OK Joyce, I will go along with that concerning counterfeit however in 
the Nuclear world we have components that are 30+ years old and failing. 
The manufacturers have long since stopped production and 20+ years past 
support, and some are long gone.   In order to keep the equipment 
running reliably requires reverse engineering to try and figure / design 
a suitable replacement, or have another engineering firm reinvent the 
wheel at huge revenue outlay, JT-21 cost us $35000 each for a suitable 
replacement.

I have went through the gambit with the fake Nichecon caps in '04 
vintage Dell computers.

pat


On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 6:05 PM, Yuan-chia Joyce Koo wrote:

> Pat, I might be on the dark side:  I do like proprietary hardware, for 
> example, ASIC always run faster than off the shelf programmable chip 
> (provide you have a good design team for ASIC), low power, efficient 
> foot print, package to tailor specific environment... if you have 
> volume to justify the design time and cost, I would take an ASIC in a 
> heart beat.  as for guard the secret to prevent reverse engineering, i 
> think it is definitely needed in current environment: copycat just 
> ripe off all the good engineering work easily.  In addition, there are 
> fakes around - deal with in the past with a control chip that provides 
> user timing/feedback control of voltage/current adjusted output.  The 
> "fake" actually went into the field to collect the chip and mount on 
> the unit sell them at a knock out price (of course the reliability and 
> calibration is completely off... but there are cheapy chaps actually 
> return some of faulty fake units for R and O to the company ...), not 
> until we figure out hard pot the IC on  to the unit in such a way it 
> was almost impossible to take it off without damage the unit.... The 
> sales went  up right after the implementation of the anti-reverse 
> engineering... from my 1st hand experience, i would say the 
> anti-reverse engineering is necessary, it should be part of design 
> review/marketing scheme to ensure your tech leadership is not 
> compromised. my 1.78 cents..  (By the way, as for high price of 
> replacement parts, I agree with you... extended warrantee or service 
> contract is much better if you have a critical equipments fall into R 
> and O requirement - like aircraft).
>                jk
> On Oct 15, 2014, at 7:53 PM, Patrick Goodyear wrote:
>
>> As a technician I detest companies that provide proprietary 
>> hardware, the reason I don't own Apple products.   Hp did this with 
>> their early test equipment, but the would annually publish a cheat 
>> sheet with their part numbers and a cross reference for products 5 
>> years old.
>> If a company is so dang tight-a--ed that they need to guard the 
>> secret, let them custom order the part with their part number or 
>> whatever on it, Westinghouse did this in the '70's with a lot of  the 
>> equipment they ordered custom from Burr-Brown, so they made  sure you 
>> ordered their replacement part at their $$$$$$ price, case  in point 
>> OP amp modules designated A1 labeled JT-21.
>>
>> Usually unless the part is unique as long as one has knowledge of 
>> how it works it is easy to substitute a suitable replacement.
>>
>> Just my opinion.
>>
>> Pat Goodyear semi-retired control tech
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 12:03 PM, Craig Sullivan wrote:
>>
>>> I have a customer requirement to "apply an electronics grade epoxy 
>>> over
>>> component x that will obscure part the part marking." They are 
>>> trying to
>>> prevent reverse engineering of their product. There are of course a
>>> multitude of epoxies, but dispensing onto small ICs, etc., can be a
>>> challenge.
>>>
>>> I know about micro abrasion processes and such but I'm curious how 
>>> others
>>> would handle this requirement?
>>>
>>>
>>> Craig Sullivan
>>>
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