Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about manufacturing in China:

1. What does Titoma stand for?
2. Which kind of products are suitable for China Manufacturing?
3. Will manufacturing in China save me money?
4. How much will it cost to develop a new product?
5. Is it possible to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Titoma?
6. Technical, Manufacturing & Shipping terms acronyms

1. What does Titoma stand for?

Time To Market

Return to the top of the page

2. Which kind of products are suitable for China manufacturing?

We use 4 criteria:

• Quantity: Volume is king in China, and lot size is the first thing we will need to know. In general outsourcing makes only sense when the order size is at least a container, order amount at least US$5,000, below that transport and management overheads are too high.
• Labor Intensity: The more labor involved in assembling and packaging the product the more money we can save you.
• Electronic components: The majority of the world’s electronics are now made in Asia, due to its extremely rich cluster of suppliers of electronic components. If your product currently is built with plenty of branded Western components, we can save you a lot of money using local equivalents.
• Tooling intensity: We can save you a significant amount of money on tooling; so if tooling amortization is high because you make only 1500 units a year you should talk to us.

Return to the top of the page

3. Will manufacturing in China save me money?

We always advise our client to analyze the Total Cost of production, being unit costs, management costs, cost of delayed shipments, cost of non-conforming units etc.

Some people delude themselves thinking that they are saving 50% buying in China, forgetting to account the cost and time they incur invest every time they have fly over to sort out some problem.

In general the quantity / dollar value has to be high enough to make it worth the extra management time and attention that is invariably required.

Return to the top of the page

4. How much will it cost to develop a new product?

Costs will depend on the complexity of the product you want to develop. For a simple computer mouse-like device, you can expect to pay a minimum of $35,000 on non-recurring work, which includes engineering, tooling (for the housing of the device), prototyping, and certifications. Whereas we have projects that run in excess of $100,000. And, if you haven't already heard, volume is king in China, so expect to have a MOQ (minimum order quantity) for your production runs. Ordering in greater quantities also makes sense to amortize development costs; incidentally, electronic component suppliers (for LCDs, boards, memory, etc.) won't be too interested in your project and will charge higher prices if the quantity you want doesn't meet their MOQ.

Return to the top of the page

5. Is it possible to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Titoma?

Yes. Protection of the confidentiality of your project is very important to us. With most clients we sign an NDA prior to receiving any confidential information. Please click here to download a copy of our standard NDA.

Please fill out your information and sign, then fax it to us at 886 2 2727 4689. We will counter sign and fax back as soon as possible.

Return to the top of the page

6. General technical, manufacturing, & shipping acronyms:

• BB - Barebones
• CDMA - Code division multiple access
• CIF - Cost, Insurance & Freight (link to Glossary of shipping terms)
• CMTS - Cable modem termination system
• CNC - Computer Numerical Control
• Combos - a hybrid model of CD-RW burner and DVD-ROM drive
• DECT - Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications
• DSC - Digital still camera
• DSLAMs - Digital subscriber line access multiplexers
• Drs - DVD receivers
• FOB - Free on Board (link to Glossary of shipping terms)
• GPRS - (General packet radio service) mobile phone handsets
• IA - Internet Appliances
• IC - Integrated circuits
• L/C - Letter of Credit. It’s a bank's promise that a shipment of goods will be paid for on arrival (link to Glossary of shipping terms)
• LCOS - Liquid crystal on silicon
• MB - Motherboards
• MCU - Micro-controller units
• MSOs - Multiple system operators
• NB - Notebook Computers
• OBM - Own Brand Manufacturing
• OEM/ODM - Contract Manufacturing for others
• OLED - Organic light emitting diode (panels)
• Palms - Palm mini-computers (like PalmPilot, for example)
• PAS - Personal access system
• PCB - Printed Circuit Board
• PCI - Peripheral Component Interface
• PDA - Personal Digital Assistant
• PS2 - PlayStation2
• SMT - Surface Mount Technology
• SoC - Silicon on Chip or System on Chip
• STB - Set-top Boxes
• STN - Super-twisted nematic (LCD module)
• T/T - Telegraphic Transfer
• VGA - Video Graphics Adapter
• WLAN - Wireless LAN

Definition of acronyms frequently used in embedded development

ADC
Asynchronous Display Controller

API
Application Programming Interface

ARM®
Advanced RISC Machines processor architecture

AUDMUX Digital audio MUX
Provides a programmable interconnection for voice, audio, and synchronous data routing between host serial interfaces and peripheral serial interfaces

BCD
Binary Coded Decimal

bus
A path between several devices through data lines

bus load
The percentage of time a bus is busy

CODEC Coder/decoder or compression/decompression algorithm
Used to encode and decode (or compress and decompress) various types of data

CPU Central Processing Unit
Generic term used to describe a processing core

CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
Bit error protection method for data communication

CSI
Camera Sensor Interface

DFS
Dynamic Frequency Scaling

DMA Direct Memory Access
An independent block that can initiate memory-to-memory data transfers

DPM
Dynamic Power Management

DRAM
Dynamic Random Access Memory

DVFS
Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling

EMI External Memory Interface
Controls all IC external memory accesses (read/write/erase/program) from all the masters in the system

Endian
Refers to byte ordering of data in memory.: little endian means that the least significant byte of the data is stored in a lower address than the most significant byte, in big endian, the order of the bytes is reversed

EPIT Enhanced Periodic Interrupt Timer
A 32-bit set and forget timer capable of providing precise interrupts at regular intervals with minimal processor intervention

FCS
Frame Checker Sequence

FIFO
First In First Out

Flash
A non-volatile storage device similar to EEPROM, where erasing can only be done in blocks or the entire chip.

Flash path
Path within ROM bootstrap pointing to an executable Flash application

Flush Procedure to reach cache coherency
Refers to removing a data line from cache. This process includes cleaning the line, invalidating its VBR and resetting the tag valid indicator. The flush is triggered by a software command

GPIO
General Purpose Input/Output

I/O
Input/Output

ICE
In-Circuit Emulation

IPU Image Processing Unit
Supports video and graphics processing functions and provides an interface to video/still image sensors and displays

IrDA Infrared Data Association
A nonprofit organization whose goal is to develop globally adopted specifications for infrared wireless communication

ISR
Interrupt Service Routine

JTAG JTAG (IEEE Standard 1149.1)
A standard specifying how to control and monitor the pins of compliant devices on a printed circuit board

Kill Abort
A memory access

KPP KeyPad Port
16-bit peripheral used as a keypad matrix interface or as general purpose input/output (I/O) line Refers to a unit of information in the cache that is associated with a tag

LRU Least Recently Used
A policy for line replacement in the cache

MMU Memory Management Unit
A component responsible for memory protection and address translation

MQSPI Multiple Queue Serial Peripheral Interface
Used to perform serial programming operations necessary to configure radio subsystems and selected peripherals

MSHC
Memory Stick Host Controller

NAND Flash Flash ROM technology
NAND Flash architecture is one of two flash technologies (the other being NOR) used in memory cards such as the Compact Flash cards. NAND is best suited to flash devices requiring high capacity data storage. NAND flash devices offer storage space up to 512-Mbyte and offers faster erase, write, and read capabilities over NOR architecture

PLL Phase Locked Loop
An electronic circuit controlling an oscillator so that it maintains a constant phase angle (a lock) on the frequency of an input, or reference, signal

RAM
Random Access Memory

RAM path
Path within ROM bootstrap leading to the downloading and the execution of a RAM application

RNGA Random Number Generator Accelerator
A security hardware module that produces 32-bit pseudo random numbers as part of the security module

ROM
Read Only Memory

Bootstrap
Internal boot code encompassing the main boot flow as well as exception vectors

RTIC Real-time integrity checker
A security hardware module

SCC SeCurity Controller
A security hardware module

SDMA
Smart Direct Memory Access

SDRAM
Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory

SoC
System on a Chip

SPBA Shared Peripheral Bus Arbiter
A three-to-one IP-Bus arbiter, with a resource-locking mechanism

SPI Serial Peripheral Interface
A full-duplex synchronous serial interface for connecting low-/medium-bandwidth external devices using four wires. SPI devices communicate using a master/slave relationship over two data lines and two control lines

SRAM
Static Random Access Memory

SSI Synchronous-Serial Interface
Standardized interface for serial data transfer

UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter
Asynchronous serial communication to external devices

UID Unique ID
A field in the processor and CSF identifying a device or group of devices

USB Universal Serial Bus
An external bus standard that supports high speed data transfers. The USB 1.1 specification supports data transfer rates of up to 12Mb/s and USB 2.0 has a maximum transfer rate of 480 Mbps. A single USB port can be used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices, such as mice, modems, and keyboards. USB also supports Plug-and-Play installation and hot plugging

USBOTG USB On The Go
An extension of the USB 2.0 specification for connecting peripheral devices to each other.

USBOTG devices, (dual-role peripherals)
Can act as limited hosts or peripherals themselves depending on how the cables are connected to the devices, and they also can connect to a host PC word A group of bits comprising 32 bits

Return to the top of the page

Web Resources

UGA Internet guideThe country and keyword based internet guide from Europe

Plastics.org Trade organization for the US plastics industry. Informational resource on polymer materials, processes and technologies.

Welcome to GEPLASTICS.COM Manufactures a range of engineering plastic resins including Lexan polycarbonate, ABS and other specialized resins for demanding applications.

Plastics Resource Information on plastics and the environment.

Society of Plastics Engineers A network of plastics professionals around the world promoting the knowledge and education of plastics and polymers.

Plastics Technology Online Source of Technical and Business Information for Plastics Processors.Providing material specification database and supplier listing.

Plastics News - Breaking News Crain's international information source for the plastics industry.

Modern Plastics Offers global perspective on plastic news and developments. Provides news and pricing information.

TAP Plastics Provides fiberglass, plastic and signage products. Specialize in fiberglass resins and fabrics, mold-making supplies, and casting and sculpting products.

British Plastics Federation Trade federation for the UK plastics and polymer industry dealing with environmental issues, plastic statistics and trade, polymer seminars and events.

SPI - The Society of the Plastics Industry The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. is a trade association of nearly 2000 members.

UK Business Directory

Kyotee UK Business Directory

Books on China

Mr. China: A Memoir
by Tim Clissold

Poorly made in China
by Paul Midler

A Year Without Made in China
by Sara Bongiorni

One Billion Customers
by James McGregor

Operation China: From Strategy to Execution
by Jimmy Hexter and Jonathan Woetzel

Managing the Design Factory
by Donald Reinertsen

42 Rules for Sourcing and manufacturing in China
by Rosemary Coates

Harvard Business Review on Doing Business in China
by Rick Yan and Kenneth Libeberthal

Developing Products at Half the Time
by Preston Smith

Winning at New Products
by Robert Cooper