BTW wasn't there a ruckus raised a few years back about Marine one? Where were the rotors & main fuselage sections to be made? What about the recent outing of China chips in our defense systems? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2888925/posts Not a smart defense policy at all. China doesn't need to come over here and invade when we give them the means to knock us to our knees in technology espionage.
Over the past 7 years some counterfit elctronic parts have managed to get into the supply chain. I can explain the situation.
The contractors aren’t buying these chips to cut corners. They absolutely believe they are buying legitimate parts. So how does this happen?
Most of the time I’ve seen this, the contractor is dealing with obsolete part issues. With significantly longer design cycles and much longer field life than consumer electronics, it’s not uncommon to see ICs go obsolete during a products production. It then becomes a question of finding the parts from alternative sources rather than the mfr, or spending tons of money to redesign the product, and then spending likely 10X that re-qualifying it. Government agents usually authorize buying from distribution and as a last resort.....brokers. Legitimate brokers buy excess inventory from many companies and then sell it at inflated rates.
The NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013 has a requirement that all contractors must established a counterfeit avoidance/detection system approved by the DOD.
This should prevent counterfit parts from getting into the supply chain.