Author Topic: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?  (Read 3771 times)

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Offline FaringdonTopic starter

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Hi,
Due to the chip shortage, are  there places where old scrap PCBs are haveing chips de-soldered from them, and then the chips cleaned up, and then sold on as new?
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Online langwadt

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2022, 10:21:58 pm »
there's money to be made so of course there is, and it isn't new, the shortage just makes it more profitable
 
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2022, 11:04:43 pm »
Hi,
Due to the chip shortage, are  there places where old scrap PCBs are haveing chips de-soldered from them, and then the chips cleaned up, and then sold on as new?
That was happening way before the shortage, especially for things like phone & laptop parts for repair
 More profitable now....
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Offline tom66

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2022, 11:34:41 pm »
We've had FPGAs pulled off scrap boards that are from our own production, because these FPGAs are worth £250 each greymarket (£50 normally)

It's feasible to do this because removing and reballing a small BGA costs about £50.   We use a small facility in Edinburgh to do this.   But, normally the board would just be e-waste.  These parts are only used internally, mind, for R&D or marketing units.  We don't trust them enough to ship to customers.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2022, 11:36:24 pm by tom66 »
 
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Offline MT

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2022, 11:47:24 pm »
Hi,
Due to the chip shortage, are  there places where old scrap PCBs are haveing chips de-soldered from them, and then the chips cleaned up, and then sold on as new?
China 2011
 
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Online nctnico

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2022, 11:50:27 pm »
We've had FPGAs pulled off scrap boards that are from our own production, because these FPGAs are worth £250 each greymarket (£50 normally)

It's feasible to do this because removing and reballing a small BGA costs about £50.   We use a small facility in Edinburgh to do this.   But, normally the board would just be e-waste.  These parts are only used internally, mind, for R&D or marketing units.  We don't trust them enough to ship to customers.
Yep. Recently I wanted to have some boards made. The assembler even offered to take in old PCBs and re-use the components from those boards. I still can't make myself be happy with such a solution.

For another project I did receive desoldered chips (sold as new) which I returned.
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Offline bdunham7

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #6 on: August 30, 2022, 12:26:18 am »
Due to the chip shortage, are  there places where old scrap PCBs are haveing chips de-soldered from them, and then the chips cleaned up, and then sold on as new?

I'm sure some are trying, but it is tough to get away with selling them as new, unless you count on your customers being desperate and just overlooking the obvious signs of reuse.  What does happen is that the chips are sold as used to buyers that know this but then incorporate them in a product which then may be sold as new.  This probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if it were done with extreme care--like a dehydrating bakeout before disassembly and again before going in the toaster--but most of this is just done quick and sloppy and just has to work well enough to get out the door.  Obviously it is fraud if the product is sold as new, but I suppose there is a place for this for in-house or factory repair programs.  For non-critical applications, of course.  ::)
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Offline magic

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #7 on: August 30, 2022, 05:46:10 am »
Obviously it is fraud if the product is sold as new, but I suppose there is a place for this

Yes, it's called eBay :D
 
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Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #8 on: August 30, 2022, 06:24:09 am »
That's not new...

Some listings from Xianyu app (Alibaba owned app for second hand items):







 
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Offline ryan_zheng

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #9 on: August 30, 2022, 06:44:13 am »
This is not something new but the global shortage definitely made such business grow.

The company I used to work for has a batch of product made with some MCU in it, which was scrapped because newer firmware would not fit in the on-chip flash. It was the worst time for buying chips and the price of that particular MCU inflated by more than 20x, so they sold the chip to another company in urgent need of that chip and was willing to buy used chip, using an agent who took care of removing, cleaning up, testing and shipping of the chips.

(FYI that customer makes non-critical consumer electronics, and from what I heard their manufacture tests suggest no increase in defective rate related to using those chips. The agent supposedly cut down the boards, baked them, took the chip off, vacuum packed with desiccant. They shipped those to the customer and instructed them to bake those chips before SMT.)

As an EE myself I also have some connections who provide this type of service. Sometimes I would buy pulled chips for my own projects, as they are much cheaper. Like others have said, 闲鱼(Xianyu) is the main place for such transactions if you do not have your own contact. You can buy and sell chips, scrap boards and cut-down boards on the app.

It was just part of the system, until people began to sell used chips as brand new. Those sellers would clean up the chip, re-badge the chip by sanding and lasering, and re-tape or re-tray with authentic T&Rs or trays. Some seller may even skip testing of the chips. That's where the bad reputation came from.

« Last Edit: August 30, 2022, 07:06:20 am by ryan_zheng »
 
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Offline FaringdonTopic starter

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2022, 07:35:52 am »
Thanks, from what kind contributants are saying, this is done, but eg, a "desoldered and cleaned up" 20TSSOP couldnt be cleaned up well enough to appear as new?

Also, it makes you wonder about the ESD situation of it.
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Offline ryan_zheng

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #11 on: August 30, 2022, 07:47:22 am »
Thanks, from what kind contributants are saying, this is done, but eg, a "desoldered and cleaned up" 20TSSOP couldnt be cleaned up well enough to appear as new?

It can be done if they want to. A quick search on Taobao and I found "tin removing liquid".



After using such liquid to remove all tin plating and solder residues,  I imagine they can chemically tin the pins again to make it look brand new.

Also, it makes you wonder about the ESD situation of it.

If whoever wants so they definitely can put care into it. Otherwise yeah it may be less than ideal.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2022, 07:53:58 am by ryan_zheng »
 
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Offline AndyC_772

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #12 on: August 30, 2022, 07:53:18 am »
It goes without saying that these chips have not been handled according to any ESD precautions; they will have been exposed to ESD events and most will have latent damage.

That's not the worst thing in the world, though. The only reason to buy these recycled parts at all is desperation, and if what you really need is one or two microcontrollers so you can develop code at your desk ready for production that might be a year away, it's not the end of the world if a chip dies. Just make sure you have spares, and never let any of them outside an R&D environment. You can still develop good code on a flaky chip, and chances are you will come across a perfectly good one from time to time.

Personally I'd be more concerned about them having had OTP memory programmed, or non-reversible code protection enabled. On an STM32, setting code protection level 2 means the chip can never be reprogrammed again using an external debugger. For all practical purposes it's scrap, and I can all but guarantee the vendor won't care.

Also, if the brown-out reset voltage is set to a level that's above the supply voltage used on your board, it'll never exit the reset state. The chip is effectively dead unless you can increase the supply voltage and then reset the option bytes, and if you can't do that on your board, then it's useless.

(Learn from my mistake, folks! The BoR voltage setting can easily catch you out when you migrate a design from 3.3V to 2.5V without changing the option bytes... you'll soon remember the first time you upload newly modified code from a previous hardware revision into a new platform!)
 
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Offline coppercone2

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2022, 05:33:36 am »
those parts soaked in tin removing liquid are dodgy as fuck. Think about it, you get a part that is soaked in some kind of acid after its been desoldered. There could be cracks in the plastic from the desoldering and previous use that have whatever tin removal stuff that is used go into the chip. those bond wires are really not that durable. And then you also have tinning liquid going on a bonded die chip.

The stuff you get is tinned BEFORE the die is bonded. That means rigorous cleaning. :--
I am not sure ESD is your primary problem anymore!

I strongly suggest if you reuse parts, you just desolder them, clean them with alcohol and resolder them. I don't think you should be using any kind of chemical dips for cosmetic purposes.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2022, 05:36:25 am by coppercone2 »
 
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Offline Kasper

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #14 on: August 31, 2022, 03:13:07 pm »
It seems this has been a problem for years.

Quote
The [usa] military estimates that up to 15 percent of all spare and replacement parts for its weapons, vehicles and other equipment are counterfeit, making them vulnerable to dangerous malfunctions.
[...]
Between November 2007 and May 2010 alone, U.S. Customs officials seized 5.6 million counterfeit microchips destined for military contractors and the commercial aviation industry, and the problem has only grown since then.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-pentagon-rsquo-s-seek-and-destroy-mission-for-counterfeit-electronics/


Quote
a Florida woman last month [in 2010] pleaded guilty to her part in the sale of $16 million worth of such rebranded counterfeit chips to the US navy and multinational arms firm BAE Systems
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19819-the-phoney-chips-that-could-cripple-military-tech/
 
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Offline FaringdonTopic starter

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2022, 11:28:21 am »
Thanks,
I also believe that at component vendors, when someone drops a $5 chip  or it  accidentally gets handled without ESD precautions...they then put those chips in the "do not sell to bona fide companys" box...and those chips only get sold to hobbyists like myself...who arent from a "genuine" company.... do you also concur with this?
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Online Gyro

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2022, 12:05:54 pm »
Thanks,
I also believe that at component vendors, when someone drops a $5 chip  or it  accidentally gets handled without ESD precautions...they then put those chips in the "do not sell to bona fide companys" box...and those chips only get sold to hobbyists like myself...who arent from a "genuine" company.... do you also concur with this?

No I don't concur.

The UK reputable distributors dump them in a white expanded polystyrene box labelled 'treez' and wait for you to order something. All the rest of us get genuine, properly handled parts.

The China Ali, ebay etc. sellers can't pronounce 'treez' [Edit: or 'Faringdon'], so send you the same fake / salvaged crap that they would have sent to the rest of us if we had taken that path.
« Last Edit: September 03, 2022, 12:12:46 pm by Gyro »
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Online nali

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #17 on: September 03, 2022, 12:40:50 pm »
I'm just waiting for the inevitable fresh thread: My flaky design keeps blowing up and I don't know why so it must be dodgy components...  :popcorn:
 
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Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #18 on: September 03, 2022, 03:07:03 pm »
Thanks,
I also believe that at component vendors, when someone drops a $5 chip  or it  accidentally gets handled without ESD precautions...they then put those chips in the "do not sell to bona fide companys" box...and those chips only get sold to hobbyists like myself...who arent from a "genuine" company.... do you also concur with this?

No I don't concur.

The UK reputable distributors dump them in a white expanded polystyrene box labelled 'treez' and wait for you to order something. All the rest of us get genuine, properly handled parts.

The China Ali, ebay etc. sellers can't pronounce 'treez' [Edit: or 'Faringdon'], so send you the same fake / salvaged crap that they would have sent to the rest of us if we had taken that path.

Really, he is still around here? But with a different nick? I was finding strange not seeing his stuff but since I've been out for some months it was expected. But now this?
 
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Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #19 on: September 03, 2022, 03:25:08 pm »
Hi,
Due to the chip shortage, are  there places where old scrap PCBs are haveing chips de-soldered from them, and then the chips cleaned up, and then sold on as new?


    Not necessarily "As New" but it's a common practice in electronics repair industry and has been for a very long time. It's the only way that repair companies can get some obsolete IC and other devices (aka "chips"). One of my friends owns a company that does this and he's been doing it for as long as I've know him, over 25 years at this point.  They routinely pull socketed chips (sold as "socket pulls") and depending on the demand and the value, they might even unsolder chips (sold as "solder pulls").

   I recently bought four LM399s from him and they were used but worked perfectly.
 
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Online rsjsouza

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #20 on: September 03, 2022, 06:22:02 pm »
There's nothing really wrong with used parts; people have been reusing those in repair since the dawn of electronics. The practice of "rebranding" parts into more modern (and more expensive) models is also quite old as well - I remember in the 1980s how many old Germanium or otherwise underspeced power transistors were being remarked as powerful 2N3055s or BU208s, to the despair of the hobbyists and technicians.
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Online tooki

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #21 on: September 03, 2022, 06:53:38 pm »
That's not new...

Some listings from Xianyu app (Alibaba owned app for second hand items):

[photos of STM32s on bits of PCB salvaged by sawing off the rest of the board]
I don’t mind that at all: they’re being very clear that the chips are salvaged. They’re not trying to pass them off as new.
 

Offline FaringdonTopic starter

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #22 on: September 03, 2022, 07:51:11 pm »
Chips like UCC28070A are TSSOP20 and such small parts are ultra ESD sensitive....also, in the UCC28070A datasheet it gives a severe ESD warning about the chip.
I dont think chips like this are meant to be handled, solder pulled, or anything like that.....but i bet its going on.
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Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #23 on: September 03, 2022, 08:02:57 pm »
there's money to be made so of course there is, and it isn't new, the shortage just makes it more profitable

Yep, there's been a constant stream of those on Aliexpress and the like for years. There's just even more demand now.
 
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Online Gyro

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Re: Chips pulled off dumped PCBs and then sold, due to the "chip shortage"?
« Reply #24 on: September 03, 2022, 08:32:22 pm »
How did I know that one was coming?  ::)

Chips like UCC28070A are TSSOP20 and such small parts are ultra ESD sensitive


ESD sensitivity is a function of the Silicon, not the package.

Quote
....also, in the UCC28070A datasheet it gives a severe ESD warning about the chip.

Well, it states the standard JEDEC HBM and CDM ESD ratings, like any other modern devce, if that's what you mean.

Quote
I dont think chips like this are meant to be handled, solder pulled, or anything like that.....but i bet its going on.

If they not meant to be handled, it's going to give you a bit of a problem getting them onto your board isn't it?  You are the weakest link. As for solder pulls, that depends on where you source your parts from. You won't get solder pulls if you buy from a main distributor with proper traceability back to the manufacturer. If you chose to source them from somewhere dodgy then that's your funeral.
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