Kingston's Factory Tour: Memory Made in USA

Thanks to the generous nature of Kingston, we were able to get a tour of their Factory and an introduction to their corporate offices while we waited to go across the street. Our tour was led by David Leong and Louis Kaneshiro who were accompanied by Mike Sager.

We first started off at their global headquarters where we discussed a few press related topics and talked about how the room we were in was actually designed by the graphic designers and that many from all around the building used that room as a refuge.

We then made our way across the street to the Kingston Factory where we proceeded to get off the van and go inside.

Then, we went to put on our ESD smocks as it is required that everyone who takes the tour wear one.

Here is the scrolling sign and security guard that greet you on your way in and out...note: the sign is not broken, it just was scrolling

After that, we went upstairs to the offices on the second floor of the factory. We were not allowed to take pictures in this area, but this is where they keep their engineers, their pcb designers, as well as technical support for different product lines. They also had a few labs that helped them test for compliance with specific hardware, including servers, workstations, and laptops. One lab was entirely dedicated to the ValueRam line of products and that lab had the largest array of products being tested.

Here is an overall shot of the testing and shipping floor that you get on your way down the stairs to the floor.

Here is a slightly closer shot of what's going on down there before you go down the stairs

 Here is the lovely sign that warns you that you must obey ESD precautions

On the next page, we get a tour of the SMT[Surface Mount Technology] production line where the memory modules are actually made.