Goertek

 

Our partnership with Goertek dates back to 2006 - almost 20 years now. Back then, Goertek wasn't the global consumer electronics leader it is today, focusing mainly on acoustic components and precision structural parts. We supplied precision metal dome components for their feature phone keypads. We've grown right alongside them over the years, watching them expand from phone accessories to TWS earbuds, smartwatches, and VR devices, and our dome solutions have evolved generation after generation right along with them. It's fair to say we grew up together.

 

The consumer electronics industry lives or dies by the details. That's especially true for TWS earbuds and wearables. They keep getting smaller and more powerful, and the demands on internal components get more and more extreme. Metal domes seem like a trivial part, but they're the heart of keypad interaction. The user feels every press immediately - if the feel is off, if it wears out fast, if it stops working, people notice right away.

 

Goertek has a reputation in the industry for extremely strict reliability requirements. When they came to us to deepen our partnership, they had one core goal: raise product MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and bring down after-sales repair rates.

 

This was right as TWS earbuds started taking off. Goertek was doing OEM work for several top global brands, and the multi-function buttons on the earbuds used miniature metal domes. But the industry had a persistent problem with tiny domes: at 3mm or smaller, stamping precision is hard to control. Tactile feel varies a lot between batches. Earbuds also operate in tough conditions - sweat, temperature swings, dust - all of which wear down dome lifespan. Many earbuds developed stiff buttons or intermittent contact after six months of use, and repair rates stayed stubbornly high.

 

When we got the requirements, we put together a dedicated wearable product team to build a fully optimized solution built specifically for TWS earbuds and smartwatches. The first problem to solve was balancing feel and lifespan in such a small form factor.

We already had a full lineup ofmini round metal dome sizes: 2.5mm, 3mm, 3.5mm, like our B25 and B30 series. But even those were pushing the limits for earbud applications, both on space constraints and feel firmness.

 

The R&D team started with the material. We custom-ordered anti-aging high-elasticity stainless steel strip with 40% better fatigue resistance than standard material, plus better sweat corrosion resistance. Then we refined the stamping process for precision. For tiny domes, tooling accuracy is everything - a difference of a few microns changes the feel and travel completely. We upgraded our tooling precision from 0.01mm to 0.005mm and switched to servo high-precision stamping presses with pressure control accurate to 0.1 ton, ensuring the forming curvature of every single dome is identical.

 

For three months, the team practically lived in the workshop, adjusting tools under microscopes and measuring parameters over and over. Finally, we got our 2.5mm miniature dome to a consistent click ratio above 50%, a 500,000-cycle lifespan, and batch-to-batch actuation force variation of no more than ±15g - well above the industry average.

 

But hitting performance specs wasn't enough. The parts had to hold up in real-world conditions. Our in-house environmental lab already ran full reliability testing, and we added extra test items specifically for wearable use cases: artificial sweat salt spray tests for 48 hours, with no significant change in feel or contact resistance afterward; thermal cycling from -20°C to 60°C to simulate winter outdoor and summer in-car temperatures; and dust testing to make sure buttons don't stick from everyday dust buildup.

 

I remember one time the client reported that a batch of earbuds occasionally developed intermittent button contact after long use in high-humidity southern China. We analyzed the returned units and found that high humidity plus user sweat had formed an extremely thin oxide layer on the dome surface, raising contact resistance.

 

Once we identified the cause, we quickly optimized the plating process. We added a thin localized gold layer on top of the nickel plating, which stepped up conductivity and corrosion resistance at the contact point dramatically. After that improvement, the same issue never came up again, and the client's after-sales repair rate dropped by 15% directly.

 

On the production side, we run exceptionally tight QC. Goertek requires incoming defect rates under 100 PPM. We set our internal target at 50 PPM. How do we hit it? Full automation. With our in-house developed CCD visual inspection systems and automated assembly and testing machines, every wearable device tactile switch goes through four checks: dimensional inspection, appearance inspection, force testing, and continuity testing. Anything out of spec gets automatically rejected. Every finished batch also goes through full lifecycle and reliability sampling, with complete test reports the client can access anytime. After all these years, the batch defect rate for our shipments to Goertek has stayed steady around 30 PPM - well below their requirement.

 

This partnership has never been just about supplying parts. It's deep joint R&D. Our R&D teams hold quarterly technical syncs to align roadmaps and solve problems together. For example, for low-power TWS requirements, we co-optimized the dome contact point structure to lower contact resistance, reducing power draw during button presses by 20% and squeezing out a little extra battery life. We also co-developed anti-aging component technology, testing over a dozen material formulas before earning a joint patent that's now used in multiple flagship earbud models.

 

Today, our high reliability metal dome solutions are deployed in over 50 million end devices through Goertek, across TWS earbuds, smartwatches, VR controllers, portable speakers and more. The client's product MTBF is up over 30%, and end-user return rates are down 22%. That's what we're most proud of. A lot of people think metal domes are a trivial component with no real technology behind them. But the smaller the part, the harder it is to perfect.

 

A couple years ago, when Goertek expanded into automotive electronics, we were the first supplier they thought of. They knew if we could hold this level of precision for consumer electronics, we'd be even more rigorous for automotive grade. Now that we have our IATF16949 certification, we supply four-leg metal domes for Goertek's automotive programs, all tested to automotive-grade reliability standards - including the wide -40°C to 125°C operating temperature range - and we've passed every validation.

 

Twenty years in, we're far more than just a vendor and a buyer. We're partners, side by side. When the client pushes forward into new markets, we're right there with them, developing the right solutions. Consumer electronics moves fast and competition is fierce, but if you build solid products and sweat the details, there will always be a place for you.