Akoustis Announces First Pre-Production Order For Its 5.6 GHz XBAW WiFi RF Filter

• 5.6 GHz Filter Combines with Company’s Existing 5.2 GHz Filter to Provide World’s First High-Band WiFi Micro Filter Co-Existence Solution
• Company Expands Sampling of Ultra-Wideband 5.6 GHz Filter for Tri-Band WiFi Equipment
• Delivery of Pre-Production 5.6 GHz Filters Expected in the Current Quarter

Charlotte, NC (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKTS) (“Akoustis” or the “Company”), a design and manufacturer of patented bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, announced today a second iteration of its 5.6 GHz XBAW™ WiFi filter and a pre-production order from a current global RF customer.

The second iteration of the 5.6 GHz filter offers superior performance including lower loss and improved rejection of unwanted WiFi signals. Furthermore, the latest iteration simplifies the chip complexity and shares the same XBAW wafer process, backend package and supply chain as the Company’s 5.2 GHz WiFi filter currently in pre-production.

An executive from the Company’s global RF customer stated, “XBAW technology is outstanding, even as compared with other BAW and FBAR in the industry. We believe this leading filter technology is well positioned in the high-frequency bands for WiFi networking and 5G mobile and will help us deliver significant growth over the next several years.”

Akoustis began sampling the second iteration of its 5.6 GHz WiFi filter earlier this quarter and expects to offer samples to more than twenty OEM, ODM, SoC and RFFE companies currently evaluating Akoustis’ 5.2 GHz WiFi filter. The Company expects to offer the first tandem BAW coexistence filter solution covering both the 5.2 GHz and 5.6 GHz frequency bands in a tri-band WiFi router.

Akoustis previously announced a pre-production order and shipment of 5.2 GHz WiFi filters to this global RF customer in the March 2019 quarter. That same order included greater than 50,000 pre-production 5.6 GHz WiFi filters, which Akoustis expects to deliver in the current quarter.

Jeff Shealy, Founder and CEO of Akoustis, stated, “This new filter represents a significant advancement for Akoustis as we now have the world’s first micro-filter tandem solution targeting both 5 GHz WiFi bands. Our customers can now replace existing filter technology with a solution that is up to 23 times smaller, driving far more competitive form factors and allowing more complex MU-MIMO architectures.” Mr. Shealy continued, “Our 5.6 GHz filter is packaged with an identical footprint as our existing 5.2 GHz filter and uses the same supply chain, which should accelerate the evaluation process for the customers sampling our XBAW WiFi filters.”

Akoustis began sampling its first generation 5.6 GHz XBAW WiFi co-existence filter in December 2018. Initial samples were sent to a limited number of potential customers for evaluation and technical feedback. Over the past few months, Akoustis has been engaged in internal engineering efforts to incorporate customer feedback into the new 5.6 GHz filter product design.

The 5.6 GHz XBAW WiFi filter features:

• Low insertion loss passband filter
• Wide bandwidth with 345 MHz passband
• High rejection enables co-existence with adjacent WiFi UNII bands
• Single ended Tx/Rx ports
• High power rating, maximum +30dBm
• Ultra small form factor 2.5mm x 2.0mm x 0.9mm
• Performance over -40C to +85C
• RoHS compliant, Pb-free package

The 5.6 GHz filter is designed and manufactured using the Company’s patented XBAW process and manufactured in the Company’s Si-MEMS Wafer Fab located in Canandaigua, NY.

Akoustis has introduced several new filters over the past twelve months including a 5.6 GHz WiFi filter, a 5.2 GHz WiFi filter, a 3.8 GHz filter for military 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 military markets.

About Akoustis Technologies, Inc.
Akoustis® (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 certified 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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