The industry landscape

The field has five kinds of companies, they hire for different spines, and they are at very different stages. Knowing which is which lets you read a headline (“company X implants first patient”) and know whether it is a milestone or a press release, and lets you aim your portfolio at the kind of company that will want it.

Implanted BCI companies

Venture-funded, pre-revenue, running early feasibility trials under IDEsInvestigational device exemption (IDE) FDA permission to use an unapproved device in a clinical study. Glossary entry, all aiming at paralysis and speech first. Blackrock Neurotech (Salt Lake City): the Utah ArrayUtah Array The 10-by-10 grid of 1.5 mm silicon needles invented at the University of Utah, the electrode in nearly every human intracortical BCI study to date. Related: Intracortical recordingIntracortical recording Recording from tiny electrodes inserted into the cortex itself, close enough to hear individual neurons. , Utah Slanted Electrode Array (USEA)Utah Slanted Electrode Array (USEA) A version of the Utah Array with needles of graded lengths, designed to reach different depths of a peripheral nerve. . Glossary entry, the most human implants of anyone, a Breakthrough-designated system. Neuralink: flexible threads, a robotic inserter, a sealed skull-mounted can, human trials since 2024, the largest funding. Synchron: the stentrodeStentrode Synchron's electrode array mounted on a stent and delivered through a blood vessel to sit against the motor cortex without open surgery. Glossary entry, delivered through the jugular vein, the least invasive approach, human trials for years. Paradromics: very high channel counts on many small stiff electrodesElectrode The conductor that turns ion currents in tissue into electron currents in a wire; its chemistry and contact quality set the noise you live with. Related: Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl)Silver/silver-chloride (Ag/AgCl) The standard electrode material for biopotentials, because its chemistry produces a stable, low-noise, low-drift interface with salty gel. , Electrode impedanceElectrode impedance How hard it is to push current through the skin-electrode contact, typically 5 to 50 kilohms with gel and megohms dry, higher at low frequencies. , Half-cell potentialHalf-cell potential The DC voltage that appears wherever a metal meets an electrolyte; two electrodes with different half-cell potentials produce an offset that can swamp the signal. . Glossary entry, aimed at speech. Precision Neuroscience: thin-film surface arrays placed through a slit, reversible. Science Corp: retinal prosthesisRetinal prosthesis An electrode array on or under the retina that produces spots of light, phosphenes, in people blinded by retinal disease. Related: PhosphenePhosphene A spot of light perceived when the visual system is stimulated electrically rather than by light. . Glossary entry and other programs.

They hire: analog and mixed-signal designers, firmwareFirmware The program running on the microcontroller, which configures the chip, reads samples on time, and ships them to the computer. Related: SPISPI A simple four-wire bus for talking to chips like the ADS1299 from a microcontroller. . Glossary entry and embedded engineers, packaging and materials engineers, decoderDecoder The algorithm that maps neural signals to intended actions, such as a classifier or a Kalman filter. Related: ClassifierClassifier An algorithm that assigns each trial a label, such as left hand or right hand, after being trained on labelled examples. , Kalman filterKalman filter An estimator that blends a prediction from a motion model with a noisy measurement, weighting each by how much it trusts it; the decoder behind most intracortical cursor control. , Brain-computer interface (BCI)Brain-computer interface (BCI) A system that turns measured brain activity into control of something outside the body, from a cursor to a wheelchair to a speech synthesizer. . Glossary entry and machine-learning engineers, clinical and regulatory staff, and neurosurgical liaisons. Undergraduate internships exist but are few; a characterized board and a reproduced decoderDecoder The algorithm that maps neural signals to intended actions, such as a classifier or a Kalman filter. Related: ClassifierClassifier An algorithm that assigns each trial a label, such as left hand or right hand, after being trained on labelled examples. , Kalman filterKalman filter An estimator that blends a prediction from a motion model with a noisy measurement, weighting each by how much it trusts it; the decoder behind most intracortical cursor control. , Brain-computer interface (BCI)Brain-computer interface (BCI) A system that turns measured brain activity into control of something outside the body, from a cursor to a wheelchair to a speech synthesizer. . Glossary entry are the entry ticket. Read their job pages to see which spines they are short of this year.

Neuromodulation companies

Established, profitable, regulated, large. Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott (DBSDeep brain stimulation (DBS) Electrodes implanted deep in the brain and pulsed continuously, the standard treatment for advanced Parkinson's disease and essential tremor. Related: Charge densityCharge density The charge injected per pulse divided by electrode area; keeping it below safe limits prevents electrode damage and tissue injury. . Glossary entry, spinal cord stimulation, sensing-capable generators). LivaNova (vagus nerve stimulation). Nevro (high-frequency spinal cord stimulation). NeuroPace (responsive neurostimulation for epilepsyEpilepsy A tendency to recurrent seizures; its monitoring units are where seizure-detection algorithms get validated and where ECoG data comes from. Related: Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU)Epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) The hospital ward where patients are recorded on video-EEG for days to capture seizures before surgery. , Seizure detectionSeizure detection Automatically flagging seizures in EEG, a real clinical need and a good first machine-learning project on the TUH corpus. . Glossary entry). Cochlear, MED-EL, Advanced Bionics (cochlear implantsCochlear implant The most successful neural prosthesis: an electrode array in the inner ear that stimulates the auditory nerve in up to 22 bands. Related: Vocoder (noise vocoder)Vocoder (noise vocoder) A simulation of what a cochlear implant delivers: the loudness envelope of each frequency band, applied to noise in that band. . Glossary entry). Insightec (focused ultrasoundFocused ultrasound Concentrating sound energy deep in the brain to modulate or destroy tissue without opening the skull. Glossary entry). Neuronetics, BrainsWay (TMSTranscranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) A coil on the head that induces currents in the cortex with a brief magnetic pulse; approved for depression, and only for lab use with a trained operator. Related: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) Passing a milliamp or two through the head between sponge electrodes; trivially easy to build, weakly supported by evidence, and not for self-experiment. . Glossary entry).

They hire: every engineering discipline, at scale, plus quality, regulatory, clinical, and field engineers who program devices in clinics. This is where most of the jobs are and where a co-op or internship is most attainable. The clinical-regulatory spine is valued here more than anywhere.

Non-invasive and consumer

Emotiv, Muse (Interaxon), Neurable, Kernel (TD-fNIRSFunctional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) Shining near-infrared light through the scalp and measuring how much comes back to estimate blood oxygenation in the cortex underneath; a pulse oximeter pointed at the brain. Related: Electroencephalography (EEG)Electroencephalography (EEG) Recording the brain's electrical activity from electrodes on the scalp, a few tens of microvolts of blurred, summed cortical activity. . Glossary entry at research grade), sleep-wearable companies, and a steady stream of startups. Products range from research-adjacent headsets to wellness bands. Business models are hard: the signals are limited, the wellness claims are constrained, and many devices end up in drawers. Meta’s EMGElectromyography (EMG) Recording the electrical activity of muscles, hundreds of microvolts to millivolts, much larger than EEG. Related: Myoelectric prosthesisMyoelectric prosthesis An artificial limb controlled by EMG from the remaining muscles. , Electroencephalography (EEG)Electroencephalography (EEG) Recording the brain's electrical activity from electrodes on the scalp, a few tens of microvolts of blurred, summed cortical activity. . Glossary entry wristband (from the CTRL-labs acquisition) is the peripheral bet with the most resources behind it.

They hire: embedded and signal-processing engineers, product designers, machine-learning engineers, and increasingly human-factors people. Startups here will trade title and equity for skill; being an early engineer at one at nineteen teaches more than a class.

Research hardware

Ripple Neuro (Salt Lake City): recording and stimulation systems for research and implants in development. Intan Technologies: the amplifier chips inside many headstages. Open Ephys: open-source acquisition. IMEC and the NeuropixelsNeuropixels Silicon probes with hundreds to thousands of recording sites along a thin shank, the current standard for large-scale animal recording. Related: Spike sortingSpike sorting Deciding which spikes on an electrode came from which neuron, by clustering their waveform shapes. . Glossary entry program. BrainProducts, g.tec, ANT Neuro, Biosemi: research EEGElectroencephalography (EEG) Recording the brain's electrical activity from electrodes on the scalp, a few tens of microvolts of blurred, summed cortical activity. Related: Electrocorticography (ECoG)Electrocorticography (ECoG) Recording from electrodes placed on the surface of the brain under the skull, usually during epilepsy surgery evaluation; cleaner and sharper than EEG. , Magnetoencephalography (MEG)Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Recording the tiny magnetic fields produced by cortical currents with superconducting sensors in a shielded room; less blurred by the skull than EEG, and far more expensive. , Volume conductionVolume conduction The spreading of currents from a source through the conductive tissues of the head, which is why one source shows up on many electrodes and why scalp EEG is blurry. , Microvolt (µV)Microvolt (µV) One millionth of a volt. Scalp EEG is tens of microvolts; a AA battery is 1.5 million of them. . Glossary entry systems. OpenBCIOpenBCI The open-source EEG hardware company whose Cyton (ADS1299) and Ganglion boards are the default hobby and research-lite amplifiers. Related: ADS1299ADS1299 Texas Instruments' 8-channel, 24-bit biopotential front-end chip used in OpenBCI and many research amplifiers. , BrainFlowBrainFlow A library that talks to OpenBCI and most consumer EEG headsets with one API, in Python and other languages. . Glossary entry.

They hire: exactly the Phase 2 skills. A student with a characterized ADS1299ADS1299 Texas Instruments' 8-channel, 24-bit biopotential front-end chip used in OpenBCI and many research amplifiers. Related: Delta-sigma ADCDelta-sigma ADC A converter that samples very fast with a crude 1-bit decision and averages, achieving 24-bit resolution at modest rates; what the ADS1299 uses. , OpenBCIOpenBCI The open-source EEG hardware company whose Cyton (ADS1299) and Ganglion boards are the default hobby and research-lite amplifiers. . Glossary entry board is speaking their language.

The rehabilitation and assistive sector

Ottobock, Össur, Coapt (myoelectric prostheses and pattern-recognition control), Ekso, ReWalk (exoskeletons), MicroTransponder (VNSVagus nerve stimulation (VNS) A cuff electrode on the vagus nerve in the neck, pulsed for epilepsy, depression, and now stroke rehabilitation. Glossary entry for strokeStroke Loss of blood supply to part of the brain; rehabilitation after it is the largest clinical use of neurotechnology today. Glossary entry), Onward (spinal cord stimulation for injury), plus the AACAugmentative and alternative communication (AAC) Any tool that helps someone who cannot speak communicate, from picture boards to eye-gaze spellers to BCIs. Related: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) A progressive disease of motor neurons that removes movement and eventually speech while leaving thought intact; the population many BCIs are built for. . Glossary entry companies (Tobii Dynavox). Smaller, closer to patients, and where Phase 5 skills go directly.

Reading the field

Sources that are worth the time: the companies’ own published papers (not their press), the FDA’s databases, the BCIBrain-computer interface (BCI) A system that turns measured brain activity into control of something outside the body, from a cursor to a wheelchair to a speech synthesizer. Related: DecoderDecoder The algorithm that maps neural signals to intended actions, such as a classifier or a Kalman filter. , Closed loopClosed loop A system in which the output feeds back to influence the input, such as a user adjusting their brain activity while watching the cursor it controls. . Glossary entry Society and NeurotechX communities, Neurotech Reports and similar trade newsletters, and the journals in the reading thread. Sources that are not: most general press coverage of “mind reading,” which conflates decoding attempted speech from motor cortex with reading thoughts.

Utah, again

Two of the research-hardware and implant companies above are in Salt Lake City. Nelson Labs and other test houses that certify devices are in the corridor. BioUtah’s member list is a directory of every device company in the state, many of which hire BME students for quality, test, and R&D roles, and few of which BME students know exist. The Utah map is the local version of this page.