Ozark Integrated Circuits Inc.

When the chips were all on the table, Ozark Integrated Circuits began making more than chips.

Begun in 2011, Ozark IC provides integrated circuits and related products and hardware for extreme environment electronics. The company’s eXtreme Nodes are single board computers that can work in extreme heat, cold or vibration in products ranging from jet engines to thermal wells.

The goal of Ozark IC, founded by Matt Francis, was to solve the problem of providing chips that could work on the fringes of where electronics can perform. But the company soon learned that there was more to it than just chips, which were basically useless without the packages, boards, connectors and hardware.

So Ozark IC began building those things too and is now an award-winning, industry-recognized design company, manufacturer and systems integrator. 

The company’s biggest challenge was meeting the need for domestic production of the ceramic circuit boards and packaging necessary for customers’ critical applications, which led Ozark IC to build its own facility.

“Three years ago it seemed crazy, and now I can say it was the best decision we ever made,” Francis said. “We are at the forefront of the resurgence of domestic semiconductor-related manufacturing, and it is giving us the ability to innovate far faster than we ever anticipated, since we understand all of our manufacturing processes instantly.”

The company’s biggest market is aerospace, in which it is enabling more efficient new engines and alternative fuel use, working with defense partners to create systems for traditional hypersonic platforms and working with energy companies to outfit geothermal wells that need electronics that can perform at temperatures of 350 degrees Celsius or greater. 

Ozark IC’s XNodes have been used on the International Space Station to transmit ultraviolet detection data and have been selected for use in the upcoming lunar missions.

Ozark IC has been recognized in the rugged computing market it helped create as a dominant player in the market reports of companies like Honeywell International and Texas Instruments, and it has received recognition from MassChallenge and the American-Made Geothermal Geophone Prize competition as well as the American-Made Geothermal Manufacturing Prize and the Army’s xTechManufacture Prize.