Counterfeit electronics are increasing throughout the supply chain

The counterfeiting problem is growing as the supply chain widens, and it’s bigger than most manufacturers suspect. “When it comes to consumer goods like watches or designer clothing, buying the products in odd places at cheap prices may suggest these products are fakes,” said Konrad Bechler, security consultant brand protection and anti-counterfeit at Infineon Technologies. “Buyers of semiconductors very often don’t realize this is also true for semiconductor components. When treating this as a marginal topic, counterfeit semiconductors might turn into a serious problem, which means the components do not meet the expectations or specifications of the manufacturer. There is always a life-threatening aspect to counterfeits. Just think of an airbag not deploying properly during a crash, or medical equipment like an automated electric defibrillator not working in a life-threatening situation. These are only two use cases. Since semiconductors are an integral part of our daily lives, counterfeits pose a serious threat and will eventually lead to deaths if they don’t meet the specs.”

Heterogeneous integration and chiplets increase the threat. “If somebody is going to put an embedded memory chip onto a die so that a 3nm processor can have some embedded memory without going off chip, that embedded memory chiplet is built in a trailing-edge node,” said Scott Best, technical director, anti-counterfeiting products at Rambus. “It’s not built in 3nm. It’s built in something that has been optimized for embedded memory, and not for high-performance compute. So you isolate the specialization of the chiplets. This seems to be a good idea, and then the CPU vendor will work with a memory vendor. But how do you know that other chip hasn’t been cloned, copied, and something malicious hasn’t been slipped into the supply chain? That’s terrifying. And yes, it’s a solvable problem, but it turns away from being an electronic security problem and it becomes a supply-chain security problem.”

Drivers of counterfeiting

There are various reasons why and how counterfeiting happens. “The most obvious reason is cost savings,” Bechler said. “Many device manufacturers experience price pressure and have to produce products that are cost-neutral. This may drive them to find cheaper ways to develop their products. With this mindset, they are likely to receive counterfeit components. Another motivation to buy counterfeits is the discontinuation of specific components because they have reached their end-of-life cycle. Some manufacturers might need them either for regular production or as spare parts. This is due to devices that are certified in accordance to the end product, and any change in certification is extremely costly. Long lead times might be another motivation. Of course, manufacturers want to serve their customers and get corresponding components in alternative ways, which counterfeiters take advantage of.”