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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

counterfeit /= fake.

A fake chip is a chip that isn't physically what it claims to be. It will not work properly. A counterfeit chip is one that was not made under appropriate licenses. It might be exactly the same as the legit chips. It might even come from the same factory line that makes the legit chips and have been tested right alongside legit chips. The only difference between a counterfeit and legit chip can be a line in a contract on a computer thousands of miles away from the physical object with absolutely no physical imperfections. If you are using a computer, or any other complex machine, chances are that at least some tiny corner of it wasn't made in 100% accordance with IP laws.

If an article wants to talk about "fake" chips then talk about fake chips. Don't go on about counterfeit chips and violations of intellectual property laws. Show me the chips that are not doing the jobs they are supposed to do.

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Even a counterfeit that's "third-shift" manufacturing by the factory doing the genuine brand product might not covered by engineering assurances by the brand (which is part of the job it's supposed to do).

Or that third-shift might, although using the same tooling and having access to IP and processes, cut corners on sourcing or QA.

Or it might use the exact same everything, but skimp on the QA testing and culling.

Or (not third-shift) it might be from a genuine run, but have failed QA.

That's mostly just third-shift. The problems can get worse from there, even if the product at least initially appears to do the job it's supposed to do.

It isn't always that simple. I had some counterfeit usb-to-serial chips that worked fine until the real manufacturer updated the windows driver and simultaneously made it hard to install old drivers. Risk is risk.

This one (it's the first break-the-counterfeits/knockoffs that comes to mind)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTDI#Driver_controversy

It happened both with FTDI and PL2303 chips. FTDI bricked the clones, Prolific just made it hell to use them.

I have a cable with an molded-in adapter that makes a selling point big deal on the retail packaging about using a genuine Prolific chip. :)

As I understand it, Prolific didn't just make it hell to use the clone PL2303 chips but also the older revision of their own chips which was being cloned - their newer drivers disabled both just the same. Which suggests that using any chip from Prolific is risky no matter where you source it from.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that. The CH34X was released some time after all that drama and always worked and was dirt cheap.

ftdi? usb-to-serial?

Reading the article, it's full of scare words like "could" and "will" with a noticeable dearth of evidence. Not to bury the lede, but one of the main sources of the article (Steve Calabria) is a component distributor, as well as a representative of the industry group representing component distributors. [0]

From the article:

> As part of his research, Das regularly monitors counterfeit reporting databases like ERAI, and although it is too early to notice a surge, he is confident that the number of reports will start growing in the next six months as companies realize they have been sold illegal parts.

Further down:

> Although only based on his own observations, Calabria is also convinced that this is only the start of a wave of counterfeit semiconductors creeping into the market. "I think we are on the cusp of a major problem here. The worldwide shortages have opened the door for criminals to exploit the electronic component marketplace, and I'm seeing early signs this has already started to happen," Calabria tells ZDNet.

[0]: https://www.idofea.org/membership/member-list.html

It's not just about licenses. Fake chips, as Lego bricks with pins, do exist (seen them decades ago on cheap PC mainboards), but there also are grey areas made of discarded lots that didn't pass testing, lower specs parts relabeled as higher ones, for example consumer rated parts rebadged as industrial if not military, etc. Those are harder to spot, unless they're tested almost one by one. That would be unsustainable save maybe for the military.

Counterfeit manufacturers generally care less about their reputation

I don't think it's quite so straightforward from the end user's perspective -- if you get stuck with a counterfeit, even a functionally identical one, you're still missing valuable "features" that aren't part of the die, like a warranty. And that's assuming the counterfeit is made to the same tolerances, and won't prematurely fail because it was a reject that didn't meet QC and got siphoned off for resale.

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