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www.us-tech.com
May/June, 2012
Testing to Detect Counterfeit Components By Joseph Federico, Vice President, Director of Operations, NJ Micro Electronic Testing, Clifton, NJ I
n recent years counterfeit parts have become an increasing prob- lem in every industry that uses
electronic components. Compounding these problems, it is increasingly dif- ficult to know the true source of the purchased components. Because of both the quality and sophistication of many of today’s counterfeit parts, they can often pass such inspection protocols as external and internal visual, dimensional check, marking permanency and even electrical test- ing. Because such components can be easily cloned or altered, more sophis- ticated testing to detect counterfeit components is necessary. NJ Micro Electronic Testing ”
Inc. created the “Mission Imposter®
Counterfeit Component Test Pro - gram, the first program that detects counterfeit electronic components in customers’ products. The Mission Imposter process begins with analyz- ing the shipping and packaging. It continues with the parts undergoing several levels of inspection including marking and dimensional checks, internal visual analysis, several lev- els of material analysis and electrical testing to determine authenticity. At the recent DMSMS confer-
ence in Hollywood, Florida (Dimin - ishing manufacturing sources and material shortages), NJMET both exhibited and presented. As exhib - itors, we were proud to present our Mission Imposter Counterfeit Component Test Program as well, while we also presented a lecture on the proper electronic testing proto-
cols that should be used in testing components for their full functional and parametric performance.
ing instruments have become avail- able to the electronics industry to help verify electronic integrated cir-
atures to uncover any signs of coun- terfeiting. DC, AC functional and parametric testing and other testing as necessary are performed on the electronic components. The first example of electrical
testing over temperature was for a digital microcircuit. It is very impor- tant to exercise the VOH, VOL, IIH, IIL, IOH, IOL, IOS, ICEX, ICCL, ICCH, BV, IINH, IINL, VIH, VIL, VIK and AC Dynamic Tests to prop- erly test these devices. The intricacies of these tests
VLSI tester datalogging the DC/AC functional and parametric of the component at proposed temperature.
The lecture was entitled
“Proper Electrical Testing to Detect Counterfeit Components.” Its aim was to educate members of the elec- tronics industry about the risks asso- ciated with performing only basic contact testing with simple counter- feit detectors as opposed to the pre- ferred functional and parametric exercises required to properly test these suspect electronic components.
Verifying ICs In recent years component test-
International Counterfeit Detective
NJ Micro Electronic Testing’s VP and Director of Operations Joseph Federico has nearly 35 years of elec- tronic testing experience. Mr Federico has built his career by earning various laboratory certification titles from the Department of Defense and turning NJ Micro Electronic Labs into a leader in Military, Industrial, Automotive and Aerospace testing. One of the most sought-after
counterfeit electronics experts in the world, he is the first American engi- neer to receive invitations to China, Israel, and Russia to meet with aero- space companies and electronic com- ponent distributors to raise aware- ness about electrical component counterfeiting. He received the Israeli ODEM (Diamond) award in recognition of his efforts in develop-
ter®, a comprehensive inspection process performed at NJ Micro Electronic Testing that is designed to detect counterfeit and cloned elec- tronic component products. Mr. Federico and NJMET’s
ing the technology to prevent coun- terfeit and cloned component fraud exposing the epidemic of counterfeit parts in military and aerospace elec- tronic component manufacturing. He developed Mission Impos -
cuits by analyzing their internal elec- trical characteristics and comparing them with a known genuine sample. This methodology of testing can be helpful only when you have a known good unit to compare the internal characteristics against. However, in the event
of analyzing a well cloned or altered unit, without a known good unit to compare against, this methodology of testing does not address the functional and parametric requirements of the manu- facturers’ specification and it is therefore less reliable. There is now a major con- cern as to how this type of comparative testing is repre- sented in the electronics industry. It does not analyze the vital DC and AC charac- teristics and in no way looks at the functional perform- ance of the suspect component.
Electrical Test over Temperature
efforts to promote awareness of coun- terfeiting led to honors from Heartbeat of America, a television program hosted by William Shatner. During the show, Joseph Federico and NJMET received the Keeping America Strong award, presented by retired United States Navy Rear Admiral Kevin F. Delaney. r
We can start by making our
objective the electrical testing over temperature, since this is the pre- ferred industry standard for the medical, automotive, industrial, mili- tary and aerospace fields. The test objective is to deter-
mine the quality of each product at the recommended manufacturer’s or industry’s extreme operating temper-
can easily give a test engineer robust data to uncover a counterfeit compo- nent. These tests are extremely important, because of the limitations of the new test instruments on the market which simply curve trace each pin against a known good unit by exercising only pin to ground and pin to supply voltages. Alternately all pins can be grounded and each pin measured against the other grounded pins. The second example of electrical
testing over temperature is for a semiconductor. In the arena of tran- sistors, it is important to exercise these test parameters: ICBO, IEBO, ICE (O, S, R, X, V), BVCBO, BVEBO, BVZ, HFEIB, HFE, VCESAT, VBE-
Automatic semiconductor tester datalogging the various voltage and current parameters of a MOSFET at proposed temperature.
SAT, VBEON, and to properly test these devices. In the diode arena, it is impor-
tant to exercise the VF, BVR, IB, BVZ, ZZ, and ZZL parameters to properly test these devices.
Electrical Testing Protocols To summarize, the electrical
testing protocols (listed below) char- acterize industry temperature require ments and test objectives. These are the proper methodologies
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