Akoustis Technologies, an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) of patented bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, announced that its patented XBAW filters are being designed into a new enterprise-class WiFi 6E router platform from a tier-1 WiFi OEM.
The new router design will use four 5.5 GHz and four 6.5 GHz XBAW coexistence filters for a tri-band multi-user, multiple-in-multiple-out (MU-MIMO) router. The 5.5 GHz filter module covers the UNII 1-3 spectrum of the WiFi 6E standard, while the 6.5 GHz filter module covers the entire UNII 5-8 spectrum. The Company expects the new router to enter production in early 2022.
Dave Aichele, EVP of Business Development of Akoustis, stated, “The momentum in WiFi 6E continues to build for Akoustis given our market-leading performance in BAW filters at high frequency and with wide bandwidth that enables simultaneous radio operation between the full UNII 1-3 bands and UNII 5-8 bands.” Mr. Aichele continued, “We expect continuing success in WiFi 6E with our 5.5/6.5 GHz and 5.6/6.6 GHz solutions as they offer the greatest flexibility, spectrum use, and signal selectivity in a micro-acoustic filter form factor.
In April 2020, the FCC announced the approval of 5.9 to 7.1 GHz for unlicensed use, which is the largest spectrum addition since the FCC allocated unlicensed spectrum for WiFi in 1989. The next generation of WiFi that is expected to use these new frequency bands is called WiFi 6E. This approval will create another significant new band, or combination of bands, over the next several years. Since the FCC’s April announcement, governments around the world have begun allocating the same or similar spectrum for future WiFi use. As spectrum is scarce, many nations are limited in the amount of new, available unlicensed spectrum above 6 GHz. This is driving great demand for high-performance coexistence filters that allow the use of all available spectrums.
Akoustis is actively delivering volume production of its WiFi 6 tandem filter solutions, shipping multiple 5G small cell XBAW filter solutions, delivering initial designs of its new 5G mobile filter solutions to multiple customers, and is now entering the market with its new WiFi 6E coexistence XBAW filter solutions.
Given the rapidly growing sales funnel activity as well as ongoing interaction with customers regarding expected ramps in both 5G mobile and WiFi 6E in calendar 2022, the Company plans to increase the annual production capacity at its New York fab by the end of calendar 2021 to approximately 500 million filters per year.
Click here to learn more about BAW filters from Akoustis.
Click here to learn more about BAW filters.
Click here to learn more about MU-MIMO.
