Reliability concerns from the gray market

With the term “counterfeit electronic components” we refer to electronic devices that are misrepresented as to their origin or quality. The greatest risks of using counterfeit parts are personal injury, mission failure and dramatic reduction of the reliability of a system and apparatus. Reliability issues concerning counterfeit electronics will be considered because the severity of this problem is likely to increase in the near future. We will highlight several examples as entire lots of unreliable microelectronic devices have reached the end user and only incoming lot inspection and screening procedures could have avoided a large number of field failures. The conclusion is a warning against the lack of reliability culture for end users of microelectronic devices under-evaluating the higher risks due to the low quality and poor reliability of the consumer electronics purchased in the open market sources rather than from authorized markets.