About Tekmos

Tekmos produces custom integrated circuits that will reduce costs while meeting the needs of our customers. These solutions range from high volume cost reductions for existing applications, to drop in replacements for obsolete parts, to creating entirely new products. We are a fabless provider of chip solutions across these markets: Consumer Electronics, Aerospace, Automotive, Defense, Industrial, and Medical. We are leaders in the industry of custom analog and mixed-signal Integrated Circuit (IC) solutions with over 900 designs. Your ideas, our designs. We make what you need.

We can replace much of your existing system with a low cost ASIC. We do the work of partitioning your system, creating and implementing the design, and then manufacturing the chips in any desired volume.

Tekmos produces exact copies of legacy parts by extracting the original schematic from the original layout. The design is converted into Verilog, and resimulated to ensure that it will work correctly in all conditions. Then it is re-implemented in a modern technology, providing a reliable source for future requirements.

It is possible to put multiple die in a single package. Tekmos uses this approach to combine different technologies into a single product. For example, we can combine a 3-volt flash with a 5-volt ASIC to emulate an obsolete 5-volt microprocessor. We can also combine up to 9 different chips in a single package under our Unify program. This capability is for applications where physical size is paramount, such as in a ring, or in an oral medical device.

Devices made with SOI CMOS have reduced junction areas, and so can operate at up to 300ºC. Tekmos uses this technology to support high temperature applications such as down-hole oil exploration, jet engines, and certain industrial applications. We also support other high temperature applications up to 200ºC made with bulk silicon devices.

Located in Austin, Texas, Tekmos has been a reliable source of ASICs for hundreds of companies worldwide since 1997. Tekmos is AS9100D certified, and has supplied devices for critical medical and defense projects.

Tekmos History; Planned & Providence

1997 – Founded

Tekmos was founded as a spin-off of Flextronics Semiconductor. We started off as a pure design center, doing contract design on a number of projects. The designs ranged from small FPGA conversions for ASIC providers to large FPGA-based systems for on-demand cable companies.

1999 – First Proprietary Chip

We heard of a case where Motorola needed a replacement of a part they had once made in order to satisfy one of their major companies. The part was a 68HC24 Port Replacement Unit. We offered to make it for Motorola, and they accepted. As part of the deal, they agreed to forward inquiries for this part to us. Overnight, we acquired several hundred small customers, and a part with a collective volume of over 100K per year. This changed our thinking, and we switched from being an independent design center into a fabless semiconductor company.

2000 – The Dot-Com Crash and Lucent

The dot-com crash started in 1999 and lasted for several years. The contract design market collapsed, which made us glad we had switched to selling chips. At the same time, the semiconductor division of ATT was spun off as Agere. In a cost cutting move, Agere end-of-life’ed most of the chips used by Lucent in the telephone switches. Many ASICs were put out to bid, and Tekmos was successful in winning many of them. This started our involvement in the Telecom industry. We also were able to recreate several obsolete chips that became standard products. One of these was the TK17LV040 serial memory. This was our first stacked die product, which we have since used in many different products.

2005 – Katrina

Katrina struck Louisiana in August of 2005. Katrina destroyed a number of local exchanges in New Orleans. These centers used a custom chip that consolidated a number of phone lines into a 40 MHz link to the main office. Tekmos started a rush program to recreate the chip and provide the 60K units necessary to restore phone service to New Orleans. This was our first rush order, and we developed capabilities that we continue to use today.

2011 – Sendai Earthquake

Tekmos had reverse engineered the 6805 and 6811 CPU cores, and was offering a few processors as replacements for obsolete Freescale / Motorola parts. Freescale had already decided to End-of-Life most of the processors in these product lines. All of these parts were made by a Freescale fab located in Sendai, Japan. On March 11th, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck Sendai, and destroyed the Freescale fab. In response, Tekmos developed a special gate array that contained EEPROM and an 8-bit ADC. We used that array to produce a large number of different clones of the Freescale processors. This included the 6805 B, C, J and L series, and the 6811 A, D, E, F, K, KA, and KS series. We also made a replacement for the 68020 processor.

2013 – The Fracking Boom, and Bust

The fracking boom greatly increased the demand for high temperature circuits. Back in the days of vertical oil drilling, there was minimal demand for downhole electronics. Fracking, with the horizontal drilling, changed that, as electronics were required to steer the drilling bit. Horizontal drilling also can require drilling through extra hot zones to reach relatively lower temperature areas that contain oil. In response to this demand, Tekmos developed an ASIC technology based on a SOI process that operates up to 300ºC. We also pushed some of our processors made on bulk silicon up to the 175-200ºC range.

Fracking was very successful, and returned America back into the world’s largest oil producer. Unfortunately, that caused a glut of oil, which has greatly reduced the demand for high temperature electronics. Boom and bust is a characteristic of the oil market.

2017 – Rebuilding the Military

For a number of years, the US military budget did not support maintenance, and as a result, required replacement parts were obtained from other airplanes. After 8 years, a large number of military aircrafts were grounded for a lack of parts. That changed in 2017, and the military was again able to buy replacement parts. However, in those 8 years, a number of parts have become obsolete, and were no longer available. Tekmos received a number of contracts for the replacement of some of these obsolete parts. These contracts also caused Tekmos to develop a full military lot qualification capability.

2018 – Into Consumer Products

Tekmos had an opportunity to replace a consumer product ASIC whose supply chain had been disrupted. In order to achieve sub $0.50 pricing, Tekmos made technical advancements in a number of areas. We advanced to using a 180 nm technology to cut the die costs. We started using QFN packages to minimize the assembly costs. And we have invested in new testers, multi site testing handlers and advanced tape and reel equipment to cut back-end costs. This has left us well positioned for this market.

2020 – Covid-19

We now find ourselves in the midst of a new crisis, and it is not clear how this will develop. With each crisis, there is opportunity. We believe that this crisis will result in demand of more diverse and robust supply chains, which will increase the opportunity for second sourced ASICs. And we plan to play a role in that.

Tekmos, Inc.
14121 Highway 290 West
Building #15
Austin, TX 78737
Phone: (512) 342-9871