Dear All,


We are facing an odd problem: We have a design based on the
dsPIC30F6013A and it sold over 2000 units over several years. We used
the services of several contract manufacturers over the years, first in
Brazil, then in South Korea and finally in China.

The Chinese contractor assembled a pilot batch of 100 units and a large
percentage (30%) of the units arrived defective. With the previous
contractors, much less than 1% of the units presented defects and most
were easily solved.

The range of defects is varied. Most were traced back to poor soldering,
some to wrong component placement (I think they did the pick and place
by hand) and some to defective ICs.
The real weirdness is that a substantial portion of the defects only can
be explained by bad dsPIC's FLASH.

It is not surprise that the Chinese used the cheapest available
components and we know that common ICs have a wide range of suppliers
with varying quality levels.
Now, the dsPIC is supposed to have only one supplier, Microchip.

One theory is that the Chinese bought a dsPIC lot that didn't pass some
quality control test and were supposed to be destructed, but somebody
inside Microchip diverted and sold them illegally.

What do you think?


Best regards,

Isaac

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