We visited Chaintech at their new eight-story Headquarter Building in Tu Cheng, Taiwan, and spoke with them about their product line. We were also treated to a tour of their in-building factory, where we snapped plenty of photos. To get an inside look at Chaintech and their modern motherboard factory, read on.

Established in November 1986, Chaintech currently has over 400 employees. They produce approximately 240,000 motherboards per month, with facilities that can produce up to 400,000 boards. In 1999, they sold over 1.5 million motherboards totaling sales of over $130,000,000US. In 2000, they expect to sell over 2.5 million boards, with sales rising to over $180,000,000US. They also produce 200,000 video cards per month.

Chaintech received ISO 9002 certification in 1994 and ISO 9001 certification in 1998. ISO certification is not easy to achieve and is often necessary when trying to sell to certain system builders. In order to get ISO certification, a company has to prove a certain level of quality control. The fact that Chaintech has had ISO certification is a good sign that Chaintech has a high-level of quality. This is why system builders sometimes demand certification. Otherwise, they might have to worry about the quality of components they're buying.

If you browse around US on-line stores, you will see a medium to small Chaintech presence. Chaintech's VIA Apollo 133-based boards such as the 6ATA4, and SiS 630-based boards such as their 6SEV, were pretty much all we could find online. 440BX boards and i820 boards were nowhere to be found. More often than not, the Chaintech boards were being offered as value solutions with bundled Intel Celerons or low-end Pentium IIIs. Again, this is only their US presence we are talking about. Their European presence is much stronger.