Akoustis Technologies, Inc., an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) of patented bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, has announced that its patented XBAW filters are being designed into a new carrier-grade WiFi 6E gateway platform by a WiFi OEM.
The new gateway design will use multiple Akoustis 5.5 GHz and 6.5 GHz XBAW coexistence filters for a tri-band multi-user, multiple-in-multiple-out (MU-MIMO) gateway product that will be part of carrier installed consumer premise equipment (CPE). 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. Akoustis expects the customer to enter the production of the new gateway in early calendar 2022, with production to ramp by mid-year.
Dave Aichele, EVP of Business Development of Akoustis, stated, “We continue to add new WiFi 6E customers given the superior performance and selectivity of our leading XBAW filter solutions.” Mr. Aichele continued, “Our sales pipeline is growing across all of our major markets, led by WiFi 6E, and we expect new design wins to drive revenue growth in calendar 2022 and beyond.”
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 patented 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 the calendar 2021 to approximately 500 million filters per year.
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