Akoustis Technologies has received its first XBAW design win for the WiFi market from a tier-1 OEM and expects to ramp shipments beginning in the June quarter. This is the second commercial design win the Company has announced in the past month. In early April, Akoustis announced its first 5G network infrastructure design win with a tier-1 OEM.
The WiFi customer is a leading consumer-focused OEM that is developing its first tri-band CPE product using multiple Akoustis 5.2 and 5.6 GHz XBAW filters. The new consumer-focused product supports up to 4x4 multi-user multiple-in-multiple-out (MU-MIMO) radio architectures and is expected to be commercially available in the second half of the calendar 2020. Akoustis has received its first 3 high volume purchase orders to support this customer’s tri-band WiFi CPE product.
Jeff Shealy, founder and CEO of Akoustis, stated, WiFi presents a significant market opportunity for Akoustis as tri-band, MU-MIMO, and mesh system architectures are creating significant content growth in RF filters. With recent FCC announcements, they expect the WiFi market will continue to expand as WiFi 6E emerges and tri-band systems become a greater percentage of the market over the coming years, which will require coexistence filters where high frequency, wide bandwidth and high-power handling capabilities in small form factor are paramount.
Currently, Akoustis is working with multiple customers in its sales funnel that expect to launch WiFi CPE products in calendar 2020 and beyond. Separately, the Company is developing its first WiFi 6E filters and expects to announce its first product and delivery of initial samples later in the June quarter.
The 5.2 GHz and 5.6 GHz WiFi filters are manufactured using the Company’s proprietary and patented XBAW process housed within the Company’s Si-MEMS Wafer Fab located in Canandaigua, NY.
Akoustis has added twelve filters to its product catalog including a 5.6 GHz filter (AKF-1256), a 5.2 GHz WiFi filter (AKF-1252), two small cell network infrastructure filters including a 4.9 GHz band n79 filter, a 3.8 GHz filter (AKF-1938), five S-Band filters for defense phased-array radar applications, a a 3.6 GHz filter for the CBRS infrastructure market and a C-Band filter for the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) market. The Company is also developing several new filters for the sub-7 GHz bands targeting 5G mobile devices, network infrastructure, WiFi CPE, and defense markets.
