Counterfeit parts

[R.G.]

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2008/04/14/43512/what-is-the-threat-of-counterfeit-components.htm

It wasn't that long ago - 10-15 years maybe - that if you bought an electronic part, it was probably made in the USA or Japan, or by the US or Japanese company directly. You could assume the part was 100% good if new.

Fast forward to today. Any part where the profit is high enough is almost certainly counterfeited, and even the best distributors can have their shipments hijacked and counterfeits substituted for the good ones they ordered. Corruption plays a part, as shipment and ordering clerks for the makers of the real stuff tip off the crooks about where to intercept shipments, and take bribes to sub in counterfeits.

The ongoing pressure to get out of high-priced countries and the pressure to shave 1/100 of a cent on every part means that negative-stock and pull-stock supply chains are at the mercy of needing a part with the right part number, right now.

The grumpy old fart in me wants to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But that's not true. The world was always this way. It was only that I only had dealings with a high-technology niche where there were few players and they were concentrating on performance so much that they didn't have time to run the funny stuff like organized crime and drug gangs.

It's a brave new world/same old world we have coming together here.

[Pushtone]

The police here in Vancouver are holding a conference this weekend to educate the public on counterfeit goods.
The focus is mostly on cloths, shoes, and handbags. I had no idea it extended into the electronics parts market.

Interesting post.

RG, has VS received any? How would you tell?
Is it limited to one kind of part, like digital ICs or are we talking pots and caps here too?

[drewl]

I've run into this problem with fixing power amps with the expensive output drivers being counterfeits and not performing nearly as well as the originals.

It was discussed at length on a techy repair board, with examples of the transistors opened up and compared to originals.

[frank_p]

This is also true for the materials with which the consumables are made.  In the plastics, how many missed batch of polymerisation process I've seen taken for supposed premium quality parts.  Tell me how can you trace for sure if plastic pellets are from the original specification of what you have commanded on the global market.  You have to have good testing equipment to discern it sometimes.  How much scrap batch of products do you think is made from these "bad" plastics ?  Why workers are foremans say that they are not able to produce with the same process variables to put out the same product ?  What about recycled that is passed for new stock...  And then what do you do with scrap that comes out of the process ? Regrind and make new pellets...  Some try to pass it back in the current market for profit.  It's an interminable chain.  How much pressure is on the quality departments from the heads offices to pass some stocks do you think...  Why guys from the plants can not talk to the material buyers of the same companies ? And how many seller think what is behind " is not my business ".

[head_spaz]

It's happening anywhere a profit can be stolen.
Many people have died from using toothpaste, where the victims were poisoned because the ingredient glycerine was couterfeited ... substituted with cheap glycol instead. Anti-Freeze flavored toothpaste? No Thank You.
Also in medicine, there is a current problem with poison / tainted ingredients used to make Heparin, a common an anti-coagulant / blood thinner.
So far, in both cases, the fraud was traced to Chinese manufacturers.
Never underestimate greed. The almighty penny is evidently worth sacrificing lives, where profits outweigh human rights.

[puretube]

not a "part" per se,
but composed out of possibly counterfeit parts:

16GB CnMemory USB memorysticks...

bought @ wellrespected retailer

memorized 2GB;

both of `em...

(the interface & address circuit worked well;
properties showed ~16GB diskspace;

but: filling the space beyond 2GB won`t work,
and resulted in frozen PCs/blue screen;
(both: "V*sta", and W*nXP)

Data lost...

[smallbearelec]

When I first started dealing with Chinese sources to buy obsolete parts, maybe six years ago, I had few problems. Prices were reasonable, sometimes even cheap, and I could often get chips and transistors in the original manufacturer packaging--no worries about duds or fakes.

Over time, I noticed that prices were going up, and also that I could no longer presume that BBDs, for example, would be what they were cracked up to be. I used to just sample one chip from a rail...couldn't do that any more. It got to the point where I had to test every chip in a batch, and even then, some had faults that would only show up on a scope.

I think the problem that R. G. describes is partly one unhappy result of the expansion of the global market in components: Lots more buyers, particularly inexperienced buyers, + more distribnutors hungry for orders = More opportunity for fraud.

I don't buy nearly as much as I once did, I have to pay more, and I'm much more careful about whom I order from.

[frank_p]

It got to the point where I had to test every chip in a batch, and even then, some had faults that would only show up on a scope.

I think the problem that R. G. describes is partly one unhappy result of the expansion of the global market in components: Lots more buyers, particularly inexperienced buyers, + more distribnutors hungry for orders = More opportunity for fraud.

I don't buy nearly as much as I once did, I have to pay more, and I'm much more careful about whom I order from.

Well, the good thing (if some of aware of this), I think is to pass the (word) knowledge, because that phenomenon is taking out a lot of time from big and small enterprises.  It's useless working time (and waste of what could have been useful stocks).

[trendyironicname]

This is really interesting.  And helps you kind of understand the stuff you have to go through steve.  never realized this.  makes me rethink the thinking I did when I was a test technician for a big ham radio company.  I swore this lady couldn't solder and was constantly reworking stuff on my line.  Would love to have a batch of the virgin components  now and be able to check their good/suck ratio.  Never dawned on me that more than one or two in a batch of anything could be bad. 

[Dragonfly]

Its funny, because I recently did a thread on how easy it is to "make" fake tropical fish caps. Small beans compared to counterfeiting lots of other parts, but still...where theres a will, theres a way.

[frank_p]

Swirly tropical fishes ?  Now those Chinese thieves would be confused ! Ship Them all over the Pacific ! War has began !

[WLTerry]

That reminds me an episode when I was in school. Me and my friend were assigned to design and build some digital gadged microcontroller based to plug into a computer, we needed lots of 74LS244 chips so bad (74LS244 are octal TTL buffer) so I went to the electronics store (here in my city those stores are located in 2 blocks in one particular street). As a college student = no money, so I hadn't enough money to buy the chips required... so I searched a best price like a crazy until I found a store, they offered the chips almost a half its real price and I bought those chips... they worked well in preliminary tests. BUT in the time to show the project to the professors..... THE DAMN SH*T DIDN'T WORK!!!

Luckily, professors gave us one day chance, so we start debuggin the whole damn thing and yes... the 74LS244's were guilty in charge. We replaced them borrowing from other classmates and the circuit worked well. I found some answers when I have commented to other people and I found out other people had the same problem with this chip and with others. I still have a couple of those chips, just to remind me one saying in my country "Cheap things are expensive". they have the Texas Instruments logo and the code on top, but in the bottom i can read "PORTUGAL"... pretty odd huh?

But the point is the existence of counterfeit components and nobody say or do someting to stop this madness. that episode taught me the importance of how to find reliable parts.

[frank_p]

I found some answers when I have commented to other people and I found out other people had the same problem with this chip and with others. I still have a couple of those chips, just to remind me one saying in my country "Cheap things are expensive". they have the Texas Instruments logo and the code on top, but in the bottom i can read "PORTUGAL"... pretty odd huh?

Now that is a fast responce ! 

[rikkards]

Another problem is when a manufacturer is duped into using bad parts without realizing it. This happened in the mid-90s with electrolytics (I am sure some on here remember this) that were used in the power filtering on computer motherboards. This was due to a Chinese manufacturer stealing the recipe for the compound in the cap but that had been a bad recipe. You started seeing boards blowing their caps or at least bulging before being noticed. Some high priced boards were victims in this fiasco as well. This is more an industrial espionage case but the same thing could have happened with counterfeits as well.

It got to the point where I had to test every chip in a batch, and even then, some had faults that would only show up on a scope.

I think the problem that R. G. describes is partly one unhappy result of the expansion of the global market in components: Lots more buyers, particularly inexperienced buyers, + more distribnutors hungry for orders = More opportunity for fraud.

I don't buy nearly as much as I once did, I have to pay more, and I'm much more careful about whom I order from.

Well, the good thing (if some of aware of this), I think is to pass the (word) knowledge, because that phenomenon is taking out a lot of time from big and small enterprises.  It's useless working time (and waste of what could have been useful stocks).

[George Giblet]

> The grumpy old fart in me wants to think that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But that's not true. The world was always this way.

Yeah, people that do that stuff just move where the money is, and yes, it it takes corruption at a number of levels for that type of thing to get through.   The evil thing is you never hear of anyone getting caught.

I haven't heard of shipments being hijacked (unbelievable!) but all the board assemblers have reports of fake parts being shipped, particularly when buying hard to get parts or when buy parts from the gray market.

[ayayay!]

Another problem is when a manufacturer is duped into using bad parts without realizing it. This happened in the mid-90s with electrolytics (I am sure some on here remember this) that were used in the power filtering on computer motherboards. This was due to a Chinese manufacturer stealing the recipe for the compound in the cap but that had been a bad recipe. You started seeing boards blowing their caps or at least bulging before being noticed. Some high priced boards were victims in this fiasco as well. This is more an industrial espionage case but the same thing could have happened with counterfeits as well.

Oh I remember it!  400 Gateway and 50 Dell motherboards later...

[rikkards]

Yeah, some Asus $300 motherboards as well. Think ultra shiny deluxe with Raid etc.

Another problem is when a manufacturer is duped into using bad parts without realizing it. This happened in the mid-90s with electrolytics (I am sure some on here remember this) that were used in the power filtering on computer motherboards. This was due to a Chinese manufacturer stealing the recipe for the compound in the cap but that had been a bad recipe. You started seeing boards blowing their caps or at least bulging before being noticed. Some high priced boards were victims in this fiasco as well. This is more an industrial espionage case but the same thing could have happened with counterfeits as well.

Oh I remember it!  400 Gateway and 50 Dell motherboards later...

[Solidhex]

I use counterfeit parts exclusively. They have the most mojo. Haha

--Brad

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

they have the Texas Instruments logo and the code on top, but in the bottom i can read "PORTUGAL"... pretty odd huh?

Not all THAT strange, about the only country where Texas Instrument chips AREN'T assembled, is the USA.
It's most likely a subtle difference between manufacturers, like we have seen with the chips in the DOD envelope filter.
I can't imagine 74LS244 ever being worth counterfeiting. Unlike hi-fi output transistors...

[Paul T]

I saw something on the Web that blew my mind...http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/12/counterfeit_capacitors.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

Well, there you have it;  "made in china"

However, there is hope:

We are a community of DIY'ers, Brothers and Sisters. This is where websites like diystompboxes.com (and many others) are in fact primordial to share information, ideas and most importantly, The Truth.

Let's all stick together and make the (DIY) world a better place.

So keep in touch everybody and Godspeed to all.