16 ms·

Ti NE555 – real vs fake: weekend die-shot

194 points by BarsMonster 9y ago

problems 9y ago
People buying 7 cent chips off Aliexpress and similar know full well that it ain't coming from TI and usually isn't labelled as such - it might be called an NE555 but make no mention of manufacturer and not have one labeled on the chip itself. Obviously finding a datasheet from a different manufacturer won't be applicable... 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.
- BarsMonster 9y ago
  These fakes chips were labeled as Ti on the plastic package... They tried to make it look like real deal...
  - problems 9y ago
    Interesting, after doing some searching all listings I've looked at they either lack a logo or have a TI-ish logo but they don't mention it being a TI brand or genuine TI part in any way in the description - which is always a dead giveaway as if they do so they can be subject to punishment. Alibaba is actually pretty harsh on people selling known counterfeit goods and will ban sellers if they catch onto it - so I assume they don't mention it because their buyers don't care much and they don't want to get in shit for it.
- kw71 9y ago
  Mouser is selling TI NE555DR for $0.07 in quantity, so I am sure that TI's actual sale price is lower. 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)
  - Freak_NL 9y ago
    AliExpress has another benefit though; zero to very low shipping costs. 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).
    - qb45 9y ago
      Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651884 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.
    - tzs 9y ago
      I don't understand why these places can't just use regular mail. 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" 0.25" is 6.35mm. A large number of through-hole components would usually fit, such as transistors, diodes, resistors, and disc capacitors. Most surface mount components would fit. [1] https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/an97055.pdf https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/an97055.pdf [2] http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/115/ZVNL110A-95598.pdf http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/115/ZVNL110A-95598.pdf
jerkstate 9y ago
When I read this article I wondered, why would they knock them off and then sell branded goods at the rock bottom generic price? Then I clicked through a few more articles and it seems that the answer is so an integrator can "cost-optimize" your board and profit the difference between genuine and fake components, while you are none the wiser.
greglindahl 9y ago
At the start of the ROHS era my startup was scrambling to get parts, and we bought some grey-market capacitors. Which turned out to be fakes. What a mess. It's all about the supply chain!
- lamlam 9y ago
  Fakes in which sense? Fake as in they were duds and didn't work, or fake as in they weren't from the specified manufacturer?
  - zik 9y ago
    Here's an example of a fake electrolytic capacitor bought on the gray market: http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_4/Photos/FakeCapacitor1.jpg http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_4/Photos/FakeCa...
    - taneq 9y ago
      Wow, reminds me of that fake "500GB external hard drive" which was just a 128MB thumb drive in a 2.5" case. http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-hard-drives-well-you-take-them-apart/ http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-ha...
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        I bought a few usb flash things on ebay a while back. One had a weird USB connector (hard to plug anywhere). I asked for money back, surprisingly it holds data. 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.
    - labster 9y ago
      I assume there's another capacitor inside the blue one too. Matryoshka capacitors!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
microcolonel 9y ago
I recognize that chip at the bottom of the article! That's a Hitachi HA17555, which was on Zeptobars just a few months ago[0]. [0]: https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Hitachi-HA17555-555-timer https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Hitachi-HA17555-555-timer
- kw71 9y ago
  Interesting I wonder what the history of this design is? And how Hitachi's (or their partner's) die really wound up being re-marked as TI? If the die is a Chinese produced copy, why did they keep the markings during retooling? 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.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    I swear I've seen the logo on that one somewhere as well, but I can't seem to recall or find it anywhere else.
  - lokedhs 9y ago
    Could it be that the Hitachi in the picture is also a fake, based on the same design as the faked Ti?
  - simcop2387 9y ago
    If it's copied, they likely copied it entirely because trying to remove bits of the lithography mask is expensive and time consuming. Since it's not normally scene there's no use in spending the time or money to change it if you can get the mask.
  - puncturevine 9y ago
    It could be a die copy but it could also be a used HA17555 harvested from e-waste and remarked as NE555 with a fresh date code.
- BarsMonster 9y ago
  Wow, nice memory! Even I missed that. That means HA17555 is most likely also fake.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
Although the author calls these designs "fake", they do perform the same functionality, but just simply don't meet the voltage tolerance and noise resistance levels of higher grade designs. So they're more of a "knock-off", "counterfeit", "imitation", or "derivative".
- xupybd 9y ago
  They are fake because they use the same name. Kinda like fake Nikes are still shoes but clearly fakes.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    ok. Sorry I had to look up the definition of fake: "not genuine; counterfeit". So I guess fake is valid in this case. I was thinking fake meant "not real" or that it didn't actually do the same functionality.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      "same functionality" includes a LOT more than just the basic functions. It also includes voltage tolerance, noise resistance, and all of the other things you dismissed.
      - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
        But still as the author explains "If you're not reaching for the limits (like max VCC or precision) and have some luck - that might not cause issues." And I didn't dismiss that...I said "just simply don't meet the voltage tolerance and noise resistance levels of higher grade designs". 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.
andrewstuart 9y ago
The layouts look like a rogue/nethack level or maybe some new version of pacman.
speedplane 9y ago
This is only half the story. The chips discussed in the article do the basic function advertised, but may not have the same tolerances as the genuine chip. But there are other types of counterfeits out there. 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.
- jfries 9y ago
  Do you mean we end up with a labeled chip whose insides are something completely different, and so won't ever work? Surely that doesn't happen this way. It must be many times cheaper to just buy empty packages than to clean up old ones?
  - kw71 9y ago
    Yes there are known instances of parts being remarked as something completely unrelated.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    It definitely happens. 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.
    - qb45 9y ago
      > manufacture empty packages 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.
contingencies 9y ago
Actual title is "Ti NE555 - real vs fake : weekend die-shot". Current title "Chinese fake microchips hit rock bottom with 7¢ Ti NE555" is bad IMHO.
- chiph 9y ago
  I dunno. It seems pretty descriptive to me. It identifies the source of the fakes (China), the product being counterfeited (the venerable 555 Timer), and the price they're being sold at. 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-BIPOLAR-TIMERS-IC-factory-price/281680016124 http://www.ebay.com/itm/100PCS-NE555P-NE555-DIP-8-SINGLE-BIP...
  - lightedman 9y ago
    "They say brand new and unused - but that's just not possible at that price." 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.
    - chiph 9y ago
      You could probably have gotten the stand they were displayed on for only another $5. I remember the Circuit City liquidation - the prices were insane. But it was also sort of sad.
jabberwockwock 9y ago
This is why companies need services like TexPlained. http://hardwear.io/olivier-thomas.php http://hardwear.io/olivier-thomas.php
laydn 9y ago
In one of our board designs, we were using a well-known manufacturer's 25Mhz oscillator, to provide a clock to a gigabit Ethernet PHY. When we wanted to assemble the boards, we could not find this oscillator in any official distributor, so we bought them from a vendor in China, who had some in stock. 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?
- hollander 9y ago
  > 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.
- Nexxxeh 9y ago
  >The "counterfeit" oscillator actually did provide a clean 25Mhz clock, but the PHY did not work. Did you find out why?
- vardump 9y ago
  Very interesting, more details, please. This matches one case I've heard about. Who is the well known manufacturer being counterfeited? Abracon? How did the fake crystals look like? Which PHY is it in question?
raverbashing 9y ago
The 555 is probably simple enough so that the "fake" version (which several times is just an alternative version from a different manufacturer) works as well as the original one
- ajnin 9y ago
  They probably work but probably not within the same maximum/minimum ratings as the original chip. Your design might need a max frequency, or a minimum operating voltage, or a certain current-driving capability etc. that the fake chip cannot provide, causing the final product to fail when the design prototype worked fine. There are many variants of the 555 with wildly varying characteristics, not all are interchangeable.
usnigg 9y ago
Well. Some ppl (like me) don't require their chips to have been designed by (white) men from the 50's or to have been mass produced in a developing country by a rich (white) man's company. I am pretty happy to see the rise of the chinese chip industry and look forward to more. Who knows someday they may even improve upon the west's technology. After all technology is like music: Repetition with variation. And, btw. in reply to some spooky comments... I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA has infected far more chips. Full spectrum dominance is a US invention after all.
- JustFinishedBSG 9y ago
  What does it have to do with race?
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    OP's handle seems indicative of something...
- PeterisP 9y ago
  As the article says, "If only have they marked it "CN555" with proper data-sheet - it would have been totally legitimate and fair product." It's nice to produce new chip designs, and they should do more of that, but it's immoral and inefficient (it hurts everyone integrating your product) to say that you're producing X1 when you're producing X2.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  If anything, the fact that a lot of chips you can buy from China do not match their specification is exactly one thing that keeps China's semiconductor industry back. If some Chinese company built a cheaper and in every regard better NE555, they would have a very hard time marketing it because noone would trust that sellers offering them wouldn't be selling them recycled bad-quality TI parts instead.
nfriedly 9y ago
I bet there could be an actual business model of recycling components from e-waste. Obviously it'd require more QA work than what the counterfeit "recyclers" do, but, with enough automation, I bet you could structure it so that you at least break even on the e-waste disposal side, and then any resold components become pure profit.
dis-sys 9y ago
When I was working for a microprocessor company (which you use everyday) many many years ago, they were selling this JTAG debugger for a few thousand $ each. The cpu architecture was booming in China at that time, but that $ figure is not something people can afford. Clones started to flood the market pretty fast, a typical clone set you back for a few hundred $, that was already 1/10 of the original price. 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.
- the-dude 9y ago
  So why did ARM charge an arm and leg?
- pkaye 9y ago
  The problem with faking chips is that the victims maybe out of a warranty claim later when they find a problem. Also there might be subtle differences which will only be found when in full production. For a cloned JTAG debugger the risks are lower since they are used in low volumes. Personally I think they it is okay to clone or reuse chips but don't claim to be the original manufacturer. It is quite easy to relabel chip with your own imprint.
  - kbaker 9y ago
    I think a bigger problem with the 'chips by the kg' mindset, is that there is zero incentive and zero funding to develop good software to go along with the hardware. 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.
userbinator 9y ago
That means our HA17555 was also fake. 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.
Hasz 9y ago
Instead of pointing out the die layout, how about a rigorous test? Let's see clock accuracy, power consumption, etc vs the original TI part.
ksk 9y ago
What are your thoughts on people not respecting Intellectual Property rights? Will it lead us down a path of gridlock where nobody is going to create anything new for fear of someone else using their work without payment/credit? Also, why is using someones creative output or deriving from it OK in some fields (like applied sciences) but not in others? (Here I'm not including the people who claim others' work as their own, merely people who clone)

194 points by BarsMonster 9y ago

People buying 7 cent chips off Aliexpress and similar know full well that it ain't coming from TI and usually isn't labelled as such - it might be called an NE555 but make no mention of manufacturer and not have one labeled on the chip itself. Obviously finding a datasheet from a different manufacturer won't be applicable... 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.

BarsMonster 9y ago
These fakes chips were labeled as Ti on the plastic package... They tried to make it look like real deal...
- problems 9y ago
  Interesting, after doing some searching all listings I've looked at they either lack a logo or have a TI-ish logo but they don't mention it being a TI brand or genuine TI part in any way in the description - which is always a dead giveaway as if they do so they can be subject to punishment. Alibaba is actually pretty harsh on people selling known counterfeit goods and will ban sellers if they catch onto it - so I assume they don't mention it because their buyers don't care much and they don't want to get in shit for it.
kw71 9y ago
Mouser is selling TI NE555DR for $0.07 in quantity, so I am sure that TI's actual sale price is lower. 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)
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  AliExpress has another benefit though; zero to very low shipping costs. 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).
  - qb45 9y ago
    Relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651884 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.
  - tzs 9y ago
    I don't understand why these places can't just use regular mail. 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" 0.25" is 6.35mm. A large number of through-hole components would usually fit, such as transistors, diodes, resistors, and disc capacitors. Most surface mount components would fit. [1] https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/an97055.pdf https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/an97055.pdf [2] http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/115/ZVNL110A-95598.pdf http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/115/ZVNL110A-95598.pdf

jerkstate 9y ago

When I read this article I wondered, why would they knock them off and then sell branded goods at the rock bottom generic price? Then I clicked through a few more articles and it seems that the answer is so an integrator can "cost-optimize" your board and profit the difference between genuine and fake components, while you are none the wiser.

greglindahl 9y ago

At the start of the ROHS era my startup was scrambling to get parts, and we bought some grey-market capacitors. Which turned out to be fakes. What a mess. It's all about the supply chain!

lamlam 9y ago
Fakes in which sense? Fake as in they were duds and didn't work, or fake as in they weren't from the specified manufacturer?
- zik 9y ago
  Here's an example of a fake electrolytic capacitor bought on the gray market: http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_4/Photos/FakeCapacitor1.jpg http://www.discovercircuits.com/dc-mag/Issue_4/Photos/FakeCa...
  - taneq 9y ago
    Wow, reminds me of that fake "500GB external hard drive" which was just a 128MB thumb drive in a 2.5" case. http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-hard-drives-well-you-take-them-apart/ http://blog.gsmarena.com/how-do-you-spot-fake-chinese-usb-ha...
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I bought a few usb flash things on ebay a while back. One had a weird USB connector (hard to plug anywhere). I asked for money back, surprisingly it holds data. 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.
  - labster 9y ago
    I assume there's another capacitor inside the blue one too. Matryoshka capacitors!

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

microcolonel 9y ago

I recognize that chip at the bottom of the article! That's a Hitachi HA17555, which was on Zeptobars just a few months ago[0]. [0]: https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Hitachi-HA17555-555-timer https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Hitachi-HA17555-555-timer

kw71 9y ago
Interesting I wonder what the history of this design is? And how Hitachi's (or their partner's) die really wound up being re-marked as TI? If the die is a Chinese produced copy, why did they keep the markings during retooling? 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.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  I swear I've seen the logo on that one somewhere as well, but I can't seem to recall or find it anywhere else.
- lokedhs 9y ago
  Could it be that the Hitachi in the picture is also a fake, based on the same design as the faked Ti?
- simcop2387 9y ago
  If it's copied, they likely copied it entirely because trying to remove bits of the lithography mask is expensive and time consuming. Since it's not normally scene there's no use in spending the time or money to change it if you can get the mask.
- puncturevine 9y ago
  It could be a die copy but it could also be a used HA17555 harvested from e-waste and remarked as NE555 with a fresh date code.
BarsMonster 9y ago
Wow, nice memory! Even I missed that. That means HA17555 is most likely also fake.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

Although the author calls these designs "fake", they do perform the same functionality, but just simply don't meet the voltage tolerance and noise resistance levels of higher grade designs. So they're more of a "knock-off", "counterfeit", "imitation", or "derivative".

xupybd 9y ago
They are fake because they use the same name. Kinda like fake Nikes are still shoes but clearly fakes.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  ok. Sorry I had to look up the definition of fake: "not genuine; counterfeit". So I guess fake is valid in this case. I was thinking fake meant "not real" or that it didn't actually do the same functionality.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    "same functionality" includes a LOT more than just the basic functions. It also includes voltage tolerance, noise resistance, and all of the other things you dismissed.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      But still as the author explains "If you're not reaching for the limits (like max VCC or precision) and have some luck - that might not cause issues." And I didn't dismiss that...I said "just simply don't meet the voltage tolerance and noise resistance levels of higher grade designs". 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.

andrewstuart 9y ago

The layouts look like a rogue/nethack level or maybe some new version of pacman.

speedplane 9y ago

This is only half the story. The chips discussed in the article do the basic function advertised, but may not have the same tolerances as the genuine chip. But there are other types of counterfeits out there. 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.

jfries 9y ago
Do you mean we end up with a labeled chip whose insides are something completely different, and so won't ever work? Surely that doesn't happen this way. It must be many times cheaper to just buy empty packages than to clean up old ones?
- kw71 9y ago
  Yes there are known instances of parts being remarked as something completely unrelated.
- speedplane 9y ago
  It definitely happens. 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.
  - qb45 9y ago
    > manufacture empty packages 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.

contingencies 9y ago

Actual title is "Ti NE555 - real vs fake : weekend die-shot". Current title "Chinese fake microchips hit rock bottom with 7¢ Ti NE555" is bad IMHO.

chiph 9y ago
I dunno. It seems pretty descriptive to me. It identifies the source of the fakes (China), the product being counterfeited (the venerable 555 Timer), and the price they're being sold at. 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-BIPOLAR-TIMERS-IC-factory-price/281680016124 http://www.ebay.com/itm/100PCS-NE555P-NE555-DIP-8-SINGLE-BIP...
- lightedman 9y ago
  "They say brand new and unused - but that's just not possible at that price." 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.
  - chiph 9y ago
    You could probably have gotten the stand they were displayed on for only another $5. I remember the Circuit City liquidation - the prices were insane. But it was also sort of sad.

jabberwockwock 9y ago

This is why companies need services like TexPlained. http://hardwear.io/olivier-thomas.php http://hardwear.io/olivier-thomas.php

laydn 9y ago

In one of our board designs, we were using a well-known manufacturer's 25Mhz oscillator, to provide a clock to a gigabit Ethernet PHY. When we wanted to assemble the boards, we could not find this oscillator in any official distributor, so we bought them from a vendor in China, who had some in stock. 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?

hollander 9y ago
> 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.
Nexxxeh 9y ago
>The "counterfeit" oscillator actually did provide a clean 25Mhz clock, but the PHY did not work. Did you find out why?
vardump 9y ago
Very interesting, more details, please. This matches one case I've heard about. Who is the well known manufacturer being counterfeited? Abracon? How did the fake crystals look like? Which PHY is it in question?

raverbashing 9y ago

The 555 is probably simple enough so that the "fake" version (which several times is just an alternative version from a different manufacturer) works as well as the original one

ajnin 9y ago
They probably work but probably not within the same maximum/minimum ratings as the original chip. Your design might need a max frequency, or a minimum operating voltage, or a certain current-driving capability etc. that the fake chip cannot provide, causing the final product to fail when the design prototype worked fine. There are many variants of the 555 with wildly varying characteristics, not all are interchangeable.

usnigg 9y ago

Well. Some ppl (like me) don't require their chips to have been designed by (white) men from the 50's or to have been mass produced in a developing country by a rich (white) man's company. I am pretty happy to see the rise of the chinese chip industry and look forward to more. Who knows someday they may even improve upon the west's technology. After all technology is like music: Repetition with variation. And, btw. in reply to some spooky comments... I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA has infected far more chips. Full spectrum dominance is a US invention after all.

JustFinishedBSG 9y ago
What does it have to do with race?
- cr0sh 9y ago
  OP's handle seems indicative of something...
PeterisP 9y ago
As the article says, "If only have they marked it "CN555" with proper data-sheet - it would have been totally legitimate and fair product." It's nice to produce new chip designs, and they should do more of that, but it's immoral and inefficient (it hurts everyone integrating your product) to say that you're producing X1 when you're producing X2.
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
If anything, the fact that a lot of chips you can buy from China do not match their specification is exactly one thing that keeps China's semiconductor industry back. If some Chinese company built a cheaper and in every regard better NE555, they would have a very hard time marketing it because noone would trust that sellers offering them wouldn't be selling them recycled bad-quality TI parts instead.

nfriedly 9y ago

I bet there could be an actual business model of recycling components from e-waste. Obviously it'd require more QA work than what the counterfeit "recyclers" do, but, with enough automation, I bet you could structure it so that you at least break even on the e-waste disposal side, and then any resold components become pure profit.

dis-sys 9y ago

When I was working for a microprocessor company (which you use everyday) many many years ago, they were selling this JTAG debugger for a few thousand $ each. The cpu architecture was booming in China at that time, but that $ figure is not something people can afford. Clones started to flood the market pretty fast, a typical clone set you back for a few hundred $, that was already 1/10 of the original price. 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.

the-dude 9y ago
So why did ARM charge an arm and leg?
pkaye 9y ago
The problem with faking chips is that the victims maybe out of a warranty claim later when they find a problem. Also there might be subtle differences which will only be found when in full production. For a cloned JTAG debugger the risks are lower since they are used in low volumes. Personally I think they it is okay to clone or reuse chips but don't claim to be the original manufacturer. It is quite easy to relabel chip with your own imprint.
- kbaker 9y ago
  I think a bigger problem with the 'chips by the kg' mindset, is that there is zero incentive and zero funding to develop good software to go along with the hardware. 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.

userbinator 9y ago

That means our HA17555 was also fake. 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.

Hasz 9y ago

Instead of pointing out the die layout, how about a rigorous test? Let's see clock accuracy, power consumption, etc vs the original TI part.

ksk 9y ago

What are your thoughts on people not respecting Intellectual Property rights? Will it lead us down a path of gridlock where nobody is going to create anything new for fear of someone else using their work without payment/credit? Also, why is using someones creative output or deriving from it OK in some fields (like applied sciences) but not in others? (Here I'm not including the people who claim others' work as their own, merely people who clone)