One of our vendors sent me this today.For the past Ten years (deleted), Inc. has earned a reputation for selling quality board level components:This is a growing problem, but this is the first time a vendor has actually stated this problem upfront in a promotion. As margins are squeezed, more and more counterfeit components are showing up. On someone's home PC this is no big deal, really. Your computer is toast, you buy another one for $400. Who cares. But how about on an airliner? What about a critical data center? Sub-standard, defective crap is not acceptable.
* We never stock pulls or parts from China.
This is not to bash the Chinese. They normally do a good job. But there is an extreme urge in the field of electronic components right now to cut costs. That means there is a buttload of mis-marked and defective stuff out there, and much of it will wind up in critical infrastructure. Be aware.
3 comments:
It's the well made knock offs that we have to worry about. Lord knows what surprises that they can hide in the bowels of electronics (if you are of a paranoid sort) for everything from critical infrastructure equipment to defense components.
Otherwise, we just run the risk of that nice pricey wireless router I just bought dying an early death and not actually being covered the Cisco warranty. Like a friend (uh sure it was a friend) that bought a really nice watch and took it in to be cleaned and repaired and got told it wasn't quite Swiss.
A critical high grade counterfeit part causing a major problem WILL happen. I have blogged about this in the past I believe: A combination of cultural indifference to harming others, lack of regulation and rule of law, relative poverty, brutal competition, and high manufacturing skills make for a ticking time bomb.
I am an expert in aviation fasteners. Some i designed are still classified as to their use(s). The paperweight on my desk is a titanium wing pivot bolt from the American SST. Electronics have redundancy and backup and diagnostics. Bolts on engines, not so much. A serious problem.
It goes deeper. The wholesale intellectual property theft by Cina has got to stop. That alone would erase the CAD.
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