Steps to check fake chips mulled over

MUNICH, GERMANY: Fake chips are doing the rounds posing much headache to foundries. With the threat for critical infrastructures and applications through counterfeit semiconductors on the rise, major companies are now deliberating on how to shoot down the menace.

A workshop on anti-counterfeit measures was held with representatives of all major chip-making regions going for a mutual consent to fight the menace. However, the planned measures seen by analysts are rather vague than concrete.

It may be recalled that the ESIA's anti-counterfeiting task force, during joint border operations in 2007 and 2008, had seized innumerable counterfeit ICs.

An EETimes report pointed out that the internal report of ESIA had found that the number of undiscovered cases was much higher. However, it has not been easy to gauge the damage for industry and society was subjected to due to this trend.

Now that the industry is alarmed, measures to counter the threat of counterfeit chips are being mulled over to stop such activities. The report added that Semiconductor Industry Associations in China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the US sat down together to deliberate on countering the threat.

The meeting discussed physical and electronic measures to spot counterfeit chips, anti-counterfeiting toolkits and the role of the customs in the anti-counterfeiting battle, it pointed out. Nobody knows, however, the source of these counterfeit chips.

According to a statement by Martin Spaet, representative of the European Semiconductor Industry Association which co-chaired the workshop, the counterfeits are older chips taken from recycled scrap computers which have been remarked and resold as different brands or higher value chips.

He added that the quantities sold are typically rather low and that there is no easy way to detect counterfeit or re-packaged chips.

Participants at the meeting agreed to take enforcement measures on national, bilateral and multilateral levels with enforcement measures involving close cooperation between industry and customs officials as well as quick and efficient communication chains between industry and customs.