Akoustis® Readies For 5G By Completing Capital Buildout of Its First BAW RF Filter Line
January 08 2018 - 7:00AM
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 today it has completed the
installation of manufacturing equipment at its NY plant which
allows it to process wafers from the point of receipt of raw wafers
up to the packaging of the RF filter die.
The capital buildout consolidates the Company’s
epitaxy, wafer fabrication and trimming work centers under one
roof, establishing the industry’s first single crystal BAW RF
filter fab. Key manufacturing tools have been added
eliminating previously outsourced pieces of Akoustis’ wafer
fabrication process. Qualification of the tools has commenced
and is expected to be completed this quarter.
The Company has added scalable metal-organic
chemical vapor-phase deposition (MOCVD) manufacturing to produce
its patented, single crystal piezoelectric materials. Advanced
single crystal materials allow Akoustis to exploit unique material
science to address critical RF filter requirements for existing and
next generation communications applications, including emerging 5G
wireless. The MOCVD capability is configured for 150mm diameter
wafers and is forward compatible up to 200mm diameter.
Mary Winters, VP of Wafer Fab operations,
commented, “Consolidating our entire BAW process in-house reduces
cycle-time for product development and enables a more reliable
supply chain to manufacture wide bandwidth, high frequency RF
filters.”
Jeff Shealy, CEO of Akoustis, commented,
“We now have the capacity to service multiple end markets using
high performance, high complexity RF filter products. This
consolidated manufacturing capability positions us to execute our
business plan, including technology and first product qualification
for commercial manufacturing for emerging 5G wireless applications
in the first-half of calendar year 2018.”
In June 2017, Akoustis completed the strategic
acquisition of a 120,000 sq. ft. wafer manufacturing facility and
operations located in Canandaigua, NY to internalize production of
its patented, single crystal BAW RF filters. The acquisition
included 150-mm wafer manufacturing tools, 57-acres of real
property and an ongoing MEMS business.
Akoustis is pioneering next-generation materials
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. The Company has announced four customer engagements for
its premium high band BAW RF filters in frequencies ranging from
1.5 GHz to 5.2 GHz and remains focused on customer design
engineering engagements, as well as technology and product
qualification for commercial manufacturing in first-half of
calendar year 2018.
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 wafers - 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
StatementsStatements 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 first
product qualification for commercial manufacturing in the
first-half of calendar year 2018 and the size and growth of the
potential markets for any of our technologies, the rate and degree
of market acceptance of any of our technologies and our ability to
raise funding to support operations and the continued development
and qualification of its premium high-band BAW RF filters utilizing
its patented single-crystal piezoelectric materials. 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.
Akoustis Contact Information:
COMPANY: Dave Aichele Akoustis Technologies,
Inc. VP of Business Development` 704-997-5735, ext. 106
daichele@akoustis.com INVESTORS:The Del Mar
Consulting Group, Inc.Robert B. Prag,
President858-794-9500bprag@delmarconsulting.com
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