PCB Tech - On the evasion methods of fake and shoddy components-PCB Assembly

On the evasion methods of fake and shoddy components-PCB Assembly

Counterfeiting is a violation of the legitimate rights of the owner of intellectual property rights. The economic losses caused by counterfeit components far exceed the cost of purely replacing equipment, including safety costs, lost performance, maintenance or replacement, and the impact on reputation. More importantly, counterfeit components may cause serious consequences. Counterfeit goods may be used for some destructive behavior, which is very likely to pose a serious challenge to national security.

The global semiconductor market is huge, which makes some producers of fake components see huge profits.

With the rapid development of electronic information technology, the renewal cycle of various electronic components, including plastic encapsulated integrated circuits, is becoming shorter and shorter, which brings difficulties to the supply chain management of component users such as complete machine equipment, that is, the components or integrated circuits originally designed and used may no longer be produced, especially for small consumption of components, many varieties For equipment manufacturers with high reliability requirements, they often can not purchase directly from manufacturers due to small procurement volume, and must purchase through agents, which provides an opportunity for counterfeit integrated circuits to enter the supply chain.

At present, various components with different quality levels at home and abroad are used in the project, especially monolithic integrated circuits for models. A large part of them are imported from abroad, which are generally purchased through agents. Due to the influence of many complex factors such as prohibition, transportation restriction and shutdown, fake and shoddy devices account for a considerable proportion, which brings great difficulties to the test screening and quality control. Once these fake devices are installed and used, they will bring great risks to the reliability of the equipment.

Once fake and shoddy components enter the supply chain of components, it will have a huge economic impact on the electronic industry. There are various forms of counterfeiting of components: sometimes, the original IC logo is removed by grinding, and the black paint is applied and marked again; Sometimes, counterfeiters can make high-quality marks, enough to confuse the fake with the real; Sometimes, the only distinguishable difference is that the top of the IC package is darker than the edge, and the color of the plastic package of the device should be the same. DPA analysis is made for various ICs. Some packages and identifications are normal, but the chips of the same type of IC are different or do not contain chips at all; Or imitate chips that can work. In fact, these chips are not from the manufacturer indicated on the logo; Sometimes the identification of counterfeit devices is inverted, but the pins cannot correspond one by one; Sometimes, the appearance looks perfect, but the chip is fake; Many of these devices have been impacted by electrostatic discharge stress. Even if they do not fail, they are working with injuries and will fail sooner or later.

1 Definition and hazard analysis of counterfeit electronic component s

1.1 what are counterfeit electronic components.

For manufacturers of electronic components, counterfeit components refer to substitutes or unauthorized copies, components whose materials or their own performance have changed without notice, and components that do not meet the standards wrongly publicized by the supplier; For dealers of electronic components, counterfeit components mainly refer to the components and products produced and distributed in violation of intellectual property law, copyright law or trademark law, which conceal the true quality of products by deliberately changing products, so as to deceive consumers, And by omitting information or taking some means to mislead consumers into believing that it is a real or legal product.

1.2 hazards of refurbishing counterfeit plastic encapsulated IC

The reliability of refurbished counterfeit plastic encapsulated IC or aged products or products with potential damage can not be guaranteed. Not only the early failure is high, but also the random failure rate is high, and the potential failure can not be removed through screening. The use of counterfeit refurbished devices will lead to a high early failure rate of the system, and the main hazards to the reliability and safety of the whole equipment system are as follows:

First, the low quality level acts as the high quality level, and the IC may not work normally under severe conditions; Second, the Refurbished plastic packaging IC has been used. In the previous use process, it has undergone welding, which will cause residual damage stratification to the internal interface. Therefore, in the use process, the internal interface degenerates. In addition, there are factors such as environmental water and gas erosion and residual electrical damage, resulting in the unreliability of the Refurbished plastic packaging IC; Third, the Refurbished plastic encapsulated IC may introduce new damage during the treatment process, such as the damage to the internal interface during PCBA debonding, the mechanical damage to the pin during debonding and pin reshaping, the mechanical damage to the chip surface caused by external surface grinding during the refurbishment process, and the residue of corrosive substances introduced during pin solder treatment, And the potential damage of electrostatic discharge in the renovation process.

2 DPA Technology

Destructive physical analysis (DPA) refers to the dissection of component samples to verify whether the design, structure, materials, manufacturing quality and process of electronic components (hereinafter referred to as components) meet the requirements of intended use or relevant specifications, as well as the reliability and supportability specified by components, And the whole process of a series of tests and analysis before and after anatomy.

DPA is a process of potential defect confirmation and potential defect hazard analysis. It is also a prior prediction of the reliability of components before use. In fact, DPA technology can be widely used in the production process of components, after production and before the machine, so as to test whether there are potential defects in materials and processes. The details are as follows:

(l) It is used to analyze the causes of unqualified electrical characteristics of electronic components without complete loss of function;

(2) It is used for the quality monitoring of the production process of electronic components, especially the key process, and the quality analysis and control of semi-finished products;

(3) Used to control failure modes related to product design, structure, assembly and other processes;

(4) Used for reliability risk identification of electronic components;

(5) Used for delivery inspection and arrival inspection of electronic components;

(6) It is used to identify the authenticity of electronic components.

Project name and code of DPA.

The main characteristics of typical fake and shoddy integrated circuits include pin defects, shell defects, logo refurbishment, abnormal electrical parameters, glass fusion seal defects and die defects, which can be identified by visual inspection, electrical parameter test, reliability screening test and DPA.

3 suggestions for users of the whole machine

3.1 modify the quality control specification for component procurement and add identification requirements for plastic encapsulated components

Modify the procurement quality control specifications of various components. When purchasing or selecting plastic encapsulated IC, the counterfeit identification of plastic encapsulated IC shall be taken as the basic requirement. At present, there is an embarrassing situation that the whole machine manufacturing units hate and dare not identify the refurbished and counterfeit imported plastic encapsulated IC. Especially for the IC used in industrial electronic equipment, due to the large number of models and the small number of single models, it is difficult to purchase. It is often a fluke that "those who do not know will not be guilty" for the sake of progress.

The refurbishment of counterfeit imported plastic packaging IC involves a wide range of models. The purchased imported plastic packaging IC must be identified and controlled. Through 100% identification of the procurement batch, the refurbished counterfeit imported plastic packaging IC can be prevented from being used in electronic equipment with high reliability requirements to the greatest extent.

3.2 establish a refurbishment and counterfeiting database and publicize it regularly

The data of refurbishment and counterfeiting includes two aspects: on the one hand, the data of identified refurbishment and counterfeiting models are summarized and publicized within the scope of procurement system and quality and design system, so as to share the identification results of refurbishment and counterfeiting and avoid misuse; The other is to establish and gradually improve the database of refurbished counterfeiting identification methods. Data content used to identify refurbishment counterfeits, including "real data" and "false data".

"Real data" mainly includes the model of international brand IC, the identification and meaning of each model and batch, the layout identification and layout structure of the internal chip of each model, the structure of packaging and interconnection, material composition, as well as the date of production, the date of shutdown or expected shutdown, etc. Judging the refurbishment of counterfeit plastic packaging IC based on real data or standard. These data are huge and require human investment. However, once a database is formed, it can play a long-term role in identifying refurbished counterfeit IC. "Fake data" usually includes the counterfeiting characteristics and identification results of refurbished counterfeits found in the identification process. With these data, the identification timeliness of refurbished counterfeit IC can be improved.

3.3 strengthen cooperation with professional third-party technical institutions to identify counterfeit products in time

The use of counterfeit refurbished devices has seriously affected the production, development, reliability and safety of complete equipment or equipment. It is impossible to solve these problems in one service. We must persevere and make unremitting efforts, and the technology of counterfeit refurbishment is changing with each passing day. Therefore, we need to rely on the corresponding professional and technical institutions for professional research and assistance to support the quality and procurement departments to complete the prevention and control of counterfeit refurbished devices.

4 Conclusion

Counterfeiting is an infringement of the legitimate rights of an intellectual property owner. High profit, low-risk investigation and weak reporting mechanism provide an opportunity for counterfeiting. Counterfeit electronic components will cause potential safety hazards and make manufacturers and dealers suffer various losses such as reputation slander.

The booming market economy in today's world is no different from heaven for counterfeiters. Only when economic development adopts fair trade and complies with international business norms and implementation norms can this problem be alleviated. Device manufacturers can also help reduce the possibility of counterfeiting by using public or non-public anti-counterfeiting technologies and adopting effective regulatory procedures.

OEMs can effectively reduce the risk of counterfeit devices in their products through appropriate outdated prediction and management methods. However, with the rapid technological innovation in today's world, it is not advisable to trust non authoritative sources of goods. In fact, issuing licenses to suppliers of all electronic component s and completely optimizing the authorized distribution scheme are also heavy and impractical.