Every day, counterfeit electrical components find their way into new markets, but the government has tools to identify and seize these items. Many techniques for checking the quality of electronic parts are discussed here.
DNA marking, in which the producer places a unique mark on the product that cannot be replicated, is used to verify the authenticity of electronic components [Great source: https://www.netcomponents.com/]. DNA labeling is mandatory for all of the Department of Defense's high-risk micro circuits.
X-ray inspection is another common practice for checking the integrity of electronic parts. Using the use of X-ray technology, we can examine the inner workings of arriving parts and compare them to a known good. You’d be surprised, but while counterfeit may pass for the real deal with our naked eyes, counterfeit devices actually differ in their internal structure, like having different die frames or different wire bonding.
The use of X-ray fluorescence (X-RF) examination is another strategy for thwarting the distribution of fake goods. In X-RF testing, an instrument for X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy is used to verify the originality of a component.
Decapsulation is another process used to examine potential fake gadgets. Mostly, semiconductors are tested using this procedure. The semiconductor wafer can be authenticated using laser die etching and markings after being "decapsulated," which includes removing the outer packing.
Chemical procedures, such as heating acid to disclose counterfeits, and mechanical methods, which employ physical means including cracking, chopping, and cutting components, are also recognized for checking counterfeit objects.
Many other techniques exist as well for distinguishing genuine from counterfeit hardware. Keep in mind that there are many methods that con artists use to create fake goods, such as sanding and remarking, blacktopping and remarking, upscreening, and re-balling items from no-lead to leaded without the OEM's permission.
Many organizations, including governments and corporations, are working to create better tools to identify and prevent the use of counterfeit materials. Among the most recent of these techniques are:
The use of parametric testing, also known as curve tracing, to ensure that a product sample has the same electrical characteristics as the original, and the use of scanning acoustic microscopy, or SAM, to reveal laser etching beneath blacktop material.
Several factors, including the dot-com boom, the outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing operations, the ease with which information can be shared online, China's membership in the World Trade Organization, and shipping companies like FedEx that don't really check small items, have all contributed to the proliferation of counterfeit goods in recent years.
But perhaps the greatest contribution to the boom in counterfeit operations is the United States’ continuing practice of exporting its e-waste to China and other developing countries. The components needed to manufacture knockoffs can be found in discarded electronic equipment. Later in 1989, most developed countries (except the United States and a few others) formally agreed to end the practice of shipping electronic waste to less developed nations by signing the Basel Convention.
If you think manufacturing counterfeits isn’t so bad, think again. There are crucial equipment likes the ones used in the military that could malfunction because of a counterfeit component.