User:GlennDeMichele/sandbox

Sigenics Inc. designs analog and mixed signal custom silicon integrated circuits and also supplies tested custom devices in quantities to its customers. About half of Sigenics business is in the field of implantable neural prosthetics, and the other half is the supply of proprietary high-reliability custom integrated circuits to commercial and military customers.

Locations
Sigenics' headquarters is in Chicago, Illinois. with an additional design center in Sierra Madre, California. Sigenics also maintains relationships with various subcontractors to provide post-fab processing such as exotic metalization, wafer dicing and packaging.

History
Sigenics was founded by Phil Troyk, Douglas Kerns and Glenn DeMichele in December 2000 for the purpose of developing implantable neural interface devices to aid in basic research of the nervous system and ultimately to develop neural prostheses.

Sigenics got its first funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a magnetically powered integrated device capable of wirelessly transmitting amplified neural signals to computers outside of the body. The second NIH project served to enhance the device to allow it to record these small neural signals in the presence of much larger pulses designed to stimulate nearby nerves.

For prosthesis control, Sigenics has developed several wireless neural sensor devices for Northwestern University, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.DARPA and TATRC. One device, called the IMES (Implantable MyoElectric Sensor), is about the size of a grain of rice and is injected into the arm muscles of a patient who has lost a hand. The IMES device senses the neural (EMG) signals which occur when the patient flexes the arm muscles, and an external computer uses these signals to control motors in a prosthetic hand. The goal is to restore manual dexterity to one who has lost a hand..

Sigenics has also developed devices to help surgeons to treat epilepsy (Electrocorticography), and stimulators designed to stimulate the visual cortex in the brain to replace lost vision (visual prosthesis).

On the commercial side, Sigenics has designed and continues to supply high reliability chips in quantity. Sigenics also has expertise in designing replacements to for obsolete chips. Often it is often more economical to design a replacement for an obsolete chip rather than to use modern parts and redesign an existing and proven product.

Products
Sigenics offers ASIC design services coupled with the sale of production quantities of the resulting tested custom devices. Sigenics currently offers no standard products for sale.

Manufacturing
As a fabless company, Sigenics has design experience in over 15 different integrated circuit processes, from 10 micron high voltage to 180nm CMOS. Although Sigenics outsources all semiconductor manufacturing to merchant foundries, Sigenics has wafer-level diagnostic and test capabilities in-house.