Akoustis has received its first pre-production order for its tandem 5.2 / 5.6 GHz WiFi coexistence filters, from a new Tier-1 global SoC maker for a reference design targeting tri-band WiFi customer premise equipment (CPE). Akoustis expects to ship pre-production filters to this multi-billion dollar SoC customer for evaluation and approval in the September quarter. The new customer is the third SoC maker to order WiFi filters for possible inclusion in a reference design, with the first two ordering 5.2 GHz filters in late CY18 and early CY19.
Akoustis’ 5.2 and 5.6 GHz filters operate in tandem to create the world’s first BAW coexistence filter solution for tri-band WiFi equipment, offering a significant size advantage over existing dielectric resonator filters with up to 23 times smaller footprint. The filters provide low insertion loss, meet the demanding coexistence rejection specifications, and can be surfaced mounted.
According to Jeff Shealy, Founder and CEO of Akoustis, both WiFi filters leverage the patented XBAW filter process and utilize the back-end supply chain. Akoustis is currently sampling its high performance 5.2 and 5.6 GHz filters to multiple leading WiFi SoC and OEMs while preparing to deliver these products in high volume quantities.
The reference design is expected to be compatible with 2x2 and 4x4 multi-user multiple-in, multiple-out (MU-MIMO) architectures for the 802.11ax WiFi radio standard. Regarding filter content for tri-band architectures, a 2x2 MU-MIMO CPE requires four 5 GHz filters and a 4x4 requires eight 5 GHz filters. Akoustis’ filters are designed and manufactured using the Company’s patented XBAW process and manufactured in the company’s Si-MEMS Wafer Fab located in Canandaigua, NY. The company has multiple patents-pending related to its 5.2 GHz and 5.6 GHz filter architecture, performance specifications and module configuration.
Akoustis has introduced several new filters over the past twelve months using its proprietary XBAW manufacturing process including a 5.6 GHz WiFi filter, a 5.2 GHz WiFi filter, a 3.8 GHz filter for defense phased-array radar applications, a 3.6 GHz filter for the CBRS infrastructure market and Band 25 downlink and uplink filters for LTE infrastructure. The company is also developing several new filters for the sub 7 GHz bands targeting 5G mobile device, network infrastructure, WiFi CPE and defense markets.
