Well, things are worse than I thought. Not only did we discover the reel of caps that was given to us by one of our customers was counterfeit yesterday, we found out this morning from Murata that some caps that we bought are counterfeit too! Here is the reply from the factory: ----- Forwarded by David Crews/US/MuRata on 02/10/2011 07:18 AM ----- Hiromasa FUJII 02/09/2011 10:09 PM To David Crews/US/MuRata@MENA Good morning Dave san, The part number is (another Factory's) product. IA0215FU4 shows different part number. And there is no data for IA9N10SA3. I think they are counterfeit. Best regards ------------------------------------------------------ 出雲村田製作所 Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. 第1製造統括部 Production Group 1 品質管理部 Quality Control Department 品質管理4課 Quality Control Section 4 藤井 博正 Hiromasa FUJII ------------------------------------------------------ Best Regards, David A. Crews QC Engineer muRata Electronics 308 Prospect Road Rockmart, Georgia 30153-0487 Tel: (678) 842-6708 Fax: (678) 842-6693 US Mail: P.O. Box 487 "Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine." ------------ So, Andy is spot on, you need to know your supply chain! Here's a few pictures of the labels on the reel. I have a picture of a Kemet label on one of the reels and suspect that one to be counterfeit too because it's not a real label, but a piece of paper cut out and taped on the reel. We're going to contact Kemet and check it out. http://stevezeva.homestead.com/Code_Red_1.JPG http://stevezeva.homestead.com/Code_Red_2.JPG http://stevezeva.homestead.com/Code_Red_3.JPG Steve -----Original Message----- From: Giamis, Andy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, February 09, 2011 12:32 PM To: TechNet E-Mail Forum; Steve Gregory Subject: RE: [TN] Counterfeit ceramic capacitors 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 ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. 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For more information please contact helpdesk at x2960 or [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/ContentPage.aspx?Pageid=E-mail-Forums for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------