We try never to miss an opportunity to write a blog that enlightens. The opportunity came yesterday when the question was asked to us – where does the fake or less than Grade A IC Chip come from?

Before we delve into this, it is good to get some background re IC Chips. For your personalised USB keys, we use the MLC IC Chip; we wrote a blog a couple of months ago that explains why we use the MLC IC Chip for your promotional USB memory stick commission and how the specification of the MLC build is more suitable for the USB flash drive, that blog can be seen here

Also, a good document resource for how the branded USB IC Chip is made can also be found with this INTEL PDF document. If you prefer a video, notice embedded a video below by another IC Chip manufacturer re how the IC Chip memory is made. It is a 10 minutes long video and it is worthwhile for the tech curious. It goes through the design, fabrication, process, testing and packaging of the IC Chip memory

I hope you’re still following: To understand these processes are important in order to understand where the poor quality IC Chips comes from. The MLCs we use for your branded flash disks have stipulated specifications from the design process; manufactures all over the globe engage and test their IC memory chips through a complex process to ensure electrical, environmental and lifetime reliability and performance specification. The integrated circuits on each wafer is tested individually, the ICs that fall short of these specifications are supposed to be discarded but somehow (without wanting to speculate how) find their way into the market. This is the source of the below Grade A quality IC Chips.

Not long to go now: As silver members of Dramexchange (daily publishers of manufacturers’ IC Chip prices), we republish the manufacturers’ IC Chip (MLCs) market price as we receive it on our Pinterest Page. This is to ensure full transparency from our side and help our current and potential clients to make informed decisions re their promotional memory stick orders. The prices are in USD and capacity is shown in trade format, so you have to divide it by 8 to get the actual size (64GB is 8GB, 16GB is 2GB, and so on). This cost as listed is without the USB Case/housing, logo printing your USB case of choice, PCBA board, IC controller, LED lights if applicable and any other components. Today’s IC Chip prices can be seen below:-

We refer to the IC Chip as the “HOTDOG concept” when opening a Hotdog stand. The ‘Hotdog concept’ basically states that “you can worry about the cart, the condiment, the décor, the name, etc. when opening a Hotdog stand but the priority should always be the HOTDOG – it is the most important component.

It affects the read or write rate of your promotional USB products, the failure rate of your USB drives as the IC Chips have possibly not passed the rigorous electrical, environmental and lifetime reliability and performance tests.

So we implore you not to waste your marketing spend on sub-standard personalised USB products that will impair the standard of your brand and reflect your company in a bad light. We’ll love to speak with you if you require value for money, quality branded USB sticks for your next marketing campaign. You can send us an email at sales@usb-extra.co.uk or call us on +44 1274 404 594.

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We wish you the best of business.