[sigterm]

Whoever is in charge of sourcing for life-critical application and let the sketchy part slip in should be held responsible for it.

>the parts aren't "junk"

You don't know for sure. How likely is it that the manufacturer of the knock-off part performed full characterization of their chip to ensure they are within spec limits of the original manufacturer? What if the chip starts sending wrong bits when the temperature gets a bit high or voltage supply fluctuates somewhat? Don't you think getting disabled by driver might even be a less disastrous failure mode in this case?