Mobile filter start-up Resonant has signed a fourth non-captive foundry agreement with an established surface acoustic wave (SAW) foundry that serves the RF market. According to a release from Resonant, in addition to SAW, the foundry is a “leading pure play GaAs foundry” and “is part of a new business group of a Tier 1 CMOS fab company.”

The added foundry increases the manufacturing options available to Resonant's customers. With a fabless business model, Resonant designs SAW filters using their so-called Infinite Synthesized Network® design capability and fabricates the designs at one of their foundry partners.

Resonant is targeting the market for filters in smartphones, which is growing faster than smartphone volume because of the increasing number of frequency bands and use of carrier aggregation to increase data rates.

In a release from the company, George Holmes, CEO of Resonant, said, “Moving to a fabless business model revolutionized CMOS, allowing a stable supply chain and increasing competition dramatically. Resonant is enabling a similar model for RF filters, which have become the key strategic element of the RF front-end.”

Q3 Financial Results

In a separate announcement, Resonant reported financial performance for the third quarter of 2017, which ended September 30, 2017. Revenue was $106,000, primarily from upfront payments tied to development contracts. Second quarter 2017 revenue was $220,000.

Research and development expenses were $2.3 million, compared with $2.4 million for the second quarter of 2017. The company said the decrease was primarily the result of reduced hiring expenses. General and administrative expenses totaled $2.0 million, compared to $2.1 million for the second quarter of 2017. The decrease was primarily related to headcount changes.

The net loss in the third quarter was $4.2 million compared with a net loss of $4.3 million for the second quarter of 2017. The decrease was primarily due to the reduction in operating expenses.

Resonant had $13.5 million in cash and equivalents at the end of the quarter, compared to $9.1 million on June 30, 2017. Resonant raised $7.5 million (net) and used $3.1 million in cash during the quarter, compared to the $3.9 million used during the second quarter of 2017.

Resonant has multiple filter development projects underway and is hoping to convert the designs to production, which will generate royalty revenue, the primary income stream in the company’s fabless business model.

Commenting on the quarter, Holmes said, “We had a great quarter, with several key milestones, including our first fabless filter company sampling of a tier one OEM’s SAW/SAW quadplexer with competitive industry performance to established players. Most recently, we announced that one of our customers has qualified a full band 41 filter we designed, which is being delivered on SAW. Both of these are industry firsts and are currently being sampled to OEMs.”

To support Korean and Chinese customers, Resonant opened an office in South Korea and appointed Jangwon Jung as the sales manager for Korea.