A large number of fake chips appeared in Japan! How to prevent the "proliferation" of counterfeit chips under the shortage of cores?
Japan fake chip
According to foreign media reports, there are a large number of counterfeit chips in the Japanese market, which has caused the chip identification business to surge. Chip trading company CoreStaff said that the number of chip identifications received this year has increased by three to four times compared with a year ago. Another company, Restar Holdings, said, This year's inspection orders have increased from two or three to dozens.
A large number of counterfeit chips appear in the Japanese market
The increase in chip authentication business in Japan reflects the influx of more counterfeit chip products into the Japanese market. In the past, many chip traders in Japan would provide customers with free testing services in order to meet the high-quality needs of customers. However, with the current increase in counterfeit chips, many companies have opened fee-based services for chip testing services.
The purpose of testing is to see if the chip is counterfeit or to find out the reason for the poor quality. CoreStaff is a chip trading company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Inspectors of the company said that the demand for expert chips has increased by three or even four times compared to a year ago.
CoreStaff said that for fake chips with marks and engraved patterns, inspectors can confirm the authenticity by X-ray or unpacking inspection. In April this year, CoreStaff launched a monthly subscription service with a starting price of 100,000 yen and covering 5 tests per month.
Another company, Ryosan, started a new business line in April 2020 to provide testing services for microprocessors, logic and power semiconductors. The company’s technology center has X-ray equipment, microscopes, and equipment for analyzing the electrical characteristics of chips.
According to reports, the price of a single chip can be as high as 1 million yen (approximately RMB 56,000) for this kind of in-depth analysis. Chip traders such as Ryosan can use idle equipment to perform simple tests at only tens of thousands of yen.
However, CoreStaff and Ryosan both said that compared with chip sales, this testing business brings very little revenue to the company. However, detailed reports on chip testing help the company build trust with new customers and bring new opportunities to buy chips. customer.
Why are there more counterfeit chips in Japan this year? Since the third quarter of last year, global chip supply has been tight, and the lack of cores may cause more counterfeit chips to enter the Japanese market.
Japanese companies are deeply affected by the global core shortage. Many companies have adopted various methods to reduce the use of chips. For example, Nissan started to redesign cars in order to reduce dependence on customized chips and switch to more general-purpose chips. Fujitsu renewed Design air conditioning circuits, chip equipment manufacturers reduce the types of chips required by the equipment, etc.
However, it is not enough. In order to meet the chip demand, it is estimated that many companies are also trying to find more ways to buy chips, and this may include some improper channels, thus creating opportunities for a large number of counterfeit chips to enter the Japanese market.
Counterfeit chips are more prevalent under the lack of core
Counterfeit chips have always existed. However, under the shortage of chips, counterfeit chips have more opportunities to circulate in the market. Because of the lack of chips, many companies find it difficult to purchase chips through formal channels, and instead seek more ways to buy chips. , And even more, will be willing to purchase some chips that are not so qualified.
In this context, some counterfeit chips previously hoarded may take the opportunity to flow into the market, and there may be people who specialize in manufacturing some counterfeit chips to obtain huge profits from them. CoreStaff President Masaki Tozawa said that the more difficult to buy semiconductors, the higher the demand, and the greater the possibility of manufacturing and selling counterfeit products.
In fact, there are reports of buying counterfeit chips on the Internet. In June this year, some netizens broke the news that they bought fake MOS, which led to the recall of more than 7,000 devices exported to the United States. It is understood that the fake MOS bought by the netizen is not The model he needs to purchase himself, but the model with similar other parameters and higher compatibility is marked with a genuine silk-screen deck and sold as a genuine product. The reason for buying fakes is that the products provided by their long-term suppliers were obtained from other channels.
In addition, according to Phoenix.com, the Japanese electronics manufacturer Jenesis China’s South China factory has purchased a batch of chips through the website and applied them to the products, but these products cannot be opened when the microcomputer is running. The reason is the products of this batch of chips. The specifications are completely different from those ordered by Jenesis, and because the supplier forged the packaging, it was not discovered in time.
Some netizens broke the news before that in the design of a small signal acquisition board, their company used multiple AD8512ARMZ operational amplifiers in the front-end analog signal processing circuit. In the batch stage, they bought hundreds of pieces from a trader. , When the boards are all done, no matter how to debug, it will work abnormally, and there will always be interference problems. Because it was originally a small-signal circuit, I was always looking for the cause in the design at the beginning, but the problem could not be solved.
Later, I found a company that can do chip disassembly. After comparing this batch of chips with the samples of the previous regular channels, they found that the wafer sizes of the two chips are different, and the layouts are obviously different; there are chips on the regular channels. The ADI logo has the AD8512A logo; the problematic chip wafer has the LM833A style and NSC letters written on it, and it may be NS's LM833A series operational amplifier. The price of LM833 is only about one-tenth of AD8512.
How to avoid buying fake chips
The way to avoid buying counterfeit chips is naturally to buy from formal channels as much as possible. However, in the market environment where chips are scarce, it is inevitable that more ways to buy chips will be needed to meet the design and production needs, which will inevitably encounter counterfeit products. .
There are many kinds of counterfeit chips. For example, they are actually from the same manufacturer. The original product may have been disassembled due to storage time or processing procedures, etc., and the product with low function and yield should be reprocessed; it may be that the original manufacturer has not passed the factory. The inspected products, such as scrap products after reliability testing, poor packaging quality, defective products tested, etc., undergo reprocessing, etc.
It is also possible to use materials produced by informal manufacturers to fraudulently use the trademarks and packaging of regular manufacturers, or to refurbish used goods to reprocess the recycled electronic waste, such as grinding noodles, pulling feet, plating feet, connecting feet, and grinding characters. , Typing, etc., become new materials.
How to find out that it is a counterfeit chip? First of all, it can be distinguished by visual inspection, such as confirming the silk screen information, coding rules, appearance size, etc. of the specification. Counterfeit chips may have such looting, the material number letters are not aligned, and there is a large stain on the surface of the material. Obvious marks on the surface of the piece, etc. But in most cases it is not so easy to be seen.
The second is the silk screen erasure test (MPT TEST). The silk screen of the counterfeit product is reprocessed. If the MPT test can be used to erase the silk screen, it indicates that the material is a counterfeit. Then there is the chemical De-cap test, which uses chemical acid to decap the IC. The principle is to remove the epoxy resin on the chip surface and confirm the chip structure and version information.
In addition, X-Ray inspection can be performed to check the Die size and position, the number and position of wire bonding, etc.; or electrical and functional testing, and test the electrical parameters and functions of the materials according to the product specifications.
