Akoustis® Technologies Announces Shipment Of First Diplexer Single Crystal BAW Filter Module Prototypes To Fortune 500 Customer

New Internalized Wafer Manufacturing Capability Allows Akoustis to Produce Increasingly Complex Filter Solutions

Charlotte, NC (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akoustis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKTS) (“Akoustis” or the “Company”), a manufacturer of patented single-crystal BulkONE® bulk acoustic wave (BAW) high-band RF filters for mobile and other wireless applications, announced its first shipment of high performance single crystal BAW diplexer filter module prototypes.

These initial prototypes were shipped pursuant to a customer engagement and purchase order announced by Akoustis in May 2017. The customer is a Fortune 500 company which provides systems, products and solutions to government and commercial customers worldwide.

The purchase order covers the cost of engineering development and initial delivery of BAW RF diplexers for band-specific applications in the frequency spectrum below 1.5GHz. Akoustis expects follow on shipments of small form-factor bandpass diplexer filter solutions that replace larger legacy-filter technology, which enables system miniaturization without trading off performance.

The diplexer prototypes represent an increase in complexity of BAW filter components manufacturing at the Company’s recently acquired NY Wafer Fab. The diplexer filter combines two discrete single crystal BAW die into a matched multiplexer module that splits and routes incoming signals to two different receivers based on desired passband frequencies.

This is the fourth BAW filter prototype shipment that Akoustis has made in the past 100 days. In August and September 2017, AKTS separately announced first shipment of high performance LTE-TDD Band 41, 2.6 GHz BAW RF filters prototypes that will satisfy the challenging filter requirements in the high growth 4G LTE mobile market in China; first shipment of premium high-band BAW filter prototypes for a radar application that will operate with a passband between 3.5GHz and 3.9GHz; and, first shipment of the industry’s first single crystal 5.2GHz BAW RF filters for 802.11ac Tri-Band WiFi routers.

Based on technical feedback from these prospective customers, Akoustis is utilizing an interactive engineering process to modify the filters and provide updated samples for consideration of design into commercial and military applications.

Jeff Shealy, CEO of Akoustis, commented, “Our recent product prototype shipments of BAW filters now range from 1.5GHz to 5.2GHz, demonstrating the applicability of our high band RF filter technology for 4G LTE, emerging 5G and 5GHz WiFi applications and difficult to address specialty applications. We remain focused on customer design engineering engagements, as well as technology and product qualification for high volume commercial manufacturing in first-half of calendar year 2018.”

Akoustis® is pioneering next-generation material science 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. Superior performance is driven by the significant advances of high-purity, single-crystal piezoelectric materials and the resonator-filter process technology. The advanced material properties drive electro-mechanical coupling, which translates to wide filter bandwidth. High-band RF filters are achieved by leveraging the Company’s high-sound velocity, single-crystal piezoelectric materials. These single-crystal piezoelectric materials offer high-thermal conductivity along the path of heat flow, enabling high-power handling capability of the RF filter.

About Akoustis Technologies, Inc.
Akoustis® (http://www.akoustis.com) is a high-tech RF filter solutions company that designs and manufactures its unique, patented BulkONE® technology to produce single-crystal bulk acoustic wave (BAW) RF filters for mobile and other wireless markets, which facilitate signal acquisition and accelerate band performance between the antenna and digital back end. Its BulkONE® technology will service the fast growing multi-billion-dollar market of device OEMs, network providers, and consumers to diminish Front End phone heat, battery drain and signal loss -- all considered to be directly related to current RF polycrystalline filter technologies' limitations. The Company owns and operates a 120,000 sq. ft. ISO-9001 certified commercial wafer-manufacturing facility located in Canandaigua, NY, which includes a class 100 / class 1000 cleanroom facility - tooled for 150-mm diameter - for the design, development, fabrication and packaging of RF filters, MEMS and semiconductor devices. Akoustis is headquartered in the Piedmont technology corridor near Charlotte North Carolina.

Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this press release that are not descriptions of historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, representations and contentions and are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "potential," "continue" and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current 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 early stage of our BulkONE® technology presently under 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 market and sell our technologies; the ability to achieve high volume manufacturing in the first-half calendar year 2018 and the size and growth of the potential markets for any of our technologies, and the rate and degree of market acceptance of any of our technologies. These and other risks and uncertainties, which are described in more detail in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and in other reports and statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking statements regarding future events and circumstances discussed in this press release 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 presentation speak only as of the date hereof, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly or privately any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this presentation to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations.

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