Fake chips are rampant in the Japanese market, and the demand for IC authenticity identification has increased nearly fourfold

Date：2021-11-25 14:14:39 Views：1559

The world is still facing the problem of chip shortage. Many industrial and consumer electronics assembly enterprises can only buy unsalable chips that were returned to the warehouse. Because these unsalable chips are sold through informal channels, fake goods are rampant.

Nikkei News reported today that many enterprises will inadvertently buy fake and shoddy chips because of careless inspection, and then sell them to product assemblers. This will expose the finished product to the risk of destruction and failure. However, the assembly plant has no choice but to use the unsalable chip inventory which is difficult to trace the source and has no supplier certification.

There are many ways to forge chips in the market. One popular way is to remove old chips from discarded computers and other electronic waste, replace labels and product serial numbers, and fake them into new products. At present, although it is impossible to confirm where the forged chips come from, the market speculates that they are probably from Southeast Asia or China, which is the main gathering place of the supply chain.

According to the statistics of the American Semiconductor Industry Association, American chip companies lose an average of $7.5 billion a year due to forgeries. If counterfeit chips are installed on aircraft, cars or medical instruments, they may be seriously life-threatening.

To test the authenticity, investigators have to use X-ray machines and other testing equipment, so the cost is high, so it also gave birth to a new industry. Corestaff, a Japanese semiconductor dealer, has recently been asked by customers to check the authenticity of chips, three to four times more frequently than a year ago. Corestaff has launched a membership system with a monthly fee of 100000 yen in April, which can provide testing services five times a month. Electronic trading company restart holding has received dozens of inspection requests this year, much higher than two or three in the past year.