It’s a serious threat to the electronic supply chain (SMT / EMS) because of the counterfeited components. The latest report released by the authorities department said that counterfeiting has increased by more than 200% in the past 10 years. Except the counterfeited components, for big profits some illegal vendors sell electronic components such as refurbished Chips as original production which is also a main source for the counterfeited issues. There are several solutions to contaminate the counterfeited components ( Chip set, IC, CPU) but using X-ray inspection is the most effective way.

For the counterfeited electronic components, they’re bad quality compared to the original source because of the limitation on the production process and the device; and it will be huge degradation in performance and reliability due to repeated soldering, long-term use, and damage during the refurbishment process. Both of them will make the product working failure easily and causing problems on the stability and reliability.

With the technology development, the counterfeited electronic components outlooks are almost the same with the original ones, and they’re growing quickly which makes the identification are more and more difficult. The effective and fast way to identify the counterfeited components is the X-Ray Machine.

The traditional DPA and FA are just only for a few scientific research institutions, enterprises equipped with experimental equipment and human resources. And most of companies can’t do nothing with the traditional ways. But the X-Ray Inspection is with Non-Destruction, fast, easy operation, low cost features which are more and more popular for the electronic manufactures.

X-ray inspection can be used to check the internal state of components such as chip layout, lead layout, lead frame design, solder balls (leads), and so on. For components with complex structures, we can adjust the angle, voltage, current, and contrast and brightness of the X-ray tube to obtain effective image information. Compare with original products or the data sheets, it’s easy to find the counterfeited components.

Following is the X-Ray image for the electronic component.

he following are the counterfeited electronic components

1、Empty counterfeited IC：It’s the same series number, place of origin, batch number, date code, manufacturer and shape are the same as the original product which is impossible to identify them.

The following picture is the X-ray image for the empty counterfeited IC with no chip inside, no lead.

The counterfeiters usually mix genuine and counterfeit goods in the same batch number or the same packaging tray (bag). These counterfeits may not be detected by sampling. But the inline X-ray inspection technology can provide an acceptable cost to do 100% inspection on the components to stop the counterfeited ones.

1、Reputation IC：The outlook is total the same as the original. It needs the X-Ray images to identify them.

It’s different VDD, NC, GND on the counterfeited component compared to the original image.

3、 Losing leads

Losing leads is another important features for the counterfeited component as the following picture:

4、 Internal flaws

Many counterfeit electronic components are often subject to serious defects in the internal wire breakage due to the process control and testing of the counterfeiters. The following picture showing an open wire.

5、 Outside flaw

The following picture is showing the damage BGA.

6、 BGA Voids：

It will increase lots of voids when refurbish the chips.

7、 Bent pins

Unicomp X-ray machines for EMS:

To know more information about our product and Unicomp Technology, please feel free to contact us by email: marketing@unicomp.cn or visit our website: www.unicompxray.com, Thank you! Or visiting our booth Hall 1 A43 stand during Nepcon South China 2018 expo in Shenzhen on Aug 28th to 30th.