Involving experienced industry leaders and scientists from University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Cornell University, the Akoustis mission is to commercialize and manufacture its patent-pending Bulk ONE acoustic wave technology to address the critical frequency-selectivity requirements in today's mobile smartphones - improving the efficiency and signal quality of Mobile Wireless devices and enabling The Internet of Things. The Bulk Acoustic Wave (BAW) filter market is rapidly expanding, driven by growth in 4G/LTE and the number of filters required per device. BAW filters have evolved as the key differentiator in the RF wireless frontend, as nearly half of the RF power generated by the PA is subsequently dissipated as heat in the filter. As a result, the power amplifier must be over-designed (by as much as 2x) to accommodate for this filter loss, increasing the cost of the frontend, negatively impacting the front end thermal management, and ultimately, reducing battery life. Furthermore, such frontend losses contribute to human-tissue heating when the mobile device is held against the head or attached to the body (in the case of wearable RF devices). Akoustis addresses this critical mobile-wireless need by using single crystal piezoelectric materials to create a new class of acoustic wave filters improving performance, lowering cost and driving miniaturization. Akoustis' Bulk ONE filters originate from materials which exhibit 30% better acoustic performance when compared to the incumbent thin-film technologies deployed today. Very shortly after having been formed as Acoustics, the firm simultaneously completed a merger transaction in which Akoustics, Inc. ("Akoustis") became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, and a $5.3 million private placement offering of the Company's common stock was completed.
