Akoustis Ships Two New BAW RF Filters to Tier-1 Infrastructure OEM Customer
– Discrete 4G/LTE Band 25 RF Filters Designed and Developed in Less than Six Months –
– XBAW RF Filter Solutions Address Challenging 4G/LTE Co-Existence Requirements –
Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKTS) (“Akoustis” or the “Company”), a manufacturer of patented bulk acoustic wave (“BAW”) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, is introducing the AKF-1125D and AKF-1125U filters for 4G/LTE band 25. These filters were developed for a tier-1 infrastructure OEM customer first announced in May. Akoustis has shipped samples of both filters for evaluation and testing.
The AKF-1125D is a high-performance band 25 downlink filter and the AKF-1125U is a high-performance band 25 uplink filter, both fabricated using Akoustis’ patented, XBAWTM technology. Performance has been optimized to meet the stringent 4G/LTE band 25 coexistence requirements for use in both uplink and downlink infrastructure applications.
The two filters were designed and delivered in less than six months against an open purchase order. Akoustis was chosen to develop these 4G/LTE band 25 filters to replace the incumbent solution with improved insertion loss and out-of-band rejection demonstrated by its high performance XBAW process. The customer plans to evaluate and test the filters over the next couple of months. Assuming successful qualification and acceptance by the customer, Akoustis expects to receive a production order from the OEM’s contract manufacturers to deliver pre-production units in the next calendar year with production shipments expected to occur by mid-2019.
Jeff Shealy, Founder and CEO of Akoustis stated, “I am quite proud of our team that was able to design and deliver two critical, difficult Band 25 filters in less than six months.” Shealy added, “With our qualified XBAW process, our models and other development tools are lowering the development time for each successive new filter and improving our ability to hit the milestones our customers are currently seeking in the sub-6 GHz market.
The AKF-1125D/U filters are both packaged in a compact 3mm x 3mm package, are compatible with high volume, lead-free SMT soldering processes and feature:
• Compact footprint: 3.0mm x 3.0mm x 0.9mm
• Single ended ports
• Full 65 MHz bandwidth
• Performance from -10 C to +85 C
• Improved RX sensitivity with low insertion loss
• RoHS compliant, lead-free package
In July 2018, Akoustis announced that it completed the qualification of its first generation XBAW wafer technology and the underlying single crystal materials process at its Canandaigua, NY fabrication facility. Akoustis now has two high-frequency XBAW RF filters in its catalogue of commercial products: the AKF-1252, the industry’s first commercial, ultra-small passband BAW RF filter for use in 5.2 GHz WiFi applications; and the AKF-1938, a 3.8 GHz high performance, ultra-small passband RF filter with low insertion loss covering 100 MHz of bandwidth, meeting the stringent rejection requirements for radar and RF transceiver applications. Both filters are closely aligned with the emerging 5G mobile frequency spectrum. Recently, the Company announced two RF filter development orders for 5G Infrastructure and a CBRS last mile application. Both programs have expected customer deliverables in the first half of calendar 2019.
About Akoustis Technologies, Inc.
Akoustis® (http://www.akoustis.com) is a BAW RF filter solutions company that has pioneered a next-generation of materials science and MEMS wafer manufacturing to address the market requirements for improved RF filters - delivering high bandwidth, high operating frequencies and higher output power compared to incumbent polycrystalline BAW technology deployed today. The Company utilizes its proprietary XBAW manufacturing process to produce bulk acoustic wave RF filters for mobile and other wireless markets, which facilitate data transmission and signal acquisition between the antenna and digital back end. Filter performance is driven by high-purity, single-crystal and associated piezoelectric materials along with our MEMS-based resonator-filter process technology.
Akoustis services the multi-billion-dollar RF filter market using its integrated design and manufacturing (IDM) business model. The Company owns and operates a 120,000 sq. ft. ISO-9001:2015 certified commercial wafer-manufacturing facility located in Canandaigua, NY, which includes class 100 and class 1000 cleanroom facilities - tooled for 150-mm diameter wafers - for the design, development, fabrication and packaging of RF filters, MEMS and other semiconductor devices. Akoustis Technologies, Inc. is headquartered in the Piedmont technology corridor near Charlotte, North Carolina.
Forward-Looking Statements
This document includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, that are intended to be covered by the “safe harbor” created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our estimates, expectations, beliefs, intentions, plans or strategies for the future (including our possible future results of operations, business strategies, competitive position, potential growth opportunities, potential market opportunities and the effects of competition), and the assumptions underlying such statements. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," “intend,” “forecast,” “seek,” "potential," "continue" and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Instead, these forward-looking statements are based on management’s current beliefs, expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated include, without limitation, risks relating to the results of our research and development activities, including uncertainties relating to semiconductor process manufacturing; the development of our XBAWTM technology and products presently under development and the anticipated timing of such development; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights that are valuable to our business, including patent and other intellectual property rights; our ability to successfully manufacture, market and sell products based on our technologies; the ability to achieve qualification of our products for commercial manufacturing in a timely manner and the size and growth of the potential markets for any products so qualified; the rate and degree of market acceptance of any of our products; our ability to raise funding to support operations and the continued development and qualification of our products and the technologies underlying them; and our ability to service our outstanding indebtedness. These and other risks and uncertainties are described in more detail in the Risk Factors and Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations sections of the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and in subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Considering these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking statements regarding future events and circumstances discussed in this document may not occur, and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. The forward-looking statements included in this document speak only as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly or privately any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, for any reason after the date of this document to conform these statements to new information, actual results or to changes in our expectations.
Contact: COMPANY: Tom Sepenzis Akoustis Technologies Director of Investor Relations (980) 689-4961 tsepenzis@akoustis.com The Del Mar Consulting Group, Inc. Robert B. Prag, President 858-794-9500 bprag@delmarconsulting.com
Released October 31, 2018