“25 years of dedication in the development of motherboards for industrial computers …world-recognized quality and reliability”

By Geumnun, Lim (March 2018, AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGY magazine Interview)

Since its establishment in 1992, SyncusTech has been devoted to industrial computer development and manufacturing. The industrial computer motherboards developed by the company have a comparative advantage in the ODM field according to customized specifications and are optimized to customer needs, such as usage and service environment, compared with imported ready-made products. Since the time and cost of product development can be a huge burden for customers, SyncusTech is developing and launching reference boards every year.

Q. Business performance in 2017

A. EMB-QM87 Com Express, developed by SyncusTech, was employed last year for several of its customers’ products and achieved the benefits of both ready-made products and ODM products, while significantly reducing initial investment requirements. A variety of custom ODM projects have been developed based on reference boards lineups, such as EMB-QM87 mini-ITX and EMB-BYT1000 EPIC, securing sales in the domestic market through development and mass production. We also achieved results from overseas market entry. SyncusTech is a registered supplier of industrial computers to Toyoda, a developer of US industrial equipment, to which it is constantly delivering products. SyncusTech is going through a sample test with FireKing, a specialized financial equipment maker, and is expected to commence mass production. We have also successfully completed ‘Reliability Technology Expansion Project’, a field test jointly conducted with Korea Testing Certification and Suwon University. we started mass production from this year following a successful field test at a overseas factory last year utilizing the achievements of this project of industrial servers.

Q. Key business and strategy in 2018

A. We are working with our software vendors who have been collaborating with us for a long time to plan cloud servers, factory gateways, and artificial intelligence systems. We are planning to release new products related to Smart Factory, which is based on various hardware platforms i.e. Intel 6th generation Skylake, Xeon, and ARM developed last year, including system and software solutions.

Q. Automation World Booth operation plan

A. SyncusTech’s various solutions will be organized into three themes for customers to check on-site. First, we will present robust development methods related to ODM development of industrial motherboards and various developed ODM cases to ensure customers fully understand the main business of SyncusTech: customized motherboard development. Second, we plan to display promotional videos and products to identify various solutions related to Smart Factory. Lastly, SyncusTech will promote Xeon server system products on Intel Xeon-based platform boards that were developed last year. Most Xeon servers currently distributed in Korea are assembled and distributed based on foreign server boards. SyncusTech is one of the few motherboard developers and manufacturers in Korea, and succeeded in localizing server Xeon boards in 2017 as a government support project.

Q. Mid- and long-term business plan

A. First, we will continue to expand the board ODM sector, which is the core of our business. In addition, we plan to develop an Intel Apollo Lake-based platform as our next entry level product this year and focus on developing low-power Intel U series platform at a higher level.

There will also be good opportunities to enter overseas markets. At the beginning of the year, SyncusTech was selected as a US Federal Government Procurement Vendor Registered Support Company and the SAM vendor registration process is underway. After the registration is completed, we will participate in bidding with our products which have various lineups in the US government procurement market.