Formation:

advICo microelectronics GmbH was founded in August 2000 as a design house and IP provider in Bochum, Germany. The company started as a spin-off from the Institute for Integrated Circuits of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The institute is internationally reknown in the area of research in high-speed circuit design with emphasis on Silicon and Silicon-Germanium technologies.

The Founders:

The founders of advICo Dr. J. Christoph Scheytt and Dr. Günter Grau, worked before at the Institute for Integrated Circuits for 5 years doing research and development of high-speed circuits. Research work comprised ICs for fiber-optic communications (up to 40 Gb/s), bit-rate-flexible clock and data recovery, and WLAN circuits (up to 5.8 GHz).

Development:

In 2000, the year of foundation, advICo won a governmental funding in a contest for technology-oriented start-ups. In the same year the company conducted its first IC design project on behalf a customer. Since then advICo has conducted various projects in the areas of IC development, RF board development and prototyping with customers in Germany and the USA. In 2001 the company moved to new facilities in Recklinghausen, Germany, in order to expand its office space for growth.