IC Trends Blog | Electronic Component Supplier News

Electronic Component Counterfeiters Profit Off of Japan's Crisis

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[Picture credit soltecblog.com]

Check out this article, "As Shortages Loom, Watch Out For Counterfeiters," by Dawn Gluskin.  She makes great points about how essentially all electronic manufacturers are going to be impacted by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and how that opens a wide door for counterfeiters to try to squeeze in and profit.

Also of note within her article some of the updates given for specific manufacturers:

• Silicon wafer fabs Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. Ltd. and Sumitomo Mitsubishi Silicon Corp. (SUMCO) have sustained damage to their production lines, and the power outage has forced production to come to a stop. The traffic for areas east of Kantô has also been affected. As a result, the supply for silicon wafer will drop significantly, which will cause the global semiconductor players outside of Japan to compete for material.


• Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN)'s manufacturing plant in Miho, Japan, which is responsible for 10 percent of TI’s outputs, has been significantly damaged, affecting completed products and work in progress. It will likely take until September to get these plants operating at full production as normal. This will likely cause pushed-out lead times for TI products, especially DLP and Analog.


• Maxim Integrated Products Inc. (Nasdaq: MXIM)'s partner plant in Sakata (Seiko Emerson) has been affected by the power outages, and Maxim is currently in the process of shifting production to another facility.


• Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC) and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. have stopped providing spot pricing for now as they wait to assess the current situation.


• Renesas Electronics Corp. (Tokyo: 6723) has temporarily shut down production at 7 out of 22 plants.


• DRAM production has been significantly affected, especially for PC and system manufacturers.


• Hitachi Ltd. (NYSE: HIT; Paris: PHA) and Panasonic Corp. (NYSE: PC) LCD fabs have both been affected, at least temporarily


• Toshiba Corp. (Tokyo: 6502)'s assembly line, near Tokyo, will be closed for at least one month. Mobile phone industry and auto industry for car navigation displays will be most affected.


• Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has announced that three of its facilities have been affected by the earthquake. Affected product lines include: EMI Supression Filters, Coils, Piozelectric Products, Saw Filters, and Polymer capacitors. Murata has not yet released an estimated timeline on the restoration process; it's expected there will be at least some halt to production in the short term.


• NAND Flash produced in Japan accounts for nearly 40 percent of the entire global supply, and experts predict that shortages are imminent.

Her coverage of this topic makes Dawn Gluskin one to watch.