Sigenics

What Sigenics does

Sigenics, Inc. is a private, fabless custom integrated circuit (ASIC) design house founded in December 2000 and headquartered in Chicago, IL with a West Coast design center in Los Osos, CA. The company offers full turnkey ASIC services for sensor, analog, and mixed-signal applications — spanning specification development, schematic design, physical layout, prototype tapeout, production mask purchase, and production testing — and complements these services with reverse-engineering and obsolete-part replacement work. Its technology stack leverages an in-house engineering team and partnerships with external foundries, supported by a portfolio of proprietary IP including wireless power/data links, IC encapsulation methods, and the S5800 Class-E resonant power converter controller.

The firm's commercial model combines quote-based Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) fees with per-die production revenue, optimized for annual production volumes between 10,000 and 1 million units, with no required minimum order quantity. Customers are concentrated across four verticals — Medical, Military & Aerospace, Industrial, and Obsolete Part Replacement — and engagements span commercial ASIC services as well as grant-funded research programs. Notable medical programs include the Intracortical Visual Prosthesis (ICVP) consortium (NIH BRAIN Initiative; first human implant 2022), the Implantable Myoelectric Sensor (IMES) for prosthetic control, and a trigeminal nerve stimulator for cluster headaches; aerospace work includes Foveated Vision CMOS imaging arrays for NASA and Mil-Std 883 screened ASICs. Distribution is primarily direct enterprise sales supplemented by a public ASIC Cost Calculator lead-generation tool and an AnySilicon marketplace partnership.

Market positioning is reinforced by a dense certification stack (ISO 9001:2015 since 2010, AS9100, ITAR since 2014, QMED, GMP) that enables participation in regulated medical and defense supply chains, and by a granted patent estate of 16+ inventions spanning neural stimulation/recording, inductive power and data links, and Class-E power conversion. The company is founder-led — Dr. Philip R. Troyk (President & CEO), Douglas A. Kerns (CTO), and Glenn A. DeMichele (Director of Engineering) — with operating support from COO Jennie Gunnerson and CFO Beth Kerns, and remains privately held with no disclosed venture financing or acquisition history.

Name

Sigenics

Legal name

Sigenics, Inc.

Website

http://www.sigenics.com/

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Sigenics is a privately held, fabless custom ASIC design house in Chicago providing full turnkey sensor, analog, and mixed-signal integrated circuit design and production services to medical, military/aerospace, industrial, and obsolete-part-replacement customers, with deep neurostimulation and wireless power IP.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Custom ASIC Design and Manufacturing

NAICS

Semiconductor and Other Electronic Component Manufacturing (33441), Instrument Manufacturing for Measuring and Testing Electricity and Electrical Signals (334515)

SIC

Electronic Components, Nec (3679), Instruments For Meas & Testing Of Electricity & Elec Signals (3825)

akta.pro primary industry

Custom & Application-Specific ASIC Design Services (HDAHABAJ)

akta.pro secondary industries

Design Services & ASIC/SoC Implementation (EDA-Adjacent) (HDAHAFAL), Analog & Mixed-Signal ICs (HDAHAAAD)

Keywords

• Custom ASIC design
• Mixed-signal integrated circuits
• Medical implant electronics
• Aerospace ASIC solutions
• Obsolete part replacement

Headquarters

HQ city

Chicago

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Full Turnkey ASIC Services: Sigenics provides complete ASIC development services from specification through production. This includes specification development, schematic design, physical layout, prototype tapeout, production mask set purchase, production test development, and ongoing production. Revenue is generated through Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) fees and per-unit production die costs.
2. ASIC Design-Only Services: Sigenics also offers standalone ASIC design services for clients who may handle their own manufacturing. Projects can involve ASIC designs only without full turnkey silicon chip production.
3. Obsolete Part Replacement: Reverse engineering services for obsolete parts across various industries, providing form, fit, and function replacements for outdated devices.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Sigenics designs, tests, and delivers custom Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) for sensor, analog, and mixed-signal applications, providing full turnkey services from specification development through schematic design, physical layout, prototype fabrication, and production testing. The company serves Medical, Military & Aerospace, Industrial, and Obsolete Part Replacement markets, operating fablessly with in-house engineering and external foundry partners. It also offers standalone ASIC design services and reverse-engineering for obsolete semiconductor parts.

Product overview

Sigenics provides full turnkey custom ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design and manufacturing services, primarily serving Medical, Aerospace, Industrial, and Military markets. The core offering is custom ASIC design with in-house engineering, test facilities, and manufacturing partners. Supporting the ASIC services are two online calculator tools: the ASIC Cost Calculator (for NRE and production cost estimation) and the Class-E Calculator (for power converter design). The company has also developed proprietary chip products including the S5800 Class E Controller Chip for wireless power applications, the IMES (Implantable Myoelectric Sensor) for prosthetic limb control, and cortical visual prosthesis electronics for the ICVP project. Services extend to obsolete part replacement through reverse engineering. The company operates fabless, using external foundry partners for wafer fabrication.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Full Turnkey Custom ASIC Design and Manufacturing
• ASIC Design-Only Services

Quantifiable outcome

• 40-60% reduction in development costs using ASIC approach vs. traditional component-based designs
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• AnySiliconminorGTM or Marketing Partner · 23 June 2022Sigenics partnered with AnySilicon, the leading marketplace for ASIC service providers. AnySilicon announced that Sigenics, an ISO 9001:2015 certified company specializing in designing, testing and delivering custom integrated circuits, joined AnySilicon to promote its design services.
• Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 3 March 2017IIT is the lead institution in the $11.8M ICVP (Intracortical Visual Prosthesis) NIH grant project. Sigenics CEO Phil Troyk is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at IIT and Executive Director of the Pritzker Institute of Biomedical Science and Engineering. IIT provides research infrastructure and academic collaboration.
• Rush University Medical CentercoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial, contributing medical expertise for the brain implant project.
• Johns Hopkins UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial, providing research collaboration.
• University of ChicagocoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial, contributing research expertise.
• University of Texas - DallascoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial, providing academic research collaboration.
• The Chicago LighthousecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial focused on serving the blind community.
• MicroProbes for Life SciencecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner institution in the ICVP Intracortical Visual Prosthesis clinical trial, providing electrode and probe technology expertise.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• ICsense: ICsense is a European fabless ASIC design house specializing in analog, mixed-signal, and high-voltage IC design services, closely mirroring Sigenics' full-turnkey analog/mixed-signal ASIC service model for medical, industrial, and automotive customers.
• Swindon Silicon Systems: Swindon Silicon Systems is a UK-based custom ASIC design house focused on mixed-signal and sensor-interface ICs for medical, industrial, and high-reliability applications, comparable in scale and customer profile to Sigenics.
• Chipus Microelectronics: Chipus is a fabless ASIC design services and IP provider serving medical, industrial, and IoT markets with analog/mixed-signal design expertise, directly comparable to Sigenics' core analog and mixed-signal ASIC offerings.
• Custom MMIC: Custom MMIC is a small US-based fabless designer of specialty GaAs and GaN MMICs for defense, space, and test-and-measurement, comparable to Sigenics as a specialty US fabless IC design house serving aerospace and defense customers.

Broad incumbents

• Global Unichip Corp (GUC): GUC is a Taiwan-based ASIC design services and IP platform serving a global customer base across consumer, networking, and AI workloads; it competes with Sigenics in the ASIC services category but at much larger scale and broader scope.
• VeriSilicon: VeriSilicon is a Shanghai-headquartered ASIC design services and semiconductor IP platform covering analog, mixed-signal, RF, and SoC designs, overlapping with Sigenics' full-turnkey ASIC services at a global scale.
• Open-Silicon: Open-Silicon (now part of SiFive) is a fabless ASIC design house and production services provider offering turnkey custom silicon for networking, storage, and AI; it overlaps with Sigenics in turnkey ASIC service delivery but serves much higher-volume markets.
• Analog Devices: Analog Devices is a global leader in analog and mixed-signal ICs serving industrial, automotive, healthcare, and aerospace, overlapping with Sigenics in the same mixed-signal and high-reliability end markets though at vastly larger scale and via standard products rather than custom ASICs.
• Cirrus Logic: Cirrus Logic designs low-power, high-precision analog and mixed-signal ICs for audio, voice, and sensing applications, sharing Sigenics' analog/mixed-signal DNA though focused on high-volume consumer OEM sockets rather than custom ASIC services.

Others

• Cirtec Medical: Cirtec Medical is a contract design, development, and manufacturing partner for active implantable medical devices, adjacent to Sigenics as a downstream customer/supplier ecosystem for medical implant ASICs and neural-interface electronics.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/sigenics

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Sigenics