San Jose, CA - June 30, 2018
Cavendish Kinetics closes $15M funding round
Cavendish Kinetics (CK), the world leader in RF MEMS, announced that it has closed $15M of funding. This funding is in addition to the $28M secured in 2017. These funds support final productization and volume ramp of CK’s second generation RF MEMS technology, including ohmic switches and tuners.
Products built from CK’s first generation MEMS technology have already been adopted by more than a dozen companies, including multiple Tier 1 smartphone OEMs. Smartphones are required to support an increasing number of frequency bands deployed around the world. Compounding this challenge is the fact that large-screen narrow-bezel phones are shrinking the antenna volume, which compromises efficiency. CK’s first generation MEMS SmarTuner allows Smartphone manufacturers to dynamically vary the electrical length of the antenna, which significantly improves performance. This technique, called aperture tuning, enables the most aggressive smartphone form factors, while maximizing signal strength and battery life.
“CK’s volumes are growing at a nice multiple every year,” says Paul Dal Santo, CEO of Cavendish. “Beyond the obviously performance benefits, our first generation product has also demonstrated an outstanding quality record, and our supply chain has been thoroughly proven to the industry.” Cavendish Kinetics remains the only vendor to ship RF MEMS products in high volume.
Cellular standards like LTE Advanced and 5G promise higher data rates, but also greatly increases the complexity of the RF Front End (RFFE). This is clearly evidenced by the fact that RFFE TAM will balloon to >$17B by 2020, making it the fastest growing TAM inside the smartphone. CK’s first generation MEMS has laid a solid foundation, and the second generation MEMS technology is poised to solve some of the industry’s toughest challenges in this >$17B space.