News | December 6, 2019

Akoustis To Present The Technical Performance Of Its Wide Bandwidth 5.6 GHz XBAW Coexistence Filters At The 65th IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting

  • World’s First 5.6 GHz BAW UNII 2+3C Filter Targets Tri-Band WiFi Architectures
  • IEDM is the World's Pre-eminent Forum for Reporting Technological Breakthroughs
  • XBAW™ Micro Filters Offer Significantly Reduced Size Relative to Incumbent DR Filters

Charlotte, NC (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 it is presenting the first published technical results of its 5.6 GHz UNII XBAWTM coexistence filters at the 65th IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) being held in San Francisco, CA from December 7-11, 2019.

The IEDM is the world's pre-eminent forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and electron device technology, design, manufacturing, physics, and modeling.

A senior member of the Akoustis technical team and co-author of the paper will provide an oral presentation at the conference on Tuesday, December 10, 2019 at 11:35am PST.

Location: Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Imperial Ballroom A
Session: #17 - Microwave, Millimeter Wave and Analog Technology – III-Nitride Devices and Co-Integration
Publication: “452 MHz Bandwidth, High Rejection 5.6 GHz UNII XBAWTM Coexistence Filters Using Doped AlN-on-Silicon”
Authors: Y. Shen, P. Patel, R. Vetury and J.B. Shealy.

The paper and presentation discuss the world’s first UNII 2C+3 channel 5.6 GHz WiFi coexistence filter using Akoustis’ patented and proprietary XBAWTM process. A key challenge to addressing the UNII 2C+3 band is achieving the bandwidth of 360 MHz while successfully coexisting with signals in the nearby UNII 1+2A band. The need for coexistence with the adjacent UNII 1+2A bands will increase annually as tri-band architectures overtake dual-band architectures in WiFi and as multi-user multiple-in-multiple-out (MU-MIMO) complexity continues to increase. The presentation will include XBAWTM performance relative to incumbent technologies including dielectric resonators.

“A unique combination of high-coupling piezoelectric materials and MEMs RF technology allows us to create a new class of wide bandwidth BAW RF filters in the sub-6 GHz spectrum”, stated Dr. Jeff Shealy, Founder and CEO of Akoustis. Dr. Shealy continued, “Our WiFi XBAW filters demonstrate a unique combination of low-loss, high-power handling and high-frequency performance while offering up to a 23x size reduction over incumbent RF dielectric resonator filters.”

The 5.6 GHz XBAW WiFi Filter Features:

  • Operating center frequency of 5.66 GHz
  • -3 dB bandwidth of 452 MHz (8% fractional bandwidth)
  • Minimum insertion loss of 1.79 dB
  • Average insertion loss of 2.25 dB
  • Out-of-band rejection > 50 dB in the UNII 1+2A band
  • Realized filter die size of 0.557 mm2

The XBAW process has been designed, developed and is manufactured at 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 4.9 GHz band n79 filter for small cell network infrastructure, 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.

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.

About IEDM
IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) is the world’s pre-eminent forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and electron-device technology, design, manufacturing, physics, and modeling. IEDM is the flagship conference for nanometer-scale CMOS transistor technology, advanced memory, displays, sensors, MEMS devices, novel quantum and nano-scale devices and phenomenology, optoelectronics, devices for power and energy harvesting, high speed devices, as well as process technology and device modeling and simulation. The conference scope not only encompasses devices in silicon, compound, and organic semiconductors, but also emerging materials systems.

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.

© 2019 GlobeNewswire, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Source: Akoustis, Inc.