A practical glossary for buyers working with Chinese electronics manufacturers — product categories, factory jargon, certifications, and shipping terms.
If you're new to sourcing electronics from China, you'll encounter a wall of abbreviations in your first few supplier conversations. BOM, MOQ, FOB, PCBA, AQL, RoHS — suppliers use these as shorthand because they communicate with buyers all day and assume a baseline familiarity. New buyers often nod along and look things up later, or worse, agree to terms they don't fully understand.
This glossary covers the ~80 terms you're most likely to encounter. It's organized by category so you can jump to the section you need. Bookmark it and come back to it — some of these only make sense in context, and context comes from actually being in conversations with factories.
Sourcing and commercial terms
BOM (Bill of Materials): the complete list of every component needed to build one unit of your product — part number, manufacturer, quantity, reference designator. A clean BOM is the starting point for any serious RFQ. Factories that accept vague BOMs will quote vague prices and deliver vague products.
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit): a unique identifier for a specific product variant. If you have a Bluetooth speaker in black, white, and red, those are three SKUs. Relevant in MOQ negotiations — factories often have per-SKU minimums, not just a total unit floor.
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer): you provide the design, specifications, and branding — the factory manufactures to your spec. Most custom electronics work is OEM. You own the IP; they own the production process.
ODM (Original Design Manufacturer): the factory has existing product designs you can license and rebrand. Faster to market and lower NRE (non-recurring engineering) cost, but you share the platform with other buyers and have limited differentiation. Common in consumer electronics like speakers, earbuds, and power banks.
OBM (Own Brand Manufacturer): the factory sells products under their own brand — not a sourcing relationship. You'd be buying their finished product as a retailer, not commissioning manufacturing.
MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity): the minimum units a factory will accept per order. MOQ is set by economics — tooling amortization, material procurement minimums, line changeover cost. It's negotiable within limits; a factory quoting 5,000 MOQ may accept 2,000 at a higher unit price.
NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement): a legal agreement protecting your design information before you share schematics, BOM, or other IP with a factory. Get this signed before sharing anything proprietary. In practice, enforcement in Chinese courts is difficult, but the NDA still establishes the relationship's terms and deters casual misappropriation.
NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering): one-time fees for tooling, mold creation, firmware customization, or design work the factory does specifically for your product. Paid upfront; not repeated on subsequent orders.
RFQ (Request for Quotation): a formal request you send to a factory asking for pricing. A good RFQ includes your BOM, required quantities (usually 3 volume tiers), target specifications, and packaging requirements. A vague RFQ gets a vague quote.
PI (Proforma Invoice): a preliminary invoice the factory issues before production, used for payment initiation and customs documentation. Not the same as a commercial invoice — the commercial invoice comes with the actual shipment.
Electronics product terms
PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly): a PCB with components already soldered on. When suppliers quote "PCBA," they mean the finished populated board, not a bare board. See the PCB assembly guide for what to verify in a PCBA quote.
FPC (Flexible Printed Circuit): a circuit board manufactured on flexible plastic film instead of rigid FR4. Used in wearables, foldable devices, and any product where the circuit needs to bend. Manufacturing tolerances are tighter than rigid PCBs; expect higher per-unit cost and more process scrutiny.
SMT (Surface Mount Technology): the dominant PCB assembly process — components are placed directly onto PCB pads and soldered in a reflow oven. The alternative is through-hole, used for larger components that need mechanical strength. Most modern electronics are SMT-dominant with some through-hole mixed in.
IC (Integrated Circuit): a chip. The generic term for any semiconductor component that performs a function — microcontrollers, memory, power management, communication chips all qualify. When a factory says "we have an issue with the IC," they mean a chip, and you need to find out which one.
MCU (Microcontroller Unit): a chip that runs your firmware — it has a processor, memory, and peripheral interfaces on a single die. The "brain" of embedded devices. Common families: STM32 (ST Microelectronics), ESP32 (Espressif), nRF52 series (Nordic Semiconductor).
SoC (System on Chip): a more integrated version of an MCU — integrates processor, memory, wireless radio, GPU, and other functions on a single die. Common in smartphones, smart speakers, and advanced wearables. More capable than an MCU but harder to source and more expensive.
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy): the low-power variant of Bluetooth used in IoT sensors, wearables, and beacons. A coin-cell battery can power a BLE sensor for 1–2 years. Not the same as classic Bluetooth — they're incompatible protocols, though most modern chips support both. See IoT modules and components for sourcing context.
LoRa (Long Range): a wireless protocol designed for long-range, low-bandwidth IoT applications — up to 10km in open terrain. Uses unlicensed sub-GHz spectrum. Common in agriculture sensors, industrial monitoring, and smart city deployments. LoRaWAN is the network protocol that runs over LoRa.
TWS (True Wireless Stereo): the technical name for wireless earbuds with no wire connecting the two earpieces. Each earbud has its own battery and radio. If a factory catalog says "TWS earbuds," they mean the standard truly wireless form factor.
NFC (Near Field Communication): short-range wireless (up to ~4cm) used in contactless payment, product authentication tags, and device pairing. If your product uses NFC, it needs FCC and CE certification specific to that radio.
BMS (Battery Management System): the circuit that manages lithium battery charging, discharging, cell balancing, and protection (overcharge, over-discharge, short circuit). Every lithium-battery product needs one. The BMS quality is often a key differentiator between products at similar price points.
LiPo (Lithium Polymer): the dominant rechargeable battery type in portable electronics — higher energy density and more flexible form factor than cylindrical Li-ion cells. Air shipment requires UN 38.3 certification and quantity limits.
GaN (Gallium Nitride): semiconductor material that has largely replaced silicon in high-efficiency power electronics. GaN chargers are smaller and run cooler than equivalent silicon designs. The "GaN charger" label on a product spec sheet is a real differentiator, not marketing.
Certification and compliance terms
FCC: Federal Communications Commission — the US regulator. Any device with a wireless radio (Bluetooth, WiFi, LoRa, NFC, cellular) sold in the US needs FCC authorization. Two main paths: FCC ID (tested by accredited lab, requires registration) or SDoC (Supplier's Declaration of Conformity, for lower-risk devices). Verify FCC IDs on the FCC database before accepting a factory's claim.
CE marking: European conformity mark — required to sell in EU markets. CE is not a single certification; it's a declaration that your product complies with all applicable EU directives (EMC, LVD, RED, RoHS, etc.). The factory doesn't apply CE — you (the importer) are responsible. A factory can help you get test reports, but the declaration is yours.
RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances): EU directive restricting lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and certain flame retardants in electronics. Almost all export electronics are RoHS-compliant by default; verify via test reports, not just a factory claim.
RED (Radio Equipment Directive): the EU directive specifically covering wireless devices. If your product has any radio, RED applies and must be addressed in CE compliance alongside EMC and safety directives.
REACH: EU chemical regulation affecting materials in components and products. Primarily matters for products with specialized coatings, certain plastics, or components manufactured without European supply chain visibility.
UN 38.3: battery safety testing protocol required for lithium batteries shipped by air. If your product contains a LiPo or Li-ion battery and you're air freighting, you need this documentation. Without it, your shipment won't board the plane.
IEC 62133: the safety standard for rechargeable batteries in portable electronics. Required for CE compliance of battery-containing products in the EU. Different from UN 38.3 (which is transport) — this is product safety.
IPC-A-610: the industry standard defining acceptable quality criteria for electronic assemblies — solder joint appearance, component placement, cleanliness. Class 1 is general electronics, Class 2 is industrial electronics, Class 3 is aerospace/medical. For consumer products, insist on Class 2. Ask your factory what class they work to; if they don't know the answer, that tells you something. See the IPC-A-610 wiki page for detailed acceptance criteria by class.
UL certification: US product safety certification from Underwriters Laboratories. Not legally required for most products (unlike FCC), but strongly expected by major US retailers. Consumer power products (chargers, power banks) are difficult to place with Amazon or big-box retailers without UL.
TELEC: Japanese wireless device certification, equivalent to FCC for Japan. Required for any product with wireless functionality sold in Japan. Testing is done by TELEC-accredited labs.
PSE: Japanese product safety certification (equivalent of CE for Japan), covering electrical safety. Required for many electrical products sold in Japan, including power supplies and battery products.
Factory and process jargon
AOI (Automated Optical Inspection): camera-based automated quality check that scans PCBs after soldering to detect missing components, solder bridges, tombstoning, and other defects. An AOI machine in a factory's SMT line is a basic quality infrastructure requirement — a factory without one is doing visual inspection by hand, which is slower and less consistent.
X-ray inspection: used to inspect hidden solder joints, primarily under BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages where the solder balls are not visible from the outside. A factory claiming BGA assembly capability without X-ray inspection is not doing it properly.
AQL (Acceptable Quality Level): the statistical sampling framework used to define how many defects in a sample are acceptable before rejecting a batch. AQL 2.5 is the standard for most consumer goods; AQL 1.0 is tighter (more samples, fewer tolerated defects). When negotiating inspection terms, specify the AQL level. See quality inspection for how this works in practice.
PPI (Pre-Production Inspection): quality check before manufacturing starts — verifying raw materials, components, and production setup match spec. Most overlooked by new buyers; most valuable because a problem caught here costs less to fix than one found at final inspection.
IPQC (In-Process Quality Control): quality checks conducted during manufacturing, not just at the end. A factory with real IPQC can catch problems while the production run is still in progress rather than discovering them on 10,000 finished units.
FRI (Final Random Inspection): quality check on finished goods before shipment, sampling randomly from the production lot. This is the standard "pre-shipment inspection" most buyers are familiar with. The factory audit checklist covers what to verify before you even get to this stage.
FCE (Factory Capability Evaluation): assessment of whether a factory has the equipment, processes, and personnel to manufacture your specific product. Distinct from a quality audit — it's asking "can they do this?" before "do they do it correctly?"
Packing List: the shipping document that lists every item in the shipment — carton count, carton dimensions, weights, product descriptions, quantities. Customs requires it. Discrepancies between the packing list and actual contents cause clearance delays.
HS Code (Harmonized System Code): the international product classification code used by customs agencies worldwide. Determines import duties and sometimes triggers regulatory requirements. Classifying your product under the wrong HS code creates customs problems; verify your HS code before your first shipment.
Shipping and logistics terms
FOB (Free on Board): the factory's responsibility ends when goods are loaded onto the ship at the origin port. You arrange freight and insurance from that point. Most export electronics quotes are FOB unless you negotiate otherwise.
EXW (Ex Works): the buyer is responsible for all logistics from the factory gate — including domestic China trucking to the port. More control, more complexity. Usually not worth it unless you have established China-side logistics.
DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): the seller (or your freight forwarder) handles everything including import duties and delivery to your warehouse. Simple for the buyer; more expensive, and you lose transparency on what the actual costs are.
DDU (Delivered Duty Unpaid): like DDP but the buyer pays import duties and taxes at destination. You get the simplicity of door-to-door shipping without paying the supplier's markup on duties.
LCL (Less than Container Load): your shipment shares container space with other cargo. Cheaper for small volumes but slower (consolidation and deconsolidation add days) and slightly higher damage risk.
FCL (Full Container Load): you rent the entire container. More cost-effective above roughly 15 CBM. You load and seal the container — no one else's cargo is in there.
CBM (Cubic Meter): the volume measurement unit for sea freight pricing. Your freight forwarder will quote you a per-CBM rate; calculate your shipment's CBM to estimate cost. Standard 20' container is ~25 CBM usable; 40' is ~55 CBM.
CTN: carton — a single shipping box. Factories label their shipments by carton count. "500 CTN" means 500 boxes.
ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival): the expected arrival date at the destination port. Sea freight from China to West Coast US is typically 18–22 days; to Europe (Rotterdam) is 25–30 days. Buffer 7–10 days for port handling, customs clearance, and drayage before you actually have the goods.
T/T (Telegraphic Transfer): wire transfer — the standard payment method for China manufacturing. Terms are typically 30% deposit before production, 70% balance before shipment (against copy of B/L). See China payment terms explained for how to structure payment safely.
Many of the terms in this glossary appear in context throughout our case studies. The EU startup Bluetooth speaker case, for example, touches on BOM management, AQL sampling, FCC/CE certification, FOB shipping terms, and T/T payment — all of the glossary categories in a single real-world project.
If you're new to sourcing from China and some of these terms came up in a supplier conversation, feel free to reach out — explaining these things is part of what we do.
