Mission Statement AKON’s mission is to fulfill their customers’ requirements for the highest quality RF/Microwave components and subsystems by focusing on all aspects of product performance, reliability, delivery and competitive price. Akon will further strive to continuously improve upon its products and services by listening to their customers, applying state of the art technology and achieving long-term profitability. Their Team Akon is composed of highly skilled individuals dedicated to working in unison to produce a "built-in quality" product and to provide the best customer service possible. Akon encourages creativity, growth, and improvement from every member of its team. Their Commitment Excellence: Akon is committed to providing the highest levels of customer service and satisfaction through continuous improvement of their facilities, personnel and products. Integrity: Akon is committed to the highest standards of ethics, integrity and professionalism. Teamwork: Akon values teamwork and effective communications by and between their company, their customers, their employees and their suppliers. Responsibility: Akon acts responsibly toward their community and the environment. Facilities Akon, Inc. is located in San Jose, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley and less than ten minutes by car from San Jose International Airport (SJC). It is comprised of approximately 45,000 square feet of state-of-the-art manufacturing, engineering design, and general office space. The manufacturing and testing area is designed and maintained to simulate an advanced development laboratory-type environment. It is an enclosed area that is environmentally controlled with respect to airborne particles, temperature, humidity, air flow patterns, air motion, and lighting. Akon has built an ESD-protected raised floor underneath and overhead an air-filtration system keeps air circulating to a better than Class 100,000 level. All employees must be properly gowned with protective hair and shoe coverings to prevent unnecessary contamination of the area. Being a US government cleared facility, Akon’s facility as a whole is a tight security area with badge access only. Security cameras are placed throughout the building to protect employees and customers. All departments are themselves independent security areas - with card access given only to department employees. Engineering In its 28 years in business, Akon has built up a reputation of engineering design excellence that is evident in every unit that is shipped. For more than a quarter century, Akon’s engineering team has focused solely on designing, developing, and maintaining the highest quality RF/microwave subsystems and components for the electronic warfare community. Akon designs and fabricates hardware for airborne, seaborne and space applications ranging from log components to major subsystems. In support of its design activities, Akon has established separately managed in-house laboratories for the design and development of components such as, for example, miniature switches and filters. These laboratories design components specific to customer requirements and significantly reduce prototype development times by eliminating long lead-times associated with procurement from outside vendors and allows for real-time feedback on component performance and modifications, when necessary. Akon engineers have the knowledge, tools and experience to design, manage and deliver even the most technically challenging projects. Their experience includes all aspects of the product design and development life cycle: research and development design and analysis, fabrication and manufacturing and maintenance and diagnostics. Design analysis using computer-based simulation and modeling programs provide an assessment of each design's reliability, reproducibility, testability, and maintainability. Simulation software reduces the time and costs required to perform circuit analyses while modeling allows identification and correction of design problems before the circuit is prototyped. All engineering work is subject to Akon’s 100% Quality Assurance Procedures and a dedicated document control department to ensure full project documentation with complete traceability available to the customer. Manufacturing Akon's considerable manufacturing capability is the result of combining state of the art facilities and equipment with multi-talented personnel at all levels with a procurement and manufacturing strategy that maximizes value to their customers. All Akon units are made assembled, tuned and tested by experienced and highly skilled individuals. Each employee plays an important role in the continuous improvement and quality enhancement of Akon products and their manufacturing lines are structured in a way that reduces setup times and maximizes first-time quality. Close relationships between all employees- from line-level personnel to management- is encouraged to facilitate communication and to guarantee real-time and unified action by the organization. Akon's procurement strategy is similarly focused on maximizing value to their customers by bringing in-house the manufacture of key components- filters, switches, digitally controlled attenuators, amplifiers, etc. - which traditionally are procured from outside vendors. This minimizes the impacts caused by late supplier delivery, component quality issues and unexpectedly high material cost. For items they do procure, Akon's close relationships with suppliers contribute to lower costs and higher quality as suppliers deliver parts as they are needed. Procured components are subjected to rigorous inspection and testing prior to sending to manufacturing floor. Quality Assurance Akon considers quality a major element of product and management performance. Its quality system conforms to MIL-I-45208. Requirements beyond this, including elements of MIL-STD-883 and MIL-I-38510, are common but are applied to specific customer contracts. Receiving Inspection of all incoming material conformance to the Purchase Order and Akon drawings and specifications is performed. In-process quality inspections are performed at the completion of housing assembly, pre-tune, pre-cap, and final assembly and testing stages. To further ensure the best possible quality, in-process monitoring of the manufacturing process is conducted on an ongoing random basis. ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS SCREENING (ESS) Akon has a fully instrumented environmental testing laboratory. MIL-STD-167, MIL-STD-202, MIL-STD-750, MIL-STD-810, and MIL-STD-883 are the basis of most tests. Following is list of commonly performed testing at Akon. 1. Stabilization Bake: Microprocessor Controlled+125° C. 2. Thermal Shock: Air to Air. 3. Mechanical Shock. 4. Vibration: Random, Sine, and combined Random/Sine. 5. Thermal Vacuum. 6. Temperature-Humidity. 7. Temperature Cycling. 8. DC Burn-In. 9. RF Burn-In. 10. Gross Leak Rate Testing. 11. Fine Leak Rate Testing. Akon is Dedicated to Excellence. They strive for perfection. With a commitment to quality and customer service, Akon continues to supply products by investing in facilities latest equipment and state-of-the-art technologies.