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Haha, fake choke!?

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aonomus

Sun Oct 11 2009, 08:51PM

Registered Member #1497 Joined: Thu May 22 2008, 05:24AM
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 801

Fake sized capacitors, fake sized rechargable batteries (I usually order from

for anything I want to work well), fake chokes....

We've all heard of counterfeit power semiconductors too, it'd be something like a 40% rated die in the same package as the part is marked as, but they get a huge markup. The problem is the factories are completely in on it too for power semiconductors, since its easier to make the die and case it, then falsely advertise it, than to remove dies from already manufactured parts. Contrast this to battery or capacitor fakes where someone can take a legitimately marked cap, and repackage it. The best thing we can do is to simply not order from them and not give them income (but they still end up getting orders from manufacturers who try to cut corners).

3l3ctrici7y

Sun Oct 11 2009, 09:52PM

Registered Member #1806 Joined: Sun Nov 09 2008, 04:58AM
Location: USA
Posts: 136

I remember seeing the fake transistor (TO-3) thing going around the Internet a while ago.
A quick Google search turned up a related link.

Steve Conner

Mon Oct 12 2009, 09:42AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Fake transistors are not (quite) made by the same companies as make real ones. In order to explain this, I need to write a little about how the semiconductor industry works.

The hard part of semiconductor manufacturing is making the actual dice. This is done by super-secret proprietary processes in fabs in the USA and Europe. The makers try to keep their processes and recipes secret so that they can keep prices high, bring the revenue home and not have the Chinese copy it.

The bare dice are then sent to other plants to be packaged. Packaging is much easier than making the dice in the first place, so it's subcontracted to plants in China, the Philippines, and so on. It's from these packaging plants, not the actual fabs, that the fake devices come, and the fakery lies in labelling a cheap die as a more expensive device. They have all the machinery to package and label dice, so it must be really tempting to grab a bunch of old 2N3055 reject dice that someone pulled out of a dumpster and package them up as MJL3281s.

It's easier still to get ready-packaged devices and relabel them as a better transistor than they really are. Just get a bunch of old 2N3055s, buff the old logo off, and screenprint them with "ON Semi MJ15024" or whatever. You could do this at home.

Fakes typically target the repair tech and hobbyist market, because no self-respecting OEM would be fooled. I've tested suspected fake MOSFETs that were sent to me by other 4hv members, but they turned out to be genuine as far as I could tell.

IntraWinding

Mon Oct 12 2009, 10:24AM

Registered Member #2261 Joined: Mon Aug 03 2009, 01:19AM
Location: London, UK
Posts: 581

Is there somewhere you can report these various fakes to?

Proud Mary

Mon Oct 12 2009, 12:43PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

IntraWinding wrote ...

Is there somewhere you can report these various fakes to?

Fake transistors would be a breach of someone's intellectual property rights, I guess, but things like the big-looking capacitor with a pint-size one inside, or the "C" cell packaged in a "D" cell case, are no more than common or garden marketing strategies that you will find in any supermarket - the jar of peanut butter carefully shaped to give the impression that it contains more than it does, the big drum of health pills that is less than a quarter full once the wadding is taken out, the indented bottoms of liquor bottles, and so on.

brtaman

Mon Oct 12 2009, 05:25PM

Registered Member #2161 Joined: Fri Jun 05 2009, 03:36PM
Location:
Posts: 247

Unfortunately the PSU wasn't manufactured on April 1st.

Would have been the funniest thing.

I think, as Steve McConner put it, it is a giant case of fuck it. With monetary motivation.

Too bad I don't have an LCR meter, 1-9H?

Those capacitors are hilarious, have to check the caps that came in this Top Quality PSU. Fake caps would really complete the deal.

MinorityCarrier

Mon Oct 12 2009, 08:36PM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

In the discrete semiconductor mfg industry, processes aren't so secret, just patented. Companies routinely de-process each others parts to see if: A. A home company's patent is being violated, and B. How'd they make that part perform like that?

Pirating in China is carried out to a high art, including actual wafer fabs making pirated parts.

At my company, fake APT parts were found coming out of China. They contained functional mosfet die, but not ours. Our photomasks contain certain logos and patterns for a given part that were missing from the die in the fake parts.

When I worked at Zilog, there were counterfeit Z80 uC's coming from a fab in East Germany. The wall fell and soon after Zilog lawyers came knocking at their door. That fab ended up providing foundry service for Zilog.

ragnar

Sat Oct 17 2009, 04:10AM

Registered Member #63 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:18AM
Location:
Posts: 1425

Also for interest, here are two of my regulators: the TO-220 with a strange thin tab has the (ON) logo.

And a picture of the back: /download/?47b4782o=94

Herr Zapp

Sat Oct 17 2009, 06:21AM

Registered Member #480 Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644

Brtaman -

That's a really a great example of how widespread the fakery is. As you noted, the bobbin is specifically manufactured with the integral rib to anchor the fake loop of wire; it could never be used to wind a "real" choke.

Here are some additional photos showing just how bad the Chinese counterfeiting problem is. These parts showed up in a consumer audio product I investigated earlier this year.

The part in question is a low-power FET; I forget what the package designation is, but it's physically TINY.

(EDIT: It's the SOT-23 package, about 1.6 X 2.9mm)

The first photo shows a legitimate part, manufactured by ON Semi. All the characters and dots have significance in identifying the P/N, date, manufacturing facility, etc.

The remaining photos are all of the same part, a part that "sort of" worked, but the operating charecteristics were so far out of spec that circuit did not function properly. With casual inspection under a stereomicroscope, the parts appeared to have all the correct markings. However, out of many "defective" parts I inspected, I found ONE that had what appeared to be residual sanding marks (as in sandpaper!!!) on the top surface, that had been laser-engraved AFTER the sanding! Closer inspection, using a high-angle, highly specular lighting, revealed TWO sets of laser-markings. The original markings had been almost completely "sanded off", and then re-engraved. Closer inspection of all the defective parts revealed that the top surface of the parts was not the original "as-molded" surface, and that the laser engraving was much deeper (poor power control) than known "authentic" parts.

If you look closely, you can just barely see the remains of the original markings (first two characters were "RA"). The lighting on the various photos has been adjusted to highlight the "new" laser markings, the "original" laser markings, and the "sanding" marks. More involved functional testing revealed that all the "sort of" working parts were counterfeit.

Bear in mind that these parts are tiny, just slightly larger than a grain of rice. Can you imagine some place in China where a room full of people are hand-sanding the markings off these near-microscopic SMT parts, securing them in some sort of holding/feeding fixture, and then using a $100K laser engraving system to add new markings?? And all this when the cost of NEW, AUTHENTIC parts is only a few cents each?????

Crazy stuff .....

Regards,
Herr Zapp

1255760469 480 FT77658 On Semi Ic Photo 1

1255760469 480 FT77658 Counterfeit Ic Photo 7

1255760469 480 FT77658 Counterfeit Ic Photo 6

1255760469 480 FT77658 Counterfeit Ic Photo 8

Herr Zapp

Sat Oct 17 2009, 06:55AM

Registered Member #480 Joined: Thu Jul 06 2006, 07:08PM
Location: North America
Posts: 644

dr electrons -

You wrote:

"It seems odd that the inspectors don't really care about things like say, a direct phase to phase short of a 480v line.
If this is the way "CE" operates, this is the reason for your fake choke! Simply there to make an appearance! I would agree the reason is based on money. Thats what all the big firms like "UL" "CE" "DVC" really care about. At 400 to 500 dollars for a "UL" sticker, what do they care if a product fails and takes out a whole family? I personally do not trust any components that are marked anymore than ones that are not."

I'm afraid that you may not have any awareness of what you are talking about.

Product safety certification (through UL, TUV, Nemko, CSA, etc) is VERY serious business, both to product manufacturers, and to the safety certification organizations. The certification organizations are extraordinarily meticulous and thorough in their testing and periodic product and manufacturing process auditing, which is why the costs of product safety testing are so high. I can assure you that the overwhelming concern of any of these organizations is that products bearing their logos ARE safe, and have been subjected to exhaustive testing to demonstrate that the product meets all applicable safety standards.

The "fake choke" issue is primarily an EMC issue, not a safety issue. The EMC certification orginazations don't care what's IN the product, they are concerned with the product's EMC performance. That is, does the product generate electromagnetic emissions (radiated or conducted) that could adversely affect other nearby electronic devices, and is the product's operation adversly affected by electromagnetic radiation from other electronic devices, or from natural electromagnetic phenomona like ESD. As long as the product meets the appplicable EMC standards, the certifying organization doesn't care if it has a marginally effective choke, or a fake choke, or no choke at all.

A product manufacturer can face MILLIONS of dollars in costs (fines, recalls, etc) if products in the field are found to be non-compliant with either safety or EMC requirements; that's why both safety and EMC testing are taken so seriously. Having personally witnessed the repercussions of both EMC and safety failures of products in production, I can assure you that the sh*t hits the fan BIG TIME, and heads inevitably roll.

Regards,
Herr Zapp

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