IHS: Counterfeit parts represent $169B annual risk

[Gianni]

I wonder if there is a similar report about caps.

Happy Easter to all member
Gianni

[kc8adu]

Re: IHS: Counterfeit parts represent $169B annual risk

makes me wonder if the bum mitsubishi rd100hhf1 i got a while back were fakes.
its a perfect target for fakers.not sure what could be remarked.i wasnt going to autopsy something i can return though.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: IHS: Counterfeit parts represent $169B annual risk

From the linked article:

The five most commonly counterfeited semiconductor types are analog integrated circuits (ICs), microprocessors, memory ICs, programmable logic devices and transistors, all of which are commonly used in commercial and military applications, according to data provided by IHS. Together, these five component commodity groups accounted for slightly more than two-thirds of all counterfeit incidents reported in 2011, IHS said.

I wonder if there is a similar report about caps.

I wish there were such a report. One of the functions of the Component Engineering group I was in at my previous employer was screening occasional possible fakes. Two cases stick out in my mind.

The first was some purported high-end MOSFETs, purportedly from STMicro. The genuine parts were temporarily in short supply, and our Purchasing people had found some at a non-authorized (but generally reputable) distributor. Samples were sent to us prior to purchase to test. They looked good outwardly, but one of our tests proved they were not the genuine STMicro parts. That test also revealed what the parts really were, an older, very good, but not adequate for our specific application, IR MOSFET. Evidently what happened is that some one got hold of a large batch of surplus IR parts, effaced the IR markings, and remarked the parts with the numbers of higher performance, more scarce, more demanded parts. As I mentioned, the originalk IR parts were, themselves, very good, so given the usual margins designed into many products, companies who might have bought the bogus parts might or might not ever have experienced much worse than a somewhat diminished field life for products in which the bogus MOSFETs were used.

The second case also involved parts which were temporarily in short supply, and a reputable but unauthorized distributor. The parts we had specified were NCC/UCC LXZ series, 63V, in a 16mm x 20mm case (470uF?). We received a bag of samples to test, and they were obvious fakes, recognizable as such without opening the plastic bag. The outer sleeve was black instead of brown; the label font was wrong; the date code format and position were wrong (we had genuine parts on hand, so this was a counterfeiter's error, not a memory failure on my part or an unfamiliar variant). The counterfeits were laughably bad and I never bothered to open the bag, let alone waste time testing them!

I suspect the EE Times article above only captures the costs of bad parts being discovered in-house, plus warranty repair and recalls costs. Consequences to customers whose equipment fails is probably unquantified, especially with critical applications such as aviation, military and medical electronics.

[jetadm123]

Re: IHS: Counterfeit parts represent $169B annual risk

PeteS- Just curious, but what methods did you use to test the mosfets? Did you use specialized equiptment to test? Or take them apart to examine the internals?

[japlytic]

Re: IHS: Counterfeit parts represent $169B annual risk

As far as I know, Chemi-Con electrolytic capacitors never come in black for low-ESR units - the colour of Chemi-Con 105C units and low-ESR units are brown, although certain series are in blue and also green, as far as I know.