Akoustis Technologies has completed the qualification of its first generation XBAW wafer technology and the underlying single crystal materials process at its Canandaigua, NY fabrication facility.
The XBAW-1 (XB1) process establishes the first single crystal BAW technology for the expanding RF filter market for 4G/LTE, 5G mobile, 5G infrastructure, WiFi, military radar and other applications. The XB1 process features:
- Patented single crystal piezoelectric materials
- Novel MEMS wafer manufacturing
- High-Frequency RF performance from 1.5 GHz - 7 GHz
- High linearity and wide bandwidth performance
- Compatibility with conventional and flip-chip packaging
Akoustis Technologies expect to achieve full product qualification of its first three announced products, the AKF-1252, the AKF-1938 and the AKF-1652 later this calendar year now that their patented technology has been fully qualified in New York wafer manufacturing facility.
The Akoustis technology development process consists of the following five phases:
- Pre-Alpha – Demonstrate basic feasibility / capabilities
- Alpha – Develop stable recipe (Process Freeze) with limited product development
- Beta – Complete technology qualification (Process Qualification) in factory to enable product design
- Pre-Production – Demonstrate lead product production capabilities, release final design tools
- Production – Continual improvement of process and parametric performance
In March 2018, Akoustis announced the completion of the alpha-phase for its XB1 process and today it has completed the beta-phase qualification for both XB1 and the single crystal materials process. This shortens the development cycle time for new catalog and custom components as each new product will start in the pre-production phase and will not require end-to-end qualification.
Since March, Akoustis has manufactured multiple XB1 wafer lots and, utilized the data from these lots to establish all necessary controls and supporting documentation within its ISO9001:2015 certified quality management system to ensure the robustness and repeatability of the process as the pre-production phase of development begins for multiple products.
