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 it has signed a statement of work with a new mobile customer to develop an XBAW filter for a challenging 4G/5G band.
This new customer is a leading 4G/5G RF component company focused on Asian handset OEMs, which is looking to leverage Akoustis’ leading XBAW filter technology to address difficult frequency bands in 4G and 5G mobile applications. The customer expects to expand its use of XBAW filters in additional frequency bands if this initial statement-of-work is completed on time and within the stated specifications. This brings the number of active customer engagements in mobile for Akoustis to three, all of which are planning production ramps in late calendar 2022, or early calendar 2023.
Jeff Shealy, founder and CEO of Akoustis, stated, “We are experiencing a growing number of customer engagements as our sales pipeline continues to expand across all of our target markets.” Mr. Shealy continued, “This new mobile customer selected our patented XBAW technology given its superior isolation and rejection performance, and we expect that this will be the first of multiple mobile filters we develop for this leading RF component maker over the next few years.”
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 5G mobile, WiFi 6, 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.
Akoustis currently has 15 commercial XBAW filters in its product catalog and recently introduced 5.6 GHz and 6.6 GHz WiFi 6E coexistence filter modules, which when qualified, will bring the number of catalog products to 17. Current product catalog filters include a 5.6 GHz WiFi filter, a 5.2 GHz WiFi filter, a 5.5 GHz WiFi-6E filter, a 6.5 GHz WiFi 6E filter, three small cell 5G network infrastructure filters including two Band n77 filters and one Band n79 filter, a 3.8 GHz filter and five S-Band filters for defense phased-array radar applications, a 3.6 GHz filter for the CBRS 5G 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.
