yup. like a decade ago we were working on a project. we could have gotten a mcu online for $2 that would do the job. obviously this is not certified and tested. the one that was approved for use was obsolete and discontinued. our company paid to have the obsolete chip remade to the exact specifications instead of testing and approving a new one. i don't know for sure, but i heard they were somewhere around $15,000 a chip to remake (around 100 chips total). the silliest thing is all of the red tape is internal, but we make it so hard and expensive to approve our own products that it's basically viewed as an impossible feat. i'm sure these other countries just test and slap shit together pretty quick and have a pretty lean revision process.
United States