Counterfeit semiconductor chips can look genuine, pass basic testing, and still create serious reliability risks inside real electronics. Here's how fake ICs enter the semiconductor supply chain—and how engineers actually detect them.

Counterfeit chips aren't always crude copies.

Some are genuine semiconductor components recovered from discarded electronics, cleaned, resurfaced, remarked, and sold as new. Others can involve substituted devices, unauthorized production, defective components, or falsified traceability documentation.

In this episode of Silicon to Software, Imran Valiani draws on more than 20 years in PCB electronics manufacturing and technology sales to examine the engineering reality behind counterfeit semiconductor components.

We break down how suspect part ...