Kingston Technology
Encyclopedia
Kingston Technology Company, Inc. is an American privately held, multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, sells and supports flash memory
products and other computer
-related memory products. Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California
, USA
, Kingston Technology employs more than 4,700 people worldwide as of Q1 2011. The company has manufacturing and logistics facilities in the United States
, United Kingdom
, Ireland
, Taiwan
, and China
.
It is the largest independent producer of DRAM
memory modules, currently owning 46% of the third-party worldwide DRAM module market share, according to iSuppli. Kingston is arguably the second largest supplier of flash memory
. Gartner ranks Kingston as the world's #1 supplier of USB drives and #3 in flash cards.
In 2010, Kingston generated revenues of US $6.5 billion. Forbes lists Kingston as #77 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." and Inc. ranks Kingston as the #6 Private Company By Revenue, #1 in the Computer Hardware category.
Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.
Through its ownership of Kingston Technology Company Inc. and Advanced Validation Labs Inc. (AVL), Kingston Technology Corporation is one of the world’s leading memory module manufacturing, module validation, semiconductor packaging and test companies in the world.
immigrants John Tu and David Sun put their engineering expertise to work and designed a new single in-line memory module (SIMM) that used readily available, older technology through-hole components. In 1989 Kingston differentiated itself from its competitors with 100-percent testing, which resulted in quality assurance and the leadership position in the market. The following year the company branched out into its first non-memory product line, processor upgrades. By 1992, Kingston was ranked #1 by Inc.
as the fastest-growing privately held company in America. The company expanded into networking and storage product lines, and introduced DataTraveler and DataPak portable products. In September 1994, Kingston became ISO 9000
certified on its first assessment attempt.
Kingston began expanding its services into Europe by opening a branch office in Munich, Germany to provide technical support and marketing capabilities for its European distributors and customers.
In October 1995, the company joined the Billion-Dollar Club. After the company’s 1995 sales exceeded $1.3 billion, ads ran thanking the employees ("Thanks a Billion!") with each individual employee name in The Wall Street Journal, The Orange County Register and The Los Angeles Times. Ads also appeared in trade publications and The Wall Street Journal thanking the company's suppliers and distributors.
On August 15, 1996 SoftBank
Corporation of Japan acquired 75 percent of Kingston for a total of $1.8 billion. In November of the same year, Kingston and Toshiba
co-marketed memory upgrades for Toshiba PCs. This was the first time that a PC OEM
and a memory manufacturer teamed up to create a co-branded module. In 1999, Tu and Sun eventually bought back the 80 percent of Kingston owned by Softbank for $450 million.
On December 14, 1996 John Tu and David Sun allocated $100 million for employee bonuses as a result of the acquisition, averaging $130,000 for each of the company's 550 workers.
Kingston announced a 49% increase in unit sales for its memory module products in calendar year 1996 over calendar year 1995.
In January 1997, Kingston opened its European headquarters in the United Kingdom, a manufacturing facility/office in Taiwan, a sales office in Japan, and a manufacturing facility and offices in Dublin, Ireland. The company also expanded its American manufacturing capacity by purchasing PC-OEM manufacturing buildings in Fountain Valley, CA.
Kingston also introduced ValueRAM a high-quality, low-cost memory designed for system integrators to use in white box
solutions.
Forbes listed Kingston as number 141 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S" with revenues of $1.5 billion for 1999.
In March 2001, Kingston announced the formation of the Consumer Markets Division (CMD), a new division focusing on the retail and e-tail channel.
In 2002 Kingston launched a patented, industry-leading memory tester, a new HyperX line of high-performance memory modules, and patented EPOC
chip-stacking technology.
In August, Kingston made a $50 million investment in Elpida
and launched a green initiative for module manufacturing.
In 2004, Kingston announced revenues of $1.8B for 2003.
In September, Kingston announced new DataTraveler Elite USB drives, with hardware-based security encryption. In October, Advanced Micro Devices
named Kingston "Outstanding Partner" for contributions to the AMD Athlon
64 and Opteron
launches. Kingston reported revenues of $2.4B for 2004.
In May, Kingston launched line of validated ValueRam modules for Intel-based servers.
The company was later granted a U.S. patent on dynamic burn-in tester for server memory.
They also announced a $26M investment in Tera Probe, the newest and largest wafer
testing company in the world. They also opened the world's largest memory module manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China.
In 2006, Kingston reported revenues of $3.0B for 2005. In March, Kingston introduced the first fully secure 100% privacy USB drive with 128-bit hardware-based encryption, and later with 256-bit hardware encryption. The company also launched Fully Buffered Dimms (FBDIMMs) breaking the 16GB barrier. and entered the portable media market with KPEX (Kingston Portable Entertainment eXperience).
In 2007, Kingston reported revenues of $3.7B for 2006. Forbes listed Kingston as number 83 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S". Inc. ranked Kingston as the #1 Fastest Growing Private Company By Revenue.
In 2008, Kingston reported revenues of $4.5B for 2007, marking the second highest revenues attained in company history.
In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies" ranked Kingston #2 in both Gross Dollars of Growth and Overall Revenue.
Forbes lists Kingston as number 79 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2009, Kingston reported revenues of $4.0B for 2008, marking the fourth highest revenue in company history. Volume increased 41% in memory units shipped from 2007. iSuppli ranked Kingston as world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the sixth consecutive year. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc.5000 Companies" ranked Kingston #5 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In October, Forbes listed Kingston as number 97 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2010, Kingston reported revenues of $4.1B for 2009, the third-largest in company history. iSuppli ranks Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market with 40.3% market share, up from 32.8% in 2008 and 27.5% in 2007. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc.5000 Companies" ranks Kingston #6 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In November, Forbes lists Kingston as number 77 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2011, Kingston reported record revenues of $6.5B for 2010, the highest in its 23 year history. iSuppli ranks Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market with 46% market share.
. It was also honored for "Excellence in Fairness" by the Great Place to Work Institute. The company also appeared on Fortune
's list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" for five consecutive years (1998–2002). In 2001, it was listed by IndustryWeek
as a "Top 5 Global Manufacturing Company". Forbes ranks Kingston as number 77 on its list of America's Largest Private Companies.
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
products and other computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
-related memory products. Headquartered in Fountain Valley, California
Fountain Valley, California
Fountain Valley is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 55,313 at the 2010 census. A classic bedroom community, Fountain Valley is a middle-class residential area.- History :...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Kingston Technology employs more than 4,700 people worldwide as of Q1 2011. The company has manufacturing and logistics facilities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
It is the largest independent producer of DRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
memory modules, currently owning 46% of the third-party worldwide DRAM module market share, according to iSuppli. Kingston is arguably the second largest supplier of flash memory
Flash memory
Flash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
. Gartner ranks Kingston as the world's #1 supplier of USB drives and #3 in flash cards.
In 2010, Kingston generated revenues of US $6.5 billion. Forbes lists Kingston as #77 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S." and Inc. ranks Kingston as the #6 Private Company By Revenue, #1 in the Computer Hardware category.
Kingston serves an international network of distributors, resellers, retailers and OEM customers on six continents. The company also provides contract manufacturing and supply chain management services for semiconductor manufacturers and system OEMs.
Through its ownership of Kingston Technology Company Inc. and Advanced Validation Labs Inc. (AVL), Kingston Technology Corporation is one of the world’s leading memory module manufacturing, module validation, semiconductor packaging and test companies in the world.
Early history
Kingston Technology was founded on October 17, 1987, in response to a severe shortage of surface-mount memory chips in the high-tech marketplace in the 1980s. To provide a solution, TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
immigrants John Tu and David Sun put their engineering expertise to work and designed a new single in-line memory module (SIMM) that used readily available, older technology through-hole components. In 1989 Kingston differentiated itself from its competitors with 100-percent testing, which resulted in quality assurance and the leadership position in the market. The following year the company branched out into its first non-memory product line, processor upgrades. By 1992, Kingston was ranked #1 by Inc.
Inc. (magazine)
Inc. magazine, founded in 1979 and based in New York City, is a monthly publication focused on growing companies. The magazine publishes an annual list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., the "Inc...
as the fastest-growing privately held company in America. The company expanded into networking and storage product lines, and introduced DataTraveler and DataPak portable products. In September 1994, Kingston became ISO 9000
ISO 9000
The ISO 9000 family of standards relates to quality management systems and is designed to help organizations ensure they meet the needs of customers and other stakeholders . The standards are published by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, and available through National...
certified on its first assessment attempt.
Kingston began expanding its services into Europe by opening a branch office in Munich, Germany to provide technical support and marketing capabilities for its European distributors and customers.
In October 1995, the company joined the Billion-Dollar Club. After the company’s 1995 sales exceeded $1.3 billion, ads ran thanking the employees ("Thanks a Billion!") with each individual employee name in The Wall Street Journal, The Orange County Register and The Los Angeles Times. Ads also appeared in trade publications and The Wall Street Journal thanking the company's suppliers and distributors.
On August 15, 1996 SoftBank
SoftBank
is a Japanese telecommunications and internet corporation, with operations in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-Commerce, Internet, broadmedia, technology services, finance, media and marketing, and other businesses....
Corporation of Japan acquired 75 percent of Kingston for a total of $1.8 billion. In November of the same year, Kingston and Toshiba
Toshiba
is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
co-marketed memory upgrades for Toshiba PCs. This was the first time that a PC OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
and a memory manufacturer teamed up to create a co-branded module. In 1999, Tu and Sun eventually bought back the 80 percent of Kingston owned by Softbank for $450 million.
On December 14, 1996 John Tu and David Sun allocated $100 million for employee bonuses as a result of the acquisition, averaging $130,000 for each of the company's 550 workers.
Kingston announced a 49% increase in unit sales for its memory module products in calendar year 1996 over calendar year 1995.
In January 1997, Kingston opened its European headquarters in the United Kingdom, a manufacturing facility/office in Taiwan, a sales office in Japan, and a manufacturing facility and offices in Dublin, Ireland. The company also expanded its American manufacturing capacity by purchasing PC-OEM manufacturing buildings in Fountain Valley, CA.
Kingston also introduced ValueRAM a high-quality, low-cost memory designed for system integrators to use in white box
White box (computer hardware)
In computer hardware, a white box is a personal computer or server without a registered brand name. For instance, the term is applied to systems assembled by small system integrators and to homebuilt computer systems assembled by end users from parts purchased separately at retail. In this latter...
solutions.
2000s
Kingston launched Advanced Validation Labs, Inc. (AVL), a sister company that provides memory validation services. Kingston’s Storage Products Division (SPD) was also spun off as a new company, StorCase Technology, Inc. In June of the same year, Kingston announced a new supply chain management model to its memory manufacturing process. Payton Technology Inc. was established to help support this new model.Forbes listed Kingston as number 141 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S" with revenues of $1.5 billion for 1999.
In March 2001, Kingston announced the formation of the Consumer Markets Division (CMD), a new division focusing on the retail and e-tail channel.
In 2002 Kingston launched a patented, industry-leading memory tester, a new HyperX line of high-performance memory modules, and patented EPOC
EPOC
EPOC may be:* Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption* Emotiv EPOC, consumer brain–computer interface devices for PC.* EPOC, the precursor OS to the Symbian operating system* Efficient Probabilistic Public-Key Encryption Scheme...
chip-stacking technology.
In August, Kingston made a $50 million investment in Elpida
Elpida Memory
is a corporation established in 1999 that develops, designs, manufactures and sells dynamic random-access memory products. It is also a semiconductor foundry. With headquarters in Yaesu, Chūō, Tokyo, Japan, it was formed under the name NEC Hitachi Memory in 1999 by the merger of the Hitachi, Ltd....
and launched a green initiative for module manufacturing.
In 2004, Kingston announced revenues of $1.8B for 2003.
In September, Kingston announced new DataTraveler Elite USB drives, with hardware-based security encryption. In October, Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets...
named Kingston "Outstanding Partner" for contributions to the AMD Athlon
Athlon
Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices . The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intel's competing processors...
64 and Opteron
Opteron
Opteron is AMD's x86 server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture . It was released on April 22, 2003 with the SledgeHammer core and was intended to compete in the server and workstation markets, particularly in the same...
launches. Kingston reported revenues of $2.4B for 2004.
In May, Kingston launched line of validated ValueRam modules for Intel-based servers.
The company was later granted a U.S. patent on dynamic burn-in tester for server memory.
They also announced a $26M investment in Tera Probe, the newest and largest wafer
Wafer (electronics)
A wafer is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other microdevices...
testing company in the world. They also opened the world's largest memory module manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China.
In 2006, Kingston reported revenues of $3.0B for 2005. In March, Kingston introduced the first fully secure 100% privacy USB drive with 128-bit hardware-based encryption, and later with 256-bit hardware encryption. The company also launched Fully Buffered Dimms (FBDIMMs) breaking the 16GB barrier. and entered the portable media market with KPEX (Kingston Portable Entertainment eXperience).
In 2007, Kingston reported revenues of $3.7B for 2006. Forbes listed Kingston as number 83 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S". Inc. ranked Kingston as the #1 Fastest Growing Private Company By Revenue.
In 2008, Kingston reported revenues of $4.5B for 2007, marking the second highest revenues attained in company history.
In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies" ranked Kingston #2 in both Gross Dollars of Growth and Overall Revenue.
Forbes lists Kingston as number 79 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2009, Kingston reported revenues of $4.0B for 2008, marking the fourth highest revenue in company history. Volume increased 41% in memory units shipped from 2007. iSuppli ranked Kingston as world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for the sixth consecutive year. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc.5000 Companies" ranked Kingston #5 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In October, Forbes listed Kingston as number 97 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2010, Kingston reported revenues of $4.1B for 2009, the third-largest in company history. iSuppli ranks Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market with 40.3% market share, up from 32.8% in 2008 and 27.5% in 2007. In August, Inc.com's "Top 100 Inc.5000 Companies" ranks Kingston #6 in Private Companies by Revenue and number 1 in the computer hardware category. In November, Forbes lists Kingston as number 77 on its list of "The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S."
In 2011, Kingston reported record revenues of $6.5B for 2010, the highest in its 23 year history. iSuppli ranks Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market with 46% market share.
Awards and recognition
iSuppli has ranked Kingston as the world's number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market for six consecutive years, the most recent being in November 2010. In 2007, Inc. awarded Kingston Technology's founders with the Inaugural Distinguished Alumni Goldhirsh Award. In September 2006, Kingston received Intel’s "Outstanding Supplier Award for Exceptional Support, Quality and Timely Delivery of FB-DIMM Products". In April 2003 Kingston received the "Diverse Supplier Award for Best Overall Performance" from DellDell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
. It was also honored for "Excellence in Fairness" by the Great Place to Work Institute. The company also appeared on Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
's list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" for five consecutive years (1998–2002). In 2001, it was listed by IndustryWeek
Industryweek
IndustryWeek is an American monthly trade publication founded in 1882.-Background:IndustryWeek is a trade publication and web site owned by Penton Media. It is a business-to-business magazine brand that produces print, e-media, research and in-person products...
as a "Top 5 Global Manufacturing Company". Forbes ranks Kingston as number 77 on its list of America's Largest Private Companies.
Products
- ComputerComputerA computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
- System Specific memory upgrades, ValueRam for system builders and OEMOriginal Equipment ManufacturerAn original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
s - Digital audio players - K-PEX 100K-PEX 100The K-Pex 100 is a portable media player produced by Kingston Technologies. It is capable of playing transcoded videos , viewing still images , and playing music files . It also comes with 2 games. It is a rebranded Cenix GMP-M6, which is from Korea...
, Mini-Secure Digital, Micro-Secure Digital, MMCMultiMediaCardThe MultiMediaCard is a flash memory memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens AG and SanDisk, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as CompactFlash. MMC is about the size of a postage... - Flash memoryFlash memoryFlash memory is a non-volatile computer storage chip that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. It was developed from EEPROM and must be erased in fairly large blocks before these can be rewritten with new data...
- Such as Secure DigitalSecure Digital cardSecure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...
, Compact Flash, USB Flash DriveUSB flash driveA flash drive is a data storage device that consists of flash memory with an integrated Universal Serial Bus interface. flash drives are typically removable and rewritable, and physically much smaller than a floppy disk. Most weigh less than 30 g...
s, Solid state drives and various other form factors - GamerGamerHistorically, the term "gamer" usually referred to someone who played role-playing games and wargames. Since they became very popular, the term has included players of video games...
- HyperX - Mobile phoneMobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s - Mini-Secure Digital, Micro-Secure Digital, MMCMultiMediaCardThe MultiMediaCard is a flash memory memory card standard. Unveiled in 1997 by Siemens AG and SanDisk, it is based on Toshiba's NAND-based flash memory, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on Intel NOR-based memory such as CompactFlash. MMC is about the size of a postage... - PrinterComputer printerIn computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
- LaserJetLaserJetLaserJet as a brand name identifies the line of dry electrophotographic laser printers marketed by the American computer-company Hewlett-Packard . The HP LaserJet was the world's first desktop laser printer.-Technology:...
memory, LexmarkLexmarkLexmark International, Inc. is an American corporation which develops and manufactures printing and imaging products, including laser and inkjet printers, multifunction products, printing supplies, and services for business and individual consumers...
printer memory, etc. - ServerServer (computing)In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
- Memory for both branded (i.e. IBM, HP, etc.) and non-branded white box servers (ValueRAM, Server Premier)
External links
- Kingston Technology — Official website