Akoustis Signs First Foundry Agreement with 5G Mobile RF Front-End Customer
Akoustis Technologies (NASDAQ: AKTS) has signed a foundry agreement to produce its patented XBAW® filters for 5G mobile smartphones and other wireless devices. Manufacturing will occur at its facility in Canandaigua, NY, with volume production expected to ramp up in the second half of 2022. The agreement follows successful evaluation of initial samples provided to the customer. Akoustis aims to increase its production capacity to 500 million filters annually by the end of 2021, targeting significant growth in the mobile BAW filter market.
- Acquisition of a foundry agreement for 5G mobile filters, indicating strong demand.
- Production ramp planned for the second half of 2022, aligning with market growth.
- Increase in annual production capacity to 500 million filters by end of 2021.
- None.
- Akoustis to Produce Filters for 5G Mobile Smartphones and Other Devices
- Production Ramp Expected in 2nd Half of Calendar 2022
Charlotte, N.C., June 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKTS) (“Akoustis” or the “Company”), an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) of patented bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, announced today that it has signed a foundry agreement with a mobile RF front-end customer for the manufacture of XBAW® filters for 5G mobile handsets and other wireless devices.
Akoustis will manufacture the new high frequency RF filter using its patented and proprietary XBAW® process at its fab in Canandaigua, NY. The foundry agreement was reached after the customer evaluated initial filter samples that Akoustis delivered in the March 2021 quarter. Akoustis plans to ship additional samples in the second half of calendar 2021 that utilize its new wafer chip-scale packaging. The customer is expected to ramp volume production by the second half of calendar 2022.
Jeff Shealy, founder, and CEO of Akoustis, stated, “Entering the 5G Mobile Smartphone filter market is a significant milestone for our team. Achieving first pass success with the XBAW® filter that we previously delivered to our second mobile RF front-end customer has now resulted in our first foundry agreement for smartphones and other wireless devices.” Mr. Shealy continued, “The mobile handset BAW filter market is our largest potential intermediate-to-long term market opportunity by both unit volume and revenue and this agreement positions Akoustis to generate significant incremental unit and revenue growth in the second half of calendar 2022 and beyond.”
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.
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 device, network infrastructure, WiFi CPE and defense markets.
About Akoustis Technologies, Inc.
Akoustis® (http://www.akoustis.com/) is a high-tech BAW RF filter solutions company that is pioneering next-generation materials science and MEMS wafer manufacturing to address the market requirements for improved RF filters - targeting higher bandwidth, higher 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 signal acquisition and accelerate band performance between the antenna and digital back end. Superior performance is driven by the significant advances of high-purity, single-crystal and associated piezoelectric materials and the resonator-filter process technology which drives electro-mechanical coupling and translates to wide filter bandwidth.
Akoustis plans to service the fast growing multi-billion-dollar RF filter market using its integrated device manufacturer (IDM) business model. The Company owns and operates a 120,000 sq. ft. ISO-9001:2015 registered commercial wafer-manufacturing facility located in Canandaigua, NY, which includes a class 100 / class 1000 cleanroom facility - 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.
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