Tag: Pencoed

BBC Wales Science Cafe broadcast from the Pi factory

BBC Radio Wales’ Science Cafe programme this week came from the Sony factory in Pencoed, Wales, that makes the Raspberry Pi for us under licence. It’s only available for UK listeners (my mistake – the BBC’s territorial thingbat doesn’t extend to radio broadcasts, so you can listen anywhere in the world – as long as you aren’t Gert, who is still having problems), and only for the next five days.

It’s a half hour’s broadcast well worth listening to. Listen out for the dulcet tones of the inestimable Gareth Jones, who is in charge of things Pi at the factory. He gives an in-depth explanation of what’s going on on the factory floor; you’ll learn details about the production process that we haven’t talked about here on the blog before.

You’ll also hear from Eben (who was interviewed on the phone from a hotel room in the US last week at about four in the morning, which explains why he sounds so tired), and Gerald Kelly, the General Manager of the facility, who talks about how the Pi came to be made in Wales, and who is awfully tactful and nice about stuff like last year’s near-disaster with the mag jacks that got swapped out without our knowledge in China. Tom Crick, from CAS Wales, also pops up to talk about Pi in schools – and best of all, the broadcast team visits the Machynlleth Raspberry Jam, which is set up by school pupils Luke and Robert. It’s a great programme, and worth putting on for half an hour in the background while you get on with the rest of your day.

Here’s a link to listen to it: let us know what you think in the comments!

CNN clip

As promised, here’s the full version of the short news item CNN carried on the Quest Means Business Christmas show earlier this week.

We’ve had a great time with a couple of crews from CNN this year. We met Adam shortly after launch, and knew he had a Pi on order. He’s the guy who was demonstrating how the Pi works in the studio for Quest Means Business, and he wrote a bit about his experiences with the Raspberry Pi on CNN’s website too. He says:

Only after I got my hands on one did I realize how useful the little thing actually is. At first I was excited about using it as an introduction to Linux and to refresh my dormant programming skills. It was only after I put some media software on it that it really became part of the furniture.

 

My Raspberry Pi, in its Top Trumps card box finery gets used almost every day now. It has infiltrated the living room in a way that a tablet, Apple TV, laptop, or even the smallest PC never could.

 

Just like the Acorn Electron computer I had when I was five, it’s silent. That’s probably where the similarities end. For starters, the Pi is just 1/25th the price of my Acorn when adjusted for inflation. It can run without a keyboard or a mouse using just my regular TV remote control, and it can play any music or full HD video file I throw at it.

 

I’ve set this little wonder to play media from TV catchup services, the computer in my bedroom, the DVD drive in the computer in my bedroom, my smartphone and even the downloads on my flatmate’s PC.

You can read more on CNN. Thanks very much for having the patience to spend all that time last month filming us garbling the things we meant to say, and waiting until we got it right, CNN people – we really appreciate it!

Guest post #8: School trip to Sony UK Tec by Lucy Bunce

Since summer 2012 the Raspberry Pi has been produced in the UK, specifically in the Sony factory in Pencoed, South Wales.  As the school I teach in (Y Pant Comprehensive) is about 4 miles away I decided to arrange a trip for the GCSE Computing class.  Richard Wilkins, Senior Manager thankfully thought this was a great idea so on 13th November we went for a tour of the facility, including the Raspberry Pi production line.

For most students this was their first visit to a high tech manufacturing facility.  Donning anti-static jackets and shoes, we had the full tour. The main Sony product manufactured in Pencoed is their range of broadcast cameras.  They have a clean room where dust particles are measured in order to produce high quality optical blocks. Sony also have a repair centre onsite and students were surprised to learn that the PSP one of them had sent back for repair would have been fixed here.

We had to wear anti-static jackets before entering the factory

Utilising the expertise, equipment and space in Pencoed, Sony also offer Contract Electronic Manufacturing – such as the Raspberry Pi.  They are now producing around 16,000 Raspberry Pis a week and employing 30 people on the production line.We followed a batch of 6 Raspberry Pis up the production line and saw how the basic boards arrive in the factory 6 to a board.

Raspberry Pi circuit boards at two different stages of production

Students saw the solder paste squeegeed onto the boards through a mask, then the high speed robotic arms attaching the smaller components from tape reels. The larger components are then fitted in a separate machine which moves at a slower pace to avoid knocking them out of position.

The first stage of the construction process – applying the solder paste to the boards using a mask

The small components are bought in on reels and stuck to the solder by a robotic arm

At this point the boards are checked to ensure they have all the correct components before being put into the oven.  This carefully controlled environment fixes the solder.  The boards are run through a second production line to repeat the process for the underside (SD card mount etc.).  As you’d expect, Raspberry Pis are tested for quality control and functionality within the factory and students were interested to see that software has been written to do some of this.  Computing is used in the manufacture of computing, something that hadn’t occurred to many of the students.

Checking the finished product – here we can see the stacked RAM and CPU chips

As well as seeing the Raspberry Pi production we also saw some of the other products built there such as LED streetlighting.  For fun Sony showed us how some of their broadcast filming and editing kit can be used – with a green-screen allowing them to try out Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak!  We also saw some short film clips using the 4K projector which are maintained in Pencoed.

Free office space at Sony has been turned into a Business Incubation Centre hosting many smaller companies and tech startups.  One of these, Wales Interactive, gave us a great talk.  Their 15 or so employees (in roles as programmers, animators, artists and musicians) have created a number of games and apps for iOS, Android and consoles entirely in house.  Many of the staff are graduates of the University of Glamorgan’s BSc in Computer Games Development .  For my students, seeing just some of the study and employment options open to them within a few miles of home if they choose to follow a career in Computing was a real eye opener.

Sony are producing 16,000 Raspberry Pis a week

We don’t currently have Raspberry Pis in school (I’ve been making sure one of the IT suites is kitted out with USB keyboards and mice, and screens with DVI inputs first – we’re pretty much there).  One of the students has a Raspberry Pi at home and all are now looking forward to getting their hands on some at school.

Quote from a student, Gareth:

“I thought it was really nice to find out finally where my Raspberry Pi was made, and to see all the technology and effort it takes to make one.

I use my Raspberry Pi for many things including watching videos on YouTube and basic web browsing and some small bits of coding. I also like the program scratch which allows me to build fun but basic games in my free time which comes free with the Raspberry Pi. If the school were to get some Raspberry Pi’s I think it would be fun to learn to code, on and to experience a different OS than the standard windows that we are used to.”

–Lucy Bunce, Y Pant Comprehensive School

Made in the UK!

There’s a little bit of news about what’s new with the Rev2 board design we posted about yesterday that we saved for today.

Rev 2 board

Look carefully (click to enlarge). Alongside the obvious differences like the mounting holes, there are a few words along the short side on the right you might want to read. Many thanks to makeamillion.de (Homwer on our forums), who got his hands on this when the news was still embargoed but kept quiet about it - and took this very fine photo for us.

If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll remember the time last year when we had to make the decision to manufacture the Raspberry Pi in China. The Raspberry Pi is a British enterprise, and as well as improving things in the computing industry’s future here by educating kids, we wanted to improve things in the present too, by actually doing our manufacture here in the UK.

Last year, when nobody had heard of the Raspberry Pi, we had been unable to find a British manufacturer whose prices per unit (especially at a point where we were thinking of sales in the tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands you’re seeing now) would work for us, and who believed that the project would be enough of a success for them to risk line space for us. There was just no way to make the Raspberry Pi in the UK and keep the price at $25 for the Model A (which will be released before the end of the year at the promised price) and $35 for the Model B.

Happily, things change.

Back at the beginning of April, Eben and I paid a visit to Sony’s UK manufacturing plant in Pencoed, South Wales. Several meetings, a factory tour, a lot of phone calls, some PowerPoint and sandwiches, and an up-close-and-personal with a wave soldering machine later, we were able to introduce our manufacturing and distributing partners to Sony’s Welsh facility, where, as well as making Sony products, Sony’s team undertakes contract electronic manufacture (CEM). It’s an incredibly impressive affair; the quietest, pleasantest plant I’ve ever been in, all comfortable lighting, ergonomic workspaces, cool air and relaxed staff. Sony’s quality control system is legendary, their ability to manufacture fast and cleanly is superb, and they’ve already invested in adding PoP (Package on Package – the fiddly stuff where the Broadcom chip at the heart of the Raspberry Pi is stacked beneath the RAM chip) hardware manufacture ability and expansion capability just for us. They’re also able to take on the huge task (currently undertaken by RS and Farnell) of ensuring the parts used are sourced ethically and to the highest ecological standards – every component has to pass standard compliance via Sony’s Green Management programme.

The upshot of all this? Element14/Premier Farnell have made the decision to move the bulk of their Raspberry Pi manufacture to South Wales. Moving manufacture like this is an enormous undertaking; from the start of the process, it’s taken us (especially Pete), Farnell and Sony nearly six months to get all our respective ducks in a row. The initial contract will see the Pencoed plant producing 30,000 Raspberry Pis a month, and creating around 30 new jobs.

How do you know if you’ve got a UK-made board? Easy. Look next to the power jack; you’ll see the words “Made in the UK”. We couldn’t be prouder.