The EDFAS / ISTFA conference (Dallas, November 2010) gave a lot of attention to counterfeit electronics.  

The Keynote speaker was Tom Sharpe of SMT Corporation.  He told a scary bedtime story of his trip across China.  It included lots of pictures of e-waste 'recycling' including huge sacks filled with 0402 chip caps.  The sacks looked like a stack of sand bags ready for a flood. 

If I could sum up what everybody was saying it would be:

A - If you are willing to pay money, someone is willing to sell you a bad part for less.  
B - There is a lot of e-waste out there. It is really easy to 'recycle' and repackage scrap.
C - Even the tiniest chip capacitors have economic value and what's more, without discrete labeling, they are harder to trace. 
D - Counterfeiters are getting very sophisticated with re-labeling and re-packaging.
E - China is today's leader for all things counterfeit (no surprise), but they are not alone.  It even goes on in the USA.  Part of the problem is that the line is very blurry between counterfeiting and 'green initiative.'
F - Legacy (non-RoHS) products and low-cost consumer devices are most susceptible.  Legacy because of the need to buy after-market parts.    
G - The best defense is to know your supply chain.


Here are some links that may be helpful.
http://www.idofea.org/
http://www.erai.com/
http://www.gidep.org/
http://www.neda.org



Regards,
Andy
 
Andrew C. Giamis
Andrew Solutions
FMA / Reliability Engineer
40 Technology Drive, 
Warren, NJ 07059
(908) 546-4686 [Office]  
(908) 938-7945 [Cell]
[log in to unmask]
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steve Gregory
Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 11:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] Counterfeit ceramic capacitors

Hi All,

 

We just got notified by a customer of ours that there are some counterfeit
Murata capacitors going around, and asked us to check the reels of the parts
that they provided to us. Sure enough, we had a reel. 

 

Here's the thread:

 

>Please confirm whether you are in possession of either of these 2
Inspection Lot Numbers (IA9D03DL3 & IA9O25WD2) of 10uF 25V X7R 1206
capacitors from Murata.

>Murata has confirmed the material to be counterfeit."

 

>We received this reply back from the factory: 
>There is no history data for IA9D03DL3 & IA9O25WD2 in our records, and this
part number is (another factory's) product. They must be counterfeit. 



I thought I would give you all a heads up about this. My question is, why
counterfeit caps? It would seem that if you're going to counterfeit
something it would be more than just caps.

 

Steve



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