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When Your Component Is Unavailable: Alternates, Last Buys, and Counterfeits 10 www.cadence.com When instant obsolescence occurs, the options narrow immediately to three: f Secondary market sourcing: independent distributors and brokers may hold existing stock, but at premium prices and with the full counterfeit risk covered in Section 4. The evaluation framework in Section 4.4 applies without exception. f Immediate redesign: if the component is sole-sourced with no form-fit-function alternate and secondary market stock is insufficient, a redesign is the only remaining path. An unplanned redesign under production pressure costs significantly more than a planned one. f PCB interposer: where a functional equivalent with a different footprint exists, a custom-designed interposer can bridge the difference without a full board spin. This is faster and less expensive when the rest of the design is stable. The only effective mitigation is identifying components at risk before the transition occurs. An NRND status change is the most reliable early indicator. When a component moves from Active to NRND, alternate identification and qualification should begin immediately, even without a formal EOL date. A component that does not receive a formal EOL notice may not receive an LTB window either. 4. Counterfeit Risk: What Engineers Actually Need to Know In 2024, ERAI recorded 1,055 suspect counterfeit and nonconforming electronic components, a 25 percent increase over 2023 and the highest total since 2015. Two findings from that data challenge the most common assumptions about counterfeit risk. First, active components readily available through authorized distribution accounted for more than a quarter of all counterfeit reports and were reported more than twice as often as active components on long lead times. Scarcity does not drive counterfeiting. Second, 85.2 percent of parts reported in 2024 were new to the ERAI database. A component with no prior counterfeit history is not a lower-risk component. Source: ERAI 2024 Annual Report. The practical implication: counterfeit risk is not confined to non-authorized sourcing under allocation pressure. It requires active mitigation regardless of channel, and the standard of verification should not vary based on whether the part is in shortage. Figure 3: (Source: ERAI 2024 Annual Report) The assumption that counterfeit risk concentrates in obsolete or long lead-time parts does not hold. Analog ICs, Microprocessor ICs, and Memory ICs, all mainstream catalog components, account for nearly two-thirds of suspect counterfeit reports, and 27% involve parts that are actively available through standard channels.

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