura

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editions just like you saw in our cutest PC video

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and stage one is ah yes visual inspection again I guess for what to

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make sure nothing broke yeah to be extra

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good and sure with that out of the way it's time for assembly to begin in

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Earnest starting with little plastic washers over all the screw holes to make

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sure the PCB doesn't get scratched IO plate and oh screwing on the io plate

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that's very important next up back plates go on followed by those also

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being screwed in which is equally important cuz you don't want your GPU to

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arrive in pieces is then oh God I love

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these coolers that looks gorgeous all the protective peels come off the

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thermal pads and pre-applied thermal goop oh that one didn't have any peels

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on it I swear I saw one with peels earlier I'm not going to worry about that the point is the fan gets plugged

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in here then we've got one two three

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stations that all apply screws to the cooler through the back of the card

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followed by another visual inspection that I think could best be described as

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sanity check you know does the fan spin

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also a good thing wait what about second final station where each one of these

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cards gets loaded on to a test

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bench they got to have a lot of test benches yes they do and unlike the

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assembly lines this part of the factory runs

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247 with every single GPU being loaded into a full Windows environment and

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running a combination of AMD diagnostic tools and Enthusiast ones like you in

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heaven and furmark but hold on a second

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one of these things is not like the other the motherboard's in sideways and

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that doesn't look like any desktop graphics card I've ever seen that's cuz

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it's not it's a mobile GPU specifically

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the one for investment disclosure framework for the framework 16 massive

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shout out by the way to tul for being willing to take on this weird low volume

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product in an effort to make laptops less disposable super cool really

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appreciate you guys guys and appreciate framework too for helping hook us up

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with this tour in the first place oh

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sorry sorry it's going back it's going back this next room isn't technically

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part of production it's more part of development but on the subject of non-

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disposability every new model oh my God

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goes through reliability testing in a 45

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degree chamber for an extended period

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burning to ensure that it's not going to have issues out in the field oh this is

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truly awful then when they're done in here they go to the Zer degree chamber

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to make sure that I don't know you can game in Antarctica coming back to

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production it's time for the final step retail packaging now unfortunately

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they're not packaging any gpus right now so half of the line here isn't even in

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use but rather they're packing up framework dual m.2 SSD carriers this

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first station is flashing firmware then the serial number of the board gets

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paired with the QR code on the sticker for the packaging then it gets begged

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boxed boxed into a bigger Master carton box and sent off um everyone gets a

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souvenir GPU today right nope they all go here instead where they're staged on

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pallets in preparation for shipping to markets like Hong Kong and probably to

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my friends in the good old usnd a so if you're an American this right here could

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be your next GPU that one uh as long as

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everything goes according to plan plan if it doesn't it ends up here the team

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here handles both internal failures from the production line trying to rework or

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Salvage any valuable components as well as failures from end users this station

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gives us an error code telling us what exactly is wrong with the card in this

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case it's a bad GPU which means it goes

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in the pile and gets transferred over to the other side of the RMA department

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where the board gets heat it up and the GPU gets removed then we go to my friend

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the baller he takes a brand new GPU

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installs it in one of these little Jigs and then he's got these little tiny

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balls of solder that he basically plays you know those little games that you

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play as a kid where you have to get all the little balls and all the little holes well he plays that on a GPU and if

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he misses one guess what the cardal

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working then it goes in the oven where all of the balls get melted and and it's

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ready to be remounted now under normal circumstances when they find a defective

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GPU they just send it to AMD to test but

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we asked them very nicely to show us the manual reballing process so they did

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thanks guys since we were already imposing anyway we asked very nicely if

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they could show off the full capabilities of their latest generation

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BGA rework station and put a GPU back on

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for us so my friend is now applying solder paste to the board itself using

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using oh okay yeah another mask now the GPU and the prepared board get loaded

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back into the rework station heated

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aligned and reapplied obviously guys this is not the

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kind of thing that you would want to do very often but for Diagnostic purposes

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sometimes it is necessary what an incredible tour massive shout out to tul

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for their Hospitality today and of course framework who helped took us up

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with this tool asked me to just take one of these random 7800 X T Sakura editions

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and put a little signature on it they said if uh if you don't want it they'll

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handle the RMA but I'm just going to I don't know put a

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little so there you have it if you buy a

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7800 XT secure Edition it might be

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signed hopefully that's something you want at Linus Media Group the business

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team has to do a ton of communication coordination and writing For Better or

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Worse that's where grammarly comes in they're an AI writing partner that works

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where you work and upgrading to grammarly premium has saved our business

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team more time thanks to useful features like tone suggestions this ensures that

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the tone of the writing is never too formal nor too friendly it's not what

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you say but how you say it tone matters now they can tell lus to stop dropping

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things so often without being rude plus with the premium app actions feature

200
00:14:49,519 --> 00:14:55,680
they can now link Google Drive links create task on monday.com or insert

201
00:14:53,839 --> 00:14:59,839
gifts into their emails in one place without switching tabs and by upgrading

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00:14:57,759 --> 00:15:04,360
to grammarly premium they even get access to 1,000 prompts per month sign

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00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:07,000
up on upgrade to grammarly premium at grammarly.com

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lt6 we'll check this at the end uh guess

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we found a broken GPU on the framework line so uh QA it works and you guys

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watching to the end of this video works for learning how gpus are made if you

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enjoyed this video hey why not check out the Micron factory tour where we saw a

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different smt line where I made my own memory module that was pretty cool