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Black-market capacitors backfire
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Friday, February 07 @ 10:31:29 EST Computer Crime
Throughout the last year, motherboards from several major manufacturer have suffered catastrophic failures due to bad power-supply regulation. Capacitors which are supposed to ensure a smooth flow of power to chips have been falling down on the job; the resulting power spikes can ruin the motherboard.

What makes the story interesting is that these capacitor failures can apparently be traced to a common source: a single seller of electrolyte (if you think of a capacitor as a wrap sandwich, the electrolyte is the hummous). And that seller, a Taiwanese firm, appears to have stolen the electrolyte formula from a Japanese manufacturer, and botched the job. The stolen "formula" turned out to be incomplete, causing the electroyte to break down early, destroying the capacitors.

Although most Taiwanese capacitor manufacturers have denied making bad components, it seems that more than one firm did use the faulty electrolyte. The whole of the Taiwanese capacitor industry is now in a slump due to quality-control fears. One can almost hear the Smokey Bear-like figure saying: "Don't engage in industrial espionage. Not only is it the law, it's a good idea."

IEEE Spectrum has the full story.

 
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