Reply #36: You have the "correct" facts, but the wrong conclusions.

[AdHocSolver]

It is true that IC's are manufactured with redundant parts to allow for bad components in any given batch.

Each IC is tested and if any part of the circuit is found to be bad, that part of the IC is blocked and isolated by the chip manufacturer so that it is effectively removed from the chip.

Once the IC chip is inserted in the device, printer, monitor, or whatever, and programmed, a failure in a single gate in a register or control circuit can cause the functionality to fail. The software can have subtle bugs that show up only under certain conditions (that is true for practically all software). The more complex the software, the more likely it has not been completely debugged.

Complex equipment that is expensive to replace is usually designed to be "economically" repairable. Parts costs are usually inexpensive. The labor costs can be high because one needs expensive test equipment and service manuals to find and fix the problems, and it often takes a lot of time. You don't toss a device that costs $3,000 or $4,000 because one IC chip fails.

On the other hand, two years ago, I "tossed" a $100 ink jet printer that failed catastrophically less than a year after I bought it. I had bought it from Best Buy and had paid for the extended warranty. I took it in for repair, and they called me a week later, and said it was unrepairable because the manufacturer didn't even have replacement parts for it. They sold me another printer for the difference in price from the broken model, but only because I had purchased their extended warranty. If I had relied on the manufacturer's warranty (one year parts, 90 days labor) I would have had nothing to show for my purchase.

For want of a $2.00 IC chip, the printer case, print head assembly, ink cartridges (two new ones I had installed shortly before it failed) paper tray and paper feed mechanism "went to the land fill". That is wasteful, and it happened because the manufacturer decided it was cheaper FOR IT to toss the unit rather than make it repairable.

This kind of occurrence happens again and again everyday with all kinds of items.

By the way, I worked as an electronics technician for over twenty years, and one transistor in an IC chip can fail and cause the entire device to stop working.