---
title: AS6081 and the Counterfeit Avoidance Standards Explained
description: AS6081 governs independent distribution. See how it differs from AS5553, AS6171, AS6496 and AS6174, what the testing covers and what certification cannot prove.
---

[Component Sense Blog](https://www.componentsense.com/blog)

# [AS6081 and the Counterfeit Avoidance Standards Explained](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/as6081-and-the-counterfeit-avoidance-standards)

 Written by [Vivian Trịnh](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/author/vivian-trinh) | 07-Oct-2026

Counterfeit reports fell in 2025 while semiconductor sales grew sharply. [ERAI](https://www.erai.com/erai_blog/3192/2025_annual_report), the industry's independent reporting body, logged 748 suspect counterfeit and nonconforming parts last year, down 29.1% from 2024, even as global semiconductor sales rose 25.57% over the same period.

Just over a third of everything reported, 36.15%, was an active part rather than an obsolete one, and ERAI notes that over a third of reported parts were available for purchase through authorised channels. Counterfeit risk is not confined to the hard-to-find.

**AS6081 is the SAE standard governing how independent distributors avoid, detect, mitigate and dispose of counterfeit electronic parts bought on the open market. It sits alongside AS5553 for manufacturers and AS6171 for test laboratories, and together the three describe a chain of responsibility from the buyer's purchase order down to the test bench.**

## What Is AS6081?

AS6081 is the counterfeit avoidance standard written for independent distribution. Its current revision, [AS6081A-2023](https://blog.ansi.org/anab/what-is-as6081/), carries the formal title "Counterfeit Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical (EEE) Parts: Avoidance, Detection, Mitigation, and Disposition, Independent Distribution", and it sets requirements for anyone buying, receiving and reselling parts on the open market.

The scope exclusion matters as much as the scope. AS6081 does not apply to system integrators, OEMs, authorised distributors, or aftermarket manufacturers buying directly from the original component manufacturer. The standard is written specifically around open-market transactions, which is what that exclusion marks out.

In practice, the standard requires documented incoming inspection and test regimes, segregation, and controlled access for suspect parts, independent verification testing, and defined disposition so that a confirmed counterfeit is destroyed rather than returned to circulation.

## AS5553 vs AS6081

AS5553 and AS6081 are sister standards covering opposite ends of the same transaction. AS5553 governs the organisation that designs and builds the product. AS6081 governs the distributor it buys from when the authorised channel cannot supply.

The two link together deliberately. An AS5553-compliant manufacturer requires its open-market suppliers to demonstrate equivalent control, and AS6081 is how a distributor evidences that control.

| **Standard** | **Who it applies to** | **What it covers** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| AS5553 | OEMs, integrators and manufacturers | Avoiding and detecting counterfeit parts in the products they design and build |
| AS6081 | Independent distributors and brokers | Buying, receiving and reselling parts purchased on the open market |
| AS6171 | Test laboratories | Test methods and risk-based evaluation for suspect parts |
| AS6496 | Authorised and franchised distributors | Authorised distribution, including product returned by customers |
| AS6174 | Materiel buyers beyond electronics | Counterfeit materiel other than EEE parts |

Reading that table as a chain is the fastest way to understand it. An AS5553 manufacturer buys from an AS6081 distributor, which uses a laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 to run tests specified by AS6171.

**AS6081 vs AS9100 & AS9120**

AS9100 is a quality management standard that covers how a business runs as a whole: planning, document control, supplier management, traceability, training and continual improvement. Revision D, published in 2016, added a specific requirement to prevent counterfeit parts. That requirement sits within the wider system. The standard sets the expectation, and each certified business decides how to meet it.

AS9120 is the version of AS9100 written for distributors. It follows the same structure, including the same counterfeit prevention requirement, but leaves out the parts that only apply to manufacturing, such as design and production processes. The current revision, AS9120B, was also published in 2016.

AS6081 is narrower, and it deals with one problem: counterfeits. Which matters more depends on where the parts come from. AS6081 was designed for distributors buying on the open market, where a part may have passed through many hands.

## How AS6081 Uses AS6171 to Test Suspect Parts

AS6081 sets out when a distributor must test a part. AS6171 sets out how. Since the 2023 revision, AS6081 refers to AS6171 for its test methods rather than defining its own. Laboratories running those methods are typically accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, which confirms that the equipment and analysts are competent to produce results.

The sequence is progressive, moving from cheap and non-destructive towards expensive and destructive. Work by [Bhanu Sood and Diganta Das at the University of Maryland's Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering](https://www.electronics.org/system/files/technical_resource/E6%26S22_02.pdf) (CALCE) sets out the same escalation in detail.

1. **Incoming inspection.** Shipping documentation, humidity indicator cards, ESD packaging and the certificate of conformance.
2. **External visual inspection.** An optical microscope at 30X or better, checking marking permanence, pin-1 cavity, surface texture and terminations. Marking permanency uses a solvent test specified in MIL-STD-883.
3. **X-ray inspection.** Non-destructive, revealing missing bond wires, wrong die dimensions and contamination.
4. **Material characterisation.** X-ray fluorescence, energy dispersive spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy and thermal analysis, comparing the suspect part's materials against a known-good reference.
5. **Packaging evaluation.** Scanning acoustic microscopy to JEDEC J-STD-035, finding delamination, voids and cracks.
6. **Die inspection.** Destructive, exposing the die to check manufacturer markings and interconnection integrity against the package markings.

### Limits of AS6171 Testing

The CALCE work is blunt about the limit. Visual inspection alone cannot detect counterfeit parts, particularly where markings use quality inks or laser marking, and a repackaged component can pass electrical test while carrying latent defects that surface in the field.

Cost is the second constraint. A full evaluation requires equipment and expertise spread across multiple locations, and the authors note the total can approach or exceed the value of the component being tested. Testing is described as a tool of last resort supporting good supply chain management rather than substituting for it.

New methods are working on that gap. [Research at Cranfield University,](https://www.lrfoundation.org.uk/combating-counterfeit-electronic-components) funded by the Lloyd's Register Foundation, has developed RECBIT, a technique using infrared thermography and principal component analysis to produce a thermal signature that separates genuine parts from fakes without destroying them. The Foundation puts the cost of counterfeit components to businesses at around $250 billion a year.

## AS6496 and AS6174

AS6496 covers authorised and franchised distribution, and it matters most for the product a customer has returned, since that inventory leaves the authorised chain and comes back into it.

AS6174 covers counterfeit materiel more broadly, under the SAE title "Counterfeit Materiel; Assuring Acquisition of Authentic and Conforming Materiel". Buyers encounter it in procurement documentation, and its number is one digit off from AS6171 while addressing a different problem.

## What AS6081 Certification Proves

Certification proves a process was audited. It does not prove any individual part is genuine, and treating a certificate as a guarantee is how buyers get caught.

ERAI's 2025 data makes the point from an unexpected direction. Independent distributors filed 48.26% of all reports last year, and third-party test laboratories filed another 32.17%. The organisations closest to the standards are the ones filing the most reports.

The same report logged 60.02% of reported parts as obsolete devices, with programmable logic ICs alone accounting for more than 15% of everything reported. Obsolete devices are the largest reported category by some margin, and they are the ones a team ends up buying at short notice, which is why [scrubbing the BOM before a design freezes](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/bom-scrubbing) does more for counterfeit risk than any test after the fact.

ERAI has also documented falsified test reports in which the documentation, rather than the part, was counterfeit. A certificate is evidence, not proof.

## Counterfeit Parts and the Open Market

AS6081 is written for open-market transactions, and its scope excludes organisations buying directly from the original manufacturer.

That exclusion points to the structural answer. Component Sense does not buy on the open market. Every part we hold comes from the excess inventory of a tier-one OEM or EMS manufacturer, bought directly from the company that originally purchased it through the authorised channel, with chain-of-custody documentation back to that purchase. Those parts do not pass through the broker market, which is the route AS6081 is written to control.

Provenance still gets verified rather than assumed. Our [13-step inspection process](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/step-by-step-guide-to-component-senses-inspection-process) runs for at least 40 minutes per line in an ESD-controlled warehouse, working outward from the packaging and labels to the component itself under a Keyence microscope at up to 6000x. Inspectors look for the same evidence a laboratory would, including remarking, top coating applied over original markings, solder on lead ends showing prior use, and re-balling residue on BGAs. Anything raising even a slight question fails and goes to quarantine for XRF and decapping.

That process is behind our 100% counterfeit-free guarantee and the 12-month warranty on every part. We hold AS9120, ASACB and ISO 9001 certifications, and we have redistributed more than 64 million components this way.

Our guide to [buying safely on the secondary market](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/secondary-market-safety-101) sets out a seven-point supplier check, and our explainer on the [electronics grey market](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/what-is-the-electronics-grey-market) covers what separates a safe open-market transaction from a risky one.

[View full post](https://www.componentsense.com/blog/as6081-and-the-counterfeit-avoidance-standards)

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