US Military Trying To Weed Out Counterfeit Parts

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from an AP report: "'Sprinkling' sounds like a fairly harmless practice, but in the hands of sophisticated counterfeiters it could deceive a major weapons manufacturer and possibly endanger the lives of U.S. troops. It's a process of mixing authentic electronic parts with fake ones in hopes that the counterfeits will not be detected when companies test the components for multimillion-dollar missile systems, helicopters and aircraft. It was just one of the brazen steps described Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing examining the national security and economic implications of suspect counterfeit electronics — mostly from China — inundating the Pentagon's supply chain. ... The committee's ongoing investigation found about 1,800 cases of suspect counterfeit electronics being sold to the Pentagon. The total number of parts in these cases topped 1 million. By the semiconductor industry's estimates, counterfeiting costs $7.5 billion a year in lost revenue and about 11,000 U.S. jobs."

Comments

Why are these parts even coming from China?

[Nidi62]

Why are we even buying critical components such as these from China? If we're wasting millions every year detecting and replacing these counterfeit components, why not use that money and build fabrication plants here instead. That way we know the components are real, and we don't have to rely on an outside source. Also, why isn't the burden of supplying new, real components falling on the contractors hired to provide them? If counterfeit components are found, at the very least the supplier/subcontractor should be blacklisted. Hold contractors accountable for once and this crap will stop happening. As it is, the contractors have no incentive to self-police. They know they will still get the next contract even if they go overbudget, over time, and under-quality because they've been doing it for years with no consequences. Considering our recent budget issues, we need to eliminate wasteful spending. And a lot of it can be found in defense contracting.

Re:Why are these parts even coming from China?

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions to weed out counterfeit parts, BILLIONS to build a fab.
While it's stupid to buy parts from a foreign power that wishes to subjugate us, its still cheaper to do so the build it all here. Hell, I work for a semiconductor company and our stuff is fabbed in Taiwan. Is that China in regards to this conversation?
catchpa: herpes

Re:Why are these parts even coming from China?

[Baloroth]

Most likely, it is a generally unimportant COTS part. Could be resistors, fluorescing CRT panels... w/e. TFA mentions a 12$ million weapon system being ruined by a bad 2$ part. This is, of course, just a guess. In other words, components that wouldn't normally be critical, aren't specific to the part at hand, and shouldn't be expected to fail.

You wouldn't want the government spending millions to develop a mil-spec version of a standard component that is already (or should be) perfectly reliable and functional (although they often do, and people often make fun of them for it. Right or wrong, IDK). So I imagine instead they just buy that stuff from whoever sells it. In this case, Chinese manufacture doesn't matter, as ideally they wouldn't even know what it was for.

The above is pure speculation. TFA is quite light on details. I think the idea behind buying from China would be elimination of wasteful spending.

Re:Why are these parts even coming from China?

[shutdown -p now]

I may be misunderstanding TFA, but my impression is that the parts are not meant to be sourced from China. It's where the counterfeit clones are made.

Re:Why are these parts even coming from China?

[Unoriginal_Nickname]

Yes, seconding this. People just don't seem to realize the completely insane amount of money it takes. It's also not a one-time payment; any time you change technologies you literally need to build an entire new facility.

There are a ton of American semiconductor manufacturers which cannot reasonably afford to run their own fabs. Qualcomm, Broadcom, Conexant, Marvell, NVIDIA and Apple are all fabless. Even AMD and Intel outsource some work to TSMC. When Intel, the world's largest semiconductor company, balks at the idea of building enough manufacturing capacity, it should give you an idea about how much it would cost.

Re:Why are these parts even coming from China?

[neonv]

I'm an engineer for a major defense contractor. We go through countless hours of testing equipment, electronics, and software to make sure the products work to spec. We test the components that come in from sub-contractors, as well as our own components. We're all nerds at heart, and we take pride in making quality electronics that work better than expected. I resent stereotyping on slashdot that all contractors are greedy and corrupt. I spend many unpaid hours improving products, no charge to the government, and make sure what I do works properly. I don't work because I want money from the government, I do it because I take pride in what I do, and I do a good job. Stop this ridiculous rhetoric to vent your anger at groups of people and focus on the individuals responsible.

Jail time. Lots of jail time.

[Animats]

18 U.S.C. 2154: Production of defective war material, war premises, or war utilities:

(a) Whoever, when the United States is at war, or in times of national emergency as declared by the President or by the Congress, with intent to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the United States or any associate nation in preparing for or carrying on the war or defense activities, or, with reason to believe that his act may injure, interfere with, or obstruct the United States or any associate nation in preparing for or carrying on the war or defense activities, willfully makes, constructs, or causes to be made or constructed in a defective manner, or attempts to make, construct, or cause to be made or constructed in a defective manner any war material, war premises or war utilities, or any tool, implement, machine, utensil, or receptacle used or employed in making, producing, manufacturing, or repairing any such war material, war premises or war utilities, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than thirty years, or both.

For some reason, charges aren't being brought under that law. A few CEOs doing 30 years in the Federal pen would put a big dent in the problem.

Re:Jail time. Lots of jail time.

[ColdWetDog]

But we aren't at 'war' (except for drugs and cancer). Maybe Michelle Bachman constitutes a National Emergency but I'm not sure that's what the framers of law had in mind.

Re:It's cultural

[Pope]

Yeah, American companies never do anything dishonest or illegal to boost profits!