Fake Texas Instruments NE555

[Red Squirrel]

This is actually kind of hilarious. The work and engineering that went into this is so good, they could have easily just made their own, with their own name, and sell it as as legit product. i mean, to actually have access to roll silicon is a pretty serious thing. I guess it's not really a big deal in China. I don't believe the 555 timer is patented so I think they would be able to just make one and give it their own name and sell it as their own product.

https://zeptobars.com/en/read/Ti-555-NE555-real-vs-face-china-chinese

I have to say I'm quite impressed.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Would be curious to see if it really is them trying to make a duplicate that would function nearly identically (at a low level, meaning it will work, so for people that don't know better it would seem to be working, but people that could properly test it would know). But aren't a lot of fakes just different chips (meaning they're not actually putting any engineering into the knockoff chip; as in they're producing a bunch of TI chips, they can just take cheaper ones and mark them as the higher ones)? That's even cheaper and easier. Judging by the pics, that would be my guess, is its some other chip being passed off, and it is similar enough that it meets the basic functionality. Or even subpar ones that wouldn't pass QC. That's where a lot of the fake thumb drives were, chips that wouldn't pass the QC (so didn't offer the full capacity claimed, they'd just make the software report like it was).

Guess it could be them actually doing their own design and peddling it as the real name brand one. There's lots of knockoff chips that are reverse engineered and likely would offer the capability, but they're likely not going to apply nearly as rigorous of QC and testing, meaning a lot of variance.