So... US customs simply stopped checking out imported parts because they were afraid of law suits?
See 2nd to last paragraph in:
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Customs used to ask legitimate chipmakers to help it check out suspected parts. But it stopped that two years ago, fearing it could be prosecuted for revealing confidential information about the seller of the parts to another company. Since then, the association noted, there has been a "dramatic decrease" in fake-chip seizures.
...
Part of what I'm curious about is why there wasn't enough interest by the manufacturers themselves to work out a suitable approach; why it was that US customs feared a law suit, in the first place, over issues they saw related to their prior practice... a worry about which I assume the industry wasn't completely ignorant of; what credible threat was actually made, at some point, and by whom. Etc.
Why did things degrade to the point where the US customs felt they could no longer do this job anymore?
It seems clear that the problem is on the rise, after this change in policy and practice. Why was it so impossible to deal with various concerns here?
Makes perfect sense if you're a Democrat politician seeking Chinese support and funding.
Anyone who still thinks government is "for" the people is a bit of a fool :-( ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
Democrats are best served up prepared as a hash
Otherwise the dogs will refuse to eat them :)
"Because the microprocessors it needed for its F-15 warplanes' flight- control computer were no longer made by the chips' original manufacturer, the military obtained them from a broker, only to discover they were counterfeit,"
This is alarming. What are they using, 8080? They have not been upgraded?
It would be interesting to see a technical analysis of the defects in the counterfeits. They must be close in form and function to the targeted parts or they wouldn't get past the first factory day (am I naive to assume that companies still test their products?). Are they just faking the packaging and logos? Faking the test documentation?
On the source side, it is likely to be many different things, from what I read before. Some of the counterfitting is about taking cheaper (lower grade) parts and remarking them as better. For example, perhaps buying cheaper +/-2% Vref parts and marking them and selling them as +/-0.5% Vref parts. Some are just dead parts -- I recently saw a case of CPUs that simply weren't. The best they could be used for is jewelry, I suppose. And very probably there are even more complex situations, where perhaps 1/2 of a lot is tainted ... or 10% of it... or 90% of it... but not all of it. Whatever works to catch a few more people unaware.
On the receiver side, there are several kinds. There are end users and there are distributers, like Digikey. Also stuffing houses. Not everyone validates every shipment and the interests in doing so vary from shipment receiver to receiver, anyway. Some get caught unawares because the new stock doesn't get used until the older stock is used up. Some find out very soon because they test a few parts right away upon receiving them. Some find out when they receive and then test a stuffed board.
It would be interesting to know what the breakdown is and what is the bigger problems, I suppose. But even knowing that and working to address the problem areas directly also means that the counterfitters will then have more information, too, and will shift their practices to target areas that aren't getting as much attention. It's going to be a game, of sorts.
My curiosity is about why it was the case that US customs, working together with concerned manufacturers (and I have to believe that legitimate manufacturers _do_ care), failed so utterly and completely to be able to work out a system that would meet various legitimate interests and ultimately had to simply stop doing anything. There must have been _credible_ legal threats in the air in order to force that change and those making the credible threats must not have been sufficiently interested in finding an accommodation, for reasons I have a hard time figuring out.
It would seem to me to be both in the interests of legitimate outside-the-US manufacturers, as well as inside-the-US distribution and manufacturers and various electronics engineers (and on down the line to end users of the final products), to work out a reasoned approach. It is hard to imagine why negotiations couldn't arrive at a workable answer and instead the only answer became a complete breakdown with nothing left in place to help curb the problem.
If I am the enemy, I would design and sell the chips to the USAF. They work normally most of the time. But in the present of a 543GHz RF signal, it would drop dead. This would be more effective than say the neutron bomb.
You're making a big mistake in the "taking them at their word" department, I think. Legal threats (the vaguer, the better) make a fine red herring when the real reason is perhaps much simpler - any of the following seem possible:
A: simply that they didn't want to be bothered (time, manpower/etc. wise)
B: are concentrating more on "homeland security" than "giving a #@$& what fake crap is being shipped in" - looking for bomb materials etc. and not wanting to look for chips that look like other chips but are not.
C: were not getting enough in fines and fees to make it worth their while
D: were offered too much in paper bags and offshore accounts for it to be worth their while continuing, since counterfeiting is a nice high profit business.
His brain, which probably was the second thing to go, forgot that the genius George Dubya Bush pushed for most favored nation status for China. Oh, let me toss in Mexican truck drivers while I at it. I can't believe how two guys, Bush and Cheney, could so hate the people of the United States.
I saw a few F15 PCBs. Lots of round cans on it. Doesn't build much confidence, does it?
Some planes get gutted and fitted with new electronics, like the KC-135, if (big if) there is a program to do this. I snicked a bit when they were doing the tanker retrofits about a decade ago out at the Mojave airport, but in hindsight, fixing those old planes won the war (well so to speak). Who knew Rumsfeld and crew would botch the tanker follow-on program with their corruption.
There used to be a few companies that produced essentially obsolete chips for spares. One still living is
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One of the companies I worked at kept the F8 uP going. Or maybe H8. (Hey, it wasn't my job.) Anyway, some company wanted to orphan the product on their line and gave us the design.
Micrel, before they had standard products, was just a foundry with a lot of smelly old processes that some companies used to keep the spares going.
I don't know how they were doing the checking before. The article mentioned enough to suggest that the process involved manufacturers and that the problem seemed to be nothing like what you are suggesting, reading the article closely. Besides, they appear to have been doing a successful job of it until they stopped doing it in 2008. Which is well after the peak of post 9/11 homeland security activities in the US.
Please don't feed the fairy. Just killfile him. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
Democrats are best served up prepared as a hash
Otherwise the dogs will refuse to eat them :)
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
Democrats are best served up prepared as a hash
Otherwise the dogs will refuse to eat them :)
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