Compliance
Semiconductors sit on control lists in several jurisdictions at once. A supplier who discovers a problem after tooling is paid for stops the line, and the loss lands on the customer. So we ask first.
Before we approach a supplier
End use and destination
We ask who the end customer is, in which country the product will be used, and what it will be used for. Data converters, clock and timing parts, amplifiers and mixers appear on heightened-priority lists, and any supplier we approach will screen them independently of us.
End-user statement
For anything on a controlled list, we ask for a signed statement. An enquiry that will not answer the destination question is one we close, and we close it in the first week rather than the sixth month.
Who is contracting
The contracting entity, its jurisdiction and the settlement route. This determines which suppliers can take the work at all.
Intellectual property
Your data
An NDA is signed before design data moves. Data goes to the assigned supplier only, and we name that supplier to you before it is sent.
Third-party die
We do not package another company's die under a customer's marking. This is counterfeiting, the major assembly houses reject it at intake compliance, and there is no route around their procedures.
Legitimate white-label
Where a customer wants a Chinese-developed die sold under their own name, that works — under a formal agreement with the die owner. The resulting part is a product in its own right with its own specification, not a copy of a reference part, and we will not describe it as one.
What we decline
Work we will not take
Orders with an undisclosed end user. Requests to reproduce a specific manufacturer's part pin-for-pin and sell it under that manufacturer's number. Marking that implies an authorisation the customer does not hold. Any arrangement whose purpose is to obscure where the parts are going.
Why this is in your interest too
A programme that fails compliance fails after the money is spent, not before. Screening at the enquiry stage costs a week. Screening at the qualification stage costs the programme.
We are not a licensing authority and we do not issue legal advice. Where a transaction needs an export licence or a legal opinion, you will need your own counsel. What we can do is refuse to walk you into a problem that was visible from the start.