Every little bit helps. Unfortunately, this PR is just another little bit.
The excerpt below is from a commentary about the economics of DNA marking.
A glimpse into the pricing of a license with ADNAS .
The DLA‘s “In house” marking program appears to be quite selective in their use of DNA marking. What was originally an industry mandate has been reduced to marking about
two hundred thousand items a year. Unable to force compliance, the DLA is now a customer, marking parts of its’ own choosing.
Since 2015 the DLA has marked four hundred thousand parts.
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September 2015
DLA officials had high hopes for the program in August 2012, when they directed suppliers of Federal Stock Class (FSC) 5962 microcircuits to begin using “SigNature DNA” technology, developed by 1. Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. of Stony Brook, N.Y. The company’s proprietary DNA-marking process generates a nearly unlimited number of unique botanical DNA sequences that, when mixed with ink and applied to products known to be authentic, give users a highly reliable way to identify genuine products. This emphasis on component traceability is also at the core of anti-counterfeiting efforts among distributors that sell to both the commercial and military industries.
Industry objections
Chipmakers and authorized distributors, however, loudly objected to the mandate’s additional cost, which included $49,000 to license the DNA ink (which the DLA initially reimbursed) and $500 for each unique DNA sequence used to mark different batches of parts.
Trade groups such as the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) also argued, in effect, that their members were not the ones at fault for the growing problem of counterfeit chips (see Counterfeit Chips are Getting Better, Despite Arrests), which can cause system failure or degraded performance when substituted for the actual specified components. In a November 2012 letter to the DLA, the SIA insisted that original component manufacturers (OCMs) and authorized distributors shouldn’t have to use the DNA marking process “because they do not produce or ship counterfeit products.”
