2013: It’s time to tackle fake components

Article Source Electronics Weekly:

The US Department of Defence showed us in 2012 that it is serious about eradicating counterfeit electronic components from their military supply chains and in all probability other defence sector have a similar problem, writes Adam Fletcher, chairman of the Electronic Components Supply Network (ECSN)

The counterfeit of electronic components for military and avionics applications is primarily carried out by numerous small Chinese based organisations but, at risk of appearing alarmist, is merely a counterfeiting “cottage industry” compared to the scale of electronic components counterfeiting in the commercial world.

The current estimate is that counterfeit electronic components account for at least 2% of the global sales revenues, which equates to 100s of millions of counterfeit components spanning the product range – resistors, connectors, relays to semiconductors.

In contrast to counterfeit components destined for military applications these products are being professionally made by large well established organisations based primarily in Asia, which unfortunately is where (currently) the vast majority of the counterfeit devices are purchased and used, often in full complicity between the buyer and seller.

And western consumers contribute as well: When a Chinese produced games terminal or MP3 player fails we’re seemingly content to simply throw it away and buy another one.

But the problem of counterfeit electronic components is inevitably migrating towards our manufacturing infrastructure and make no mistake, when it impacts it will cause severe problems in our industrial, medical and transport sectors, where we need and expect a much longer in-service life than in the consumer products sector.

The New Year resolution for all western-based electronics organisations must be to take decisive measures to avoid sourcing counterfeit electronic components by ensuring that they only buy electronic components direct from the manufacturer, from an authorised distributor or another well established, known and trusted local source.

Successful demonstration of ChipCheck prototype at InnospeXion, Denmark

The final trials and demo are currently taking place at project lead InnospeXion in Denmark. The system has been demonstrated both with waffle and reel feeding mechanisms.

The picture is one of the first and shows the prototype in action with results obtained with the reel feeding mechanism.

Interested persons are welcome to contact via the contacts page on the ChipCheck website or to Email info@chipcheck.eu to arrange a visit to see a demo of the ChipCheck system.

Free ChipCheck Webinar - 12th February 2013

The ChipCheck consortium has now reached an equipment prototype stage with a high technology readiness level and would like to share the results of the project in a webinar.

The topics addressed in this webinar will include:

Counterfeit electronic components -Introduction
-Types of inspection
-Examples of counterfeit components that have been inspected
The ChipCheck inspection system
-Goals and challenges
-Presentation of ChipCheck inspection system
-Test results
Future work

To book a place for you or your engineering team today Click Here.

Official ChipCheck introduction video

ChipCheck represented at the Electronica 2012 show

ChipCheck consortium partner "Institute of Electronics and Computer Science (IECS)", a state research institute of Latvia, disseminated information regarding the ChipCheck project at their stand at the the Electronica 2012 show in Munich this November (13-16th).

IECS have been responsible for the development of the counterfeit component detection software in the ChipCheck inspection system prototype. The software can reliably sentence suspected counterfeit components.

Counterfeits from refurbished components

Our friends at AAA Components Test lab made this video showing one of the ways counterfeit components are produced:

Companies selling suspect counterfeit product on the increase

Electronicsweekly.com has just reported that in the US a total of 9,539 suppliers in 2012 were reported either for known involvement in high risk, fraudulent and suspect counterfeit-part transactions, or for conduct identified by the government as grounds to debar, suspend or otherwise exclude from contract participation. In all, 78,217 potential high risk firms and suppliers to US government agencies, defence contractors and subcontractors were reported during the period from 2002 to 2011. For more information click here.