Electrical Engineering & Electronics Design

Jason ;

Almost ALL American, Japanese, Korean and European semiconductor manufacturers release full disclosure information about their chips, reference boards, design notes, and application notes.

I find that semiconductor parts and products from China are the WORST since they don't post practically anything ! Also they as NOT multi-lingual and you have to translate the language. In addition, the documents are very incomplete, hiding or lacking information intentionally to reduce liability on performance, quality, workmanship and tolerances.

Taiwan used to be as bad as China, but has gotten better over the last decade since the US has demanded such documentation. However, most if not all is only thru begging for the documentation and if you are a volume supplier.

This is typical of most BIG and arrogant US computer, cellular and cable chip companies like Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Broadcom.

The only mandatory regulations that I am aware of are for each county's radio emissions and material safety. And even those are either FAKED or NON-compliant, just to sell their junk. Many times this is only found out after-the-fact. And this this does not include fake brands and illegal copies.

Personally, I just avoid any manufacturer that does not include full documentation for their parts, REGARDLESS OF COST !

If the manufacturer cannot support legitimate and complete documentation, that is a WARNING SIGN for you to avoid them !! 

Because YOU and your company will become accountable in your country, not the supplier.

Hi Steven,

If politicians are so concerned about climate change they should bring in an international law forcing all large scale product manufacturers to release board schematics to prevent E-Waste and encourage repair or reuse or the recycling of products and at the same time encourage job growth in this sector.

Large corporations and company's are the worst polluters of our planet yet nothing is done to stop them making un-repairable un-reusable nonrecycling and large scale landfill products. These large company's and corporation's apparently get accidently overlooked at the same time they give large donations while normal people are made to carry the burden.

Large scale manufacturers are intentionally withholding schematics, ic part numbers and refuse to sell replacement ic's to the public so that products are non repairable. As you mentioned especially in the largest manufacturing sectors such as computer manufacturing ???

Politicians either want to prevent climate change or they don't. It is no good virtue signaling one thing while they do the complete opposite. There is already growing large scale resistance to climate change because of this type of hypocrisy. Maintaining our planet is a priority.

We simply can not force the burden and price of climate change on to normal people while large scale manufacturers get overlooked.

I've no issue with manufacturers not releasing sensitive information. Having said that, all of the reputable companies release datasheets that are at least usable, and most are pretty good. I do deliberately avoid buying chinese parts, because the datasheets are terrible.

What irritates me is when board houses deliberately scrub the tops off the ICs so the products aren't reparable. Ran into that just a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't ID a chip on a board, surrounding which a few of the support components had failed, as the top had been ground away to hide the part info, and so couldn't fully trouble shoot. Fixed the bits I could find but the product failed catastrophically within a few minutes of resurrection. Turns out there was also a fault on the unidentifiable chip (that likely started the whole problem), which I can't replace because I don't know what it is. It turned a £300 item that's only a few months out of warranty into a piece of junk.

In my view, this does contribute to E waste by debilitating the repair market, but I've no idea what the numbers are, and would be interested if anyone has seen any documentation. It could be that most folk just don't bother to get stuff fixed anymore. So it may be that a cultural shift needs to go hand in hand with any regulation on the manufacturers.

Hello David,

Some imported good from china are certainly not viable for repair as WTO world trade organization still insists on allowing China a developing nation status enabling them virtually free tracked delivery postage to virtually all major sectors around the world. This simply floods the international market with landfill electronics but yet gain this is again magically overlooked when climate change policy is decided ???. Regulation and safety ??? magically overlooked ???.

This is beyond the scope of incompetence. However you can guarantee your energy bills and cost of living will be going up again this year without fail.

As engineers or techs we have all faced this issue. Repeatedly trying to diagnose boards on our bench with scrubbed off or relabeled IC's. Entire units thrown in scrap bins that could have easily been repaired if schematics or parts or firmware were available. This is a first step in to making change in the system yet nothing has ever been done ???.

The roller-coaster of virtue signaling will continue while the worst contributors to climate change relentlessly continue without consequence.

China is lazy and authoritarian, and won't release it. A couple of additional point though.

Firstly, and unfortunately, business and marketing trends are moving towards the razor-blade / inkjet-cartridge model. Quarterly driven revenue love that. Services-based models are also appearing in software through a subscription model. This general trend is a hard tide to combat.

Secondly, some manufacturers do not want to reveal the circuit diagram if it gives away trade secrets or intellectual property (IP). Board-level integrators, especially would want to make it difficult for their competitors to make a knock-off. I don't see this as a problem for people who have very high capital manufacturing costs that make it a barrier for their competition.