How Raspberry Pis are made (Factory Tour)
The day after Jeff Geerling interviewed Eben Upton, co-founder of Raspberry Pi, He went to the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, Wales to tour the factory where almost every Raspberry Pi has been made—50,000,000 of them (as of this month!).
The PiShop team had the honor of visiting the factory too back in 2018 and we found it awesome to see Raspberry Pi’s using in the process of building and testing more Raspberry Pi’s
Jeff’s tour showcased various stages of the production process. It started with blank printed circuit boards (PCBs) with copper pads, which were then passed through an automated screen printing machine to apply solder paste. The PCBs then moved through a pick and place line where components were mounted using Surface Mount Technology (SMT).
The BCM2711 SoC, a key component of the Pi 4, was identified as a bottleneck in the production, causing occasional halts in manufacturing. Inspection stations with 3D views ensured the quality of each Pi, afterwards a cluster of ABB robots then performed precise component placements, but humans completed the through-hole placement and conducted final inspections.
The boards were heated, dipped into a solder bath, and then tested using automated test jigs. After passing the tests, the Pis were packed in boxes using automated packaging machines.
This blog post is one of the few instances where, no matter how much you prefer reading to watching a video… you’re going to want to watch the video. Interested in one of these automatically manufactured masterpieces? Check out this link to all our kits and also have a look at all the boards we offer!
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