Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) dropped a couple of very alarming tales during a hearing about counterfeit parts making their way into brand new U.S. military weapons.
Manufacturers of fake, knock-off chips in China, Taiwan and elsewhere are increasingly targeting the rapidly-growing market for "military-capable" computers in the United States, because the profit margins can be as much as 1000 times higher than in the civilian market, according to Brian C. Toohey, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association.
Boeing and the Navy found that the ice detection system on a brand new P-8 Poseidon was defective. The ice detection system is a critical piece of hardware designed to prevent tragedies by alerting pilots to the presence of ice on an aircraft's control surfaces. Where did this defective part come from? China. A whole batch of a key piece of the ice detection hardware that was sent to the P-8 production line turned out to be used and worn out parts that were badly refurbished and sold to P-8 subcontractor BAE Systems as a new part, according to Levin. Boeing and BAE first became aware of the problem in 2009, he added.
The fake P-8 parts are just one of many examples of how counterfeit parts are often made from 1980s and 1990s-vintage junk computer parts that are sanded down and remarked in China and then sold back to the U.S. as brand new computer chips for advanced weapons systems. One witness at the hearing just described growing counterfeit semiconductors seeping into critical weapons systems as "ticking time bombs."
An example of the coatings that counterfeiters put on their parts to make it difficult to tell if they are fake or legit:
An example of how counterfeiters sand down metal casings to make their parts appear real and brand new.
An example of the the coatings on Chinese-made knock-offs.
Counterfeiters sometimes use resurfacing material to hide the original identification numbers, but this coating, unlike the original black surface, dissolves in acetone. Here is a suspect component before and after an acetone swipe test. (photo SMT corp.)
An X-ray of a component can reveal irregularities in the size and shape of the die, the routing of the wires, and other internal construction details. The devices have the same part number. (photo SMT Corp.)
The variation in the appearance of the country of origin marks indicates that these samples came from different lots, but counterfeiters have marked both with the same lot number. (photo SMT Corp.)
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