Counterfeiting is one of the most pervasive and serious challenges facing today's electronics supply chain. Mission critical applications that rely on electronics can be seriously compromised as a result of counterfeit and sub-standard products entering a customer's manufacturing processes. From military to commercial products, counterfeit materials can cause serious economic harm to customers and threaten the lives of people that rely on them.
That is why IC Trends takes this matter so seriously. Our role in the electronics supply chain is to handle exceptions that fall outside of a customer's normal business process. Supply interruptions can range from material that is in short supply to delivering legacy product for long life cycle products that may have been designed decades ago and for which the raw materials have not been produced for some time. When exceptions like this occur, and they will, IC Trends takes every measure to ensure the purity of the supply chain. That is why we have adopted industry leading measures to combat this problem. As a market leader in anti-counterfeiting, IC Trends has adopted a rigorous testing process utilizing independent test labs prior to material entering our supply chain. In doing so, this prevents the likelihood of material entering our supply chain or the customers supply chain.
It is no secret that most of the counterfeit and sub-standard product originates from China. Statistics have been quoted as high as 75%. As a result of this fact, a simple solution would appear to be to eliminate China as a source of supply, thereby eliminating the problem. On the surface, this appears to be a reasonable solution. However, the Asia Pacific region now represents over 50% of the consumption of the worlds electronic components and China is the large majority of that figure. So when dealing with supply interruptions, the Asia Pacific region cannot be ignored as source of supply. But in doing so, customers must carefully choose their business partners and make certain that they have the experience, knowledge, and processes in place to combat these challenges. That is why IC Trends has partnered with White Horse Test Labs to test product prior to it ever leaving the original source.