Ti NE555 – real vs fake: weekend die-shot
zeptobars.com
zeptobars.com
When we "recycle" our e-waste, much of it ends up in large landfills in China, where very poor workers melt down old boards, remove chips, and sort them by size and pin count. They then use a machine to scrub off the label and print on a new label of whatever part they want to market (usually obsolete parts that can't be bought from the original manufacturer). These end up in the supply chain of even reputable distributors. Amazingly, some of these counterfeits have made there way into military equipment, and as a result, there's a whole division of Homeland Security that conducts tests on suspect computer chip shipments entering the US.
I suspect they do it this way rather than manufacture empty packages because there are a huge variety of chips out there with an equally diverse set of package designs. It's easier to pay unskilled laborers to sort chips into 200 different groups based on size, color, and pin count than to build a machine to replicate 200 different package types.
That's the crux. You don't buy mass-produced empty packages to put the parts in. Packaging happens by putting the IC die, pins and bonding wires which connect them together inside a mold and filling it with plastic.
It's probably cheaper and certainly lower-tech to replace markings on existing chip than produce a new one.
And this chip is integrated into your new device. The only way to avoid this, would be a standard start of life vault, that is writeable once with the date and burns of the pathway to to re-write after that.
Oh you mean like every power source is designed today?
There are several engineering reasons to do that, they don't do that to spite people
And it's called capacitor (in the XXI century at least)
It's not clear whether the ones you can buy on eBay or Aliexpress are simply older models (and the manufacturer then removed this coating), or are actually knock-offs. We have no way of really knowing.
It was a good lesson: most of the time it's just not worth it especially if you're not chasing pennies on your product margin.
Not good enough, here's a few more, but there is plenty else out there: http://www.ibtimes.com/why-pentagon-finding-counterfeit-chin...
Ironically SOME sellers on ebay are legit, and some sellers are legit sometimes, so if you play a statistical game buying from ten sellers at a 50th the price of legit on-shore sellers, you still save money. Obviously its a lot simpler to build a temporary test fixture for a 70s linear voltage regulator than a memory chip or obscure CPU support chip, LOL.
As another commenter said, smells like an urban legend.
Someone will lose money, but it's not going to be the counterfeiter.
There is also a market for recycled and semi-properly labeled chips, for example selling low precision grade analog chips as a higher grade or chips tested for the usual 0-70°C operating temperature range as rated for military/aerospace range -55-125°C.
This is harder to catch with QA. A few years ago there was an investigation in the US where they found some examples of such chips in military equipment and also proved counterfeiting beyond any doubt by ordering military grade parts which have never been offered by the manufacturer in military grade - the vendor simply relabeled them.
However, that was still considered too expensive - then there was this vendor in Shanghai which came up a clone they sell for around $100 - after talking to them via some unofficial channels, we figured out that they had people stationed in those electronics dump sites to source the chips required. In those place, you don't pay for each chip, you pay for a kg price, e.g. I want 10kg of that chip, how much each kg please?
10+ years on, those engineers who first studied that CPU architecture back then using those cloned JTAG debugger are now pretty experienced/better paid, they are probably the ones complaining fake/reused chips on some Chinese forums claiming they are the victims.
Companies who are successful have spent way more time in ensuring that their software works reliably with their debuggers, across a wide range of chips and platforms. Sure it's expensive, but everything just works.
By 'stealing' this software in this way, cloning firms are dragging the entire industry down with the clones that don't work 100%, or the IoT devices that get infected due to lack of any security. I'm really hoping some certification body like UL, or major distributor like Amazon or Alibaba, steps in and starts ensuring at least a basic level of quality for hardware and software.
When we assembled the boards, none of the boards functioned properly. There was no Ethernet connectivity, the PHY wasn't working
We contacted the "well known manufacturer" and provided photos of the part and they confirmed that the oscillator was not theirs. It was a counterfeit part.
The "counterfeit" oscillator actually did provide a clean 25Mhz clock, but the PHY did not work.
It amazes me there are companies out there that produce counterfeit silicon. I wonder what's their profit margin?
Enough. Or: enough to make a living.
Did you find out why?
Who is the well known manufacturer being counterfeited? Abracon? How did the fake crystals look like?
Which PHY is it in question?
If you're buying those you're most likely using it for an application that isn't pushing its limits - they're great for experimenting with as a hobbyist or cranking your design to the lowest price possible if you're not on those limits.
So, I think someone paying $0.07 on aliexpress is paying "full price" for something less, even if they rationalize they are getting a discount because they are not buying large lots (Buy only 100 at mouser and the cost goes up to $0.15, but for instance Arrow has a lower price than that for this quantity)
In the EU buying electrical components at a hobbyist scale often means having to save up your purchases (e.g., €0,24 for the NE555 at Conrad) until you hit the minimum free shipping limit (in this case €20) or pay the full shipping (€4,95 in this example) for one little component.
AliExpress just has the better user experience if you are learning and experimenting (just buy a couple of spares and be prepared to switch to genuine stuff when needed).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651884
Your domestic mail subsidizes part of it.
I think I remember but don't have links ATM that the international part of the travel is also subsidized by the Chinese gov. Dumping, basically.
I wanted some discrete through-hole MOSFETs for bidirectional level shifting as described in this application note [1].
The ZVNL110A satisfies all of the requirements [2]. In small quantity they were $0.604 each at the time from Mouser, and I wanted 10, so $6.04 for the MOSFETs. And then another $7.99 for freaking shipping. (I ended up ordering 30, figuring maybe I'll eventually need that many, and then I'm "only" paying 50% for shipping instead of >100%).
These things are very small, and only weigh half a gram each. Just take an ordinary letter envelope, drop them in, put a first class postage stamp on it ($0.49), and mail it. A $0.49 first class stamp allows up to 99 grams, so orders up to a couple hundred of these could be shipped that way.
For those curious, the size constraints on a first class letter in the US are:
3.5" <= height <= 6.125"
5" <= width <= 11.5"
0.007" <= thickness <= 0.25"
Compare with labor costs for either factories or small owner operated export businesses run out of Shenzhen and you can see where there might be a pretty big difference in the handling price.
For these small shipments, you would get a shipping list, see that the order system determined that it would fit in an envelope, grab an envelope, gather the components (perhaps for ten envelope-orders at a time), place in envelope, slap a label on, and place it in the outbox for envelopes.
It doesn't seem that much more labour intensive or more expensive in terms of packaging, and the first distributor in a geographical area to do so might gain a bunch of customers. Even if the base price of components was increased by 10% or 20% for envelope orders a lot of us would still use that service.
Current title "Chinese fake microchips hit rock bottom with 7¢ Ti NE555" is bad IMHO.
I found this on eBay - 100 pcs of thru-hole 555's for $3.29 (3.2 cents each) with the TI logo printed on them. They say brand new and unused - but that's just not possible at that price.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/100PCS-NE555P-NE555-DIP-8-SINGLE-BIP...
I just picked up 500 LM555s from RadioShack - 50 cents for the entire batch.
They weren't joking when they said "No Offer Refused" for their closeout.
I remember the Circuit City liquidation - the prices were insane. But it was also sort of sad.
[0]: https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Hitachi-HA17555-555-timer
I wish photographs of the packages were presented also.
Edit: The other "not genuine" die has quite a few similarities and it looks like one inspired the other.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-ha...
Another was a microsd, I spent 2 hours running through some linux memory testing program (u3 . .. or something similar in name) to be sure it had the right amount and wasn't failing.
Or maybe recycled, note the short legs. Part of this e-waste you are now obliged to dispose of "responsibly" lands on dump sites in Asia or Africa. Some of that ends up harvested for parts.
Alternatively, it means that "G1083" was actually a remarked HA17555.
The "dotted X" logo on the other one I've seen before, but can't remember the name.
I guess what triggered me to write my first comment was the fact someone buying a "TI" something chip from eBay when it lists "China" as the seller's location and with a seller's name other than something easily verified to be TI, then it seems there is no pretense that the thing being sold is genuine TI. But the word "fake" holds the connotation that there is some deception going on. So that is why I don't think fake is the most appropriate word. I just hear that word used too much to disparage chinese made derivative imitation products. Someone who knows they don't need the noise levels and voltages tolerances can be perfectly happy and even benefit by using these instead of the more expensive genuine TI.
These devices are sold as TI parts, and sold as matching all the TI specs.
They are not TI parts, and they don't match the TI specs.
As the OP says, if these had been sold as "CN555" there wouldn't be a problem, everyone would know that they're not real TI parts.