IC Price Discrepancies (General Information)

There is a massive problem with counterfeit electronics, discretes and ICs. A quick search will show this to be the case. Counterfeiters will look at a) high volume, and b) high cost parts as that makes the most "commercial" sense for them. For the MAX7215, the volume is high. For the MAX6954, it's a bit less clear but to hazard a guess I'd say that that's banking on people choosing the MAX7215 because it's so much cheaper.

Your best bet is to buy through retailers, and not through AliExpress or eBay. This is no guarantee, but you're doing the best you can do personally. As to actually identifying a fake in your possession, it's very hard to do non-destructively. You usually only find out when something goes functionally wrong. If it's a hobby project, worst case is you have to replace some parts, but it's a huge issue when building critical appliances.

For example, here is a picture of the die in a fake MJ15004 power transistor. Note the tiny die - there's no way this will reach the rated power before it burns out! Credit to Elliott Sound for the image.

Any part can be a counterfeit; you must care about source you procure part from - if it will and can be held responsible for the quality of the parts they sell.

I personally always buy parts from such sources, even if I am offered tens of times cheaper with label "good quality". In my projects I need reliability, positive customer experience and least reworks on the hardware.

On mouser and digikey the hugely popular MAX7219 chips are 8 dollars each. On Aliexpress you can get them for around .60 cents each.

Popular parts will be much cheaper, otherwise people will turn to legitimate sources. Note that parts may not be counterfeit as is, they may be a surplus in production, or just stolen by the worker of the plant - so they may appear working properly. But most probably you will get some other chip remarked with one you need - needless to say the consequences of it. I have a friend sourcing from AliExpress, countless of times his designs did not work properly (or at all) and he had to refer to proper sources - losing money and time.

However the less popular MAX6954 are 30 dollars each on digikey, and the same price on aliexprss.

Also logical as they do not have these on their stock and will buy from Digikey or Mouser, and then send these parts to you (in the best case).

They're probably knock-offs (The MAX7219). The Maxim markings are unfortunate but probably fake.

You can find Chinese-original chips with a similar functionality for a very low price. There are very few volume makers who are going to be paying $5 or more for a simple LED driver chip.