What Work Microwave does

WORK Microwave GmbH is a privately-held German designer and manufacturer of advanced RF electronics and digital signal processing equipment, headquartered in Holzkirchen, Germany, with operations since 1986. The company operates four product lines — Satellite Communication (modems, frequency converters, optical ground stations, and digital converters), Defence Electronics (RF and microwave modules up to 40 GHz for radar, electronic warfare, and signal sources), Navigation Simulators (Xidus multi-constellation GNSS simulators), and Sensors & Measurement (WORKsens inline microwave sensors for moisture, mass, and density). All products are developed and manufactured in-house, from mechanical production and SMD/PCB assembly through final testing, which the company cites as the basis for rapid customization and short response times.

The business is run on a direct enterprise sales model with regional sales directors covering the Americas (Duluth, GA), Western/Southern Europe, Northern/Central/Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific (Singapore), and Greater China, supplemented by participation in global industry events (SATELLITE, CABSAT, IBC, AOC Europe, Space Tech Expo, IAC, ACHEMA). Revenue is generated predominantly through hardware sales of customized RF and optical equipment on quote-based enterprise pricing, complemented by repair/RMA services; pricing is not publicly disclosed. Customer segments span satellite operators, teleport operators, broadcasters, defence manufacturers and military agencies, GNSS receiver makers, and industrial process manufacturers in pharmaceutical, food, packaging, and petrochemical industries.

WORK Microwave holds strategic R&D partnerships with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Fraunhofer IIS, Joanneum Research, IQ Spacecom, TUM, C2m Solutions, and SAIT. In July 2025 it was selected as prime contractor by the European Space Agency for the system validation test bed of the IRIS² secure connectivity constellation. Named end customers include Eutelsat (Ka- and Q/V-band converters for KONNECT VHTS), ND SATCOM (A-Series DVB-S2X gateways), Kongsberg Satellite Services, Satellogic, IQ Spacecom, Kiwisat, Intellian/Telesat, and the German Navy (Fregatte Hessen frigate radar electronics). The company employs 101–250 staff and reports three offices (Germany, USA, Singapore) with global footprint claims.

Name

Work Microwave

Legal name

WORK Microwave GmbH

Website

https://work-microwave.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1986

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

WORK Microwave is a German designer and manufacturer of RF electronics and digital signal processing equipment serving satellite operators, defence agencies, GNSS system integrators, and industrial manufacturers across four product lines since 1986.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Satellite Communication Equipment

NAICS

Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing (334220), Radio and Television Broadcasting and Wireless Communications Equipment Manufacturing (33422), Communications Equipment Manufacturing (3342), Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing (334511), Other Guided Missile and Space Vehicle Parts and Auxiliary Equipment Manufacturing (336419)

SIC

Radio & Tv Broadcasting & Communications Equipment (3663), Computer Communications Equipment (3576), Electronic & Other Electrical Equipment (No Computer Equip) (3600)

akta.pro primary industry

RF Front-End Modules (FEMs) & Integrated RF Modules (HDAHAMAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Satellite Broadband Terminals & Gateways (VSAT/LEO CPE) (HDAFAIAM)

Keywords

• Satellite communication equipment
• RF microwave electronics
• Optical ground station
• GNSS navigation simulator
• Defense electronics modules

Headquarters

HQ city

Holzkirchen

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Satellite Communication Equipment: Sale of RF and optical satellite communication equipment including modems, frequency converters, optical ground stations, and related hardware. Products are developed and manufactured in-house with customization capabilities.
2. Defense Electronics: RF and microwave modules up to 40 GHz for demanding defense and research applications including radar, electronic warfare, and signal sources.
3. GNSS Navigation Simulators: High-end GNSS simulation equipment for receiver manufacturing, production testing, and research applications.
4. Industrial Sensors & Measurement: WORKsens microwave sensors for inline moisture, mass, and density measurement in pharmaceutical, food, packaging, and petrochemical industries.
5. Repair and RMA Services: Return merchandise authorization and repair services for company products with customer support throughout product lifecycle.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

WORK Microwave designs, develops and manufactures advanced RF, microwave and optical communications hardware across four product lines: satellite communication modems, frequency converters, optical ground stations and virtualized ground infrastructure; defense electronics modules for radar and electronic warfare; Xidus multi-constellation GNSS navigation simulators; and WORKsens inline microwave sensors for moisture, mass, density and foreign particle measurement. All products are developed and produced in-house at the Holzkirchen headquarters and are sold to satellite operators, broadcasters, defense manufacturers, GNSS receiver makers and industrial process operators worldwide.

Product overview

WORK Microwave is a hardware-focused technology company developing and manufacturing RF electronics and digital signal processing solutions since 1986. The product portfolio is organized into four main product lines: Satellite Communication (SatCom), Defence Electronics, Navigation Simulators, and Sensors & Measurement. The Satellite Communication line centers on the A-Series modular platform offering modulators (AT-60/AT-61, AT-80), demodulators (AR-60/AR-61, AR-80), and combined modems (AX-60/AX-61, AX-80, AX-62) supporting DVB-S2/S2X, CCSDS, and ECSS standards with symbol rates from 10 ksps to 500 Msps. The V-Series Software Modem provides cloud-based virtualization compliant with DIFI standard for modern ground station architectures. For optical communications, the Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) Suite includes the DOG-M1 Multi-Mission Optical Modem, DOG-F1 Front-End, and DOG-DA/DA4 Free Space Optical Detectors for space-to-ground laser links. Supporting infrastructure includes DBDC/DBUC digital converters for RF-to-IP conversion, frequency converters (VSBU, VSSBU, VSB D, VSCU) for various frequency bands, and redundancy systems (RSCC, RSCM). The Navigation Simulators product line features the Xidus family (Xidus-424, Xidus-648, Xidus-Studio) for multi-constellation GNSS simulation supporting GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou, QZSS, and SBAS. The Sensors line offers WORKsens high-speed inline sensors for moisture, mass, density, and foreign particle measurement in industrial applications. The company also provides complete system solutions including the Virtual Ground Station (VGS) combining DBDC/DBUC with V-Series modems, and the Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) Suite for laser communication. All products are developed and manufactured in-house at the German headquarters.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• A-Series Satellite Modem Platform Modular FPGA- and software-defined satellite modem family supporting DVB-S2X, DVB-S2 and CCSDS waveforms; offered as modulators (AT-60/AT-61, AT-80), demodulators (AR-60/AR-61, AR-80) and combined modem units (AX-60/AX-61, AX-80, AX-62) for satellite operators, broadcasters and space mission integrators.
• AX-60/AX-61 IP Modem DVB-S2X modem with integrated encapsulator for high-speed IP connectivity, supporting modulations up to 256APSK, symbol rates 100 ksps to 75 Msps and data rates up to 360 Mbps.
• AX-80 Wideband Modem End-to-end wideband transmit and receive satellite modem with 500 Msps symbol rates and data rates up to 3 Gbps per direction over DVB-S2X with 10G Ethernet interfaces.
• AR-60/AR-61 IP Demodulator DVB-S2X demodulator with integrated decapsulator supporting symbol rates from 100 ksps to 75 Msps and data rates up to 360 Mbit/s, functioning as layer 3 bridge or router with traffic shaping/QoS.
• AR-80 Wideband Demodulator DVB-S2X demodulator for ultra-wideband transponders up to 500 Msps and data rates up to 3 Gbps, targeting governmental, multimedia and network applications.
• AT-60/AT-61 IP Modulator DVB-S2X modulator with integrated encapsulator for high-speed IP connectivity; AT-61 supports both IP and Transport Stream interfaces.
• AT-80 Wideband Modulator DVB-S2X modulator for ultra-wideband transponders up to 500 Msps on a single carrier, designed for governmental, multimedia and network applications.
• AX-60-S02190 CCSDS TM/TC Modem Ground station modem compliant with CCSDS 131.0-B-3 and 231.0-B-3 for mission communication to IQ Spacecom XLink transceivers, with symbol rates 10 ksps to 75 Msps.
• AX-62 Space Mission Ground Modem Ground station modem for New Space missions supporting CCSDS and DVB waveforms and protocols, enabling integrated support of multiple space missions from a single device with quick waveform extension.
• V-Series Software Modem Cloud-based DIFI-standard-compliant software modem running on general-purpose CPU/GPU hardware, supporting DVB-S2/S2X, CCSDS and ECSS standards with a minimum 36 Msps symbol rate; replaces dedicated hardware demodulators with virtualized software modems.
• Digital Optical Ground Station (DOG) Suite Complete suite for optical space-to-ground laser communication including DOG-M1 Multi-Mission Optical Modem, DOG-F1 Front-End, DOG-DA/DA4 Free Space Optical Detectors and communication packages, using CCSDS and SDA standards to overcome RF spectrum limits.
• DOG-M1 Multi-Mission Optical Modem Advanced optical modem for space-to-ground laser communication supporting CCSDS and SDA standards, designed for optical communication up to multi-GHz bandwidths from LEO to Deep Space missions.
• AR-80-OPT Optical Multi-Mission Receiver Optical ground station receiver handling down-to-Earth laser links from CubeSats with data rates up to 3 Gbps and connectivity to various optical detectors.
• DOG-F1 Front-End Digitizer Optical modem front-end that samples multi-Gsps signals and performs early signal processing stages from symbol synchronization to LLR computation for O3K and HPE transmissions.
• DOG-DA Free Space Optical Detector Fibre-coupled free space optical detector featuring an InGaAs avalanche photodiode with high sensitivity for space down-link, supporting various optical wavelengths and bandwidths in a 19-inch rack mount housing.
• DOG-DA4 Free Space Optical Detector Free space optical detector with fibre-coupled input for receiving optical free space communication signals as part of the DOG suite.
• DBDC Digital Block Downconverter / DBUC Digital Block Upconverter Digital converters that interface antenna LNA/LNB signals (DBDC) or uplink signals (DBUC) and convert RF to/from digital baseband, outputting digital IP packets in DIFI standard to the V-Series software modem.
• VSBU Block Upconverter Frequency block upconverter for S- to Q-band with L-Band input, available in indoor and outdoor configurations for standard and customized satellite communication applications.
• VSSBU Synthesized Block Upconverter Agile synthesized block upconverter supporting S- to V-band frequencies for satellite uplink applications.
• VSB D Block Downconverter Block downconverter for satellite signal reception in various frequency bands.
• VSBD Synthesized Block Downconverter Synthesized block downconverter for satellite signal reception with agile frequency coverage.
• VSCU IF Upconverter IF Upconverter for L- to Q-band with 70 MHz, 140 MHz, 230 MHz or 720 MHz IF options.
• VSBD-T Tracking Downconverter Tracking downconverter for satellite signal tracking applications.
• Wideband Downconverter Wideband downconverter for high-bandwidth satellite communication applications.
• Q/V Band Converter Frequency converter supporting Q-band and V-band frequencies for high-throughput satellite applications, covering 47.20 to 51.40 GHz with 4 GHz bandwidth.
• RSCC-T Redundancy Switch 1:1 1:1 redundancy system with transfer relay on input and output, automatic or manual switching, and typical 8 ms switching speed, available in indoor and outdoor versions.
• RSCC-1/RSCC-2 Compact Redundancy Switch Compact 1:1 and 2:1 redundancy system with transfer relays on input and output.
• RSCC-8 Compact Redundancy Switch 8:1 Compact 8:1 redundancy system designed for L-band frequency converters, requiring only 2 RU.
• RSCM Modular Redundancy Switch N:1 Modular redundancy system up to 8:1 for frequency converters with a flexible control unit.
• RC-CO Remote Control Remote control unit for outdoor frequency converters with optional uplink power control, supporting configuration of up to 8 frequency converters.
• VSTLT Test Loop Translator Frequency translator for RF band test and system evaluation supporting C, X, Ku, K(DBS), Ka, Q-band with variable attenuator and high-stability OCXO.
• Xidus GNSS Simulator Family High-end GNSS simulator family supporting all existing and planned navigation systems (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, QZSS, BeiDou, SBAS) with multi-constellation, multi-frequency simulation capability for GNSS receiver manufacturers, system integrators and research institutions.
• Xidus-424 GNSS Simulator GNSS simulator supporting up to 128 LOS channels and 512 multipath channels with 2 RF outputs and up to 16 multi-GNSS frequencies.
• Xidus-648 GNSS Simulator High-end GNSS simulator supporting all current and future GNSS signals with up to 256 LOS channels, 1024 multipath channels, 6 RF outputs and up to 32 multi-GNSS frequencies.
• Xidus-Studio Configurator Software Configurator and viewer client software connecting to the Xidus Core application, providing multiple scenario configuration and simultaneous viewing of multiple simulation outputs.
• WORKsens Microwave Sensors High-speed inline sensors using electromagnetic fields to characterize material properties including moisture, mass, density and foreign particles, customizable for pharmaceutical, paper, textile, food, packaging and petrochemical industries.
• Repair and RMA Services Return merchandise authorization and repair services for WORK Microwave products with customer support throughout the product lifecycle.

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 3 Gbps data rate per direction with AX-80 wideband modem
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• European Space Agency (ESA)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2025Selected as prime contractor to develop system validation test bed for IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilient, Interconnected and Secure by Satellite) constellation. Project includes designing, developing, and deploying comprehensive system test bed for EU's next-generation multi-orbital secure connectivity system. Work includes overall integration and verification of test bed and IF interface development.
• Fraunhofer IIScoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2025Collaborating with WORK Microwave on ESA IRIS² project as part of the prime contractor team developing system validation test bed.
• Joanneum ResearchcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2025Collaborating with WORK Microwave on ESA IRIS² project as part of the prime contractor team developing system validation test bed.
• DLR (German Aerospace Center)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 February 2025Cooperation agreement for optical satellite communication development. DLR Institut für Kommunikation und Navigation and WORK Microwave foster cooperation on developing optical satellite communication technologies. Combines DLR's leading research assets with WORK Microwave's ability to turn innovation into new products for worldwide leading position on Optical Ground Stations (OGS). Companies have collaborated since the 1980s.
• IQ SpacecomcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on end-to-end CubeSat solution combining WORK Microwave's AX-60 IP modem with IQ Spacecom's XLink transceiver. Provides affordable, one-stop-shop solution for LEO satellite missions including Earth observation. Features space communication waveforms according to CCSDS Recommended Standards.
• Technical University of Munich (TUM)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership with TUM Institute of Astronautics to conduct comprehensive field test on DVB-S2X and Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) technologies.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• IQ Spacecom: Provider of CubeSat and SmallSat communication equipment including the XLink transceiver; partners with WORK Microwave on AX-60 IP modem/XLink bundles for LEO missions. Closely comparable to WORK Microwave's space mission modem portfolio.
• Datum Systems: Niche manufacturer of satellite modems and modem subsystems for ground stations. Comparable to WORK Microwave's A-Series modems in the mid-sized teleport and government satcom segment.

Direct peers

• Kratos Defense & Security Solutions: Provides satellite ground systems, RF products and defense electronics through its RT Logic and Kratos Microwave business units. Closely comparable to WORK Microwave across its SatCom and Defense Electronics product lines.
• Tesat-Spacecom: German-headquartered supplier of satellite communications equipment including RF and optical terminals. Highly comparable to WORK Microwave across SatCom, optical space communications, and defense electronics with overlapping European aerospace customer base.
• Comtech Telecommunications: US-listed supplier of satellite ground station equipment, including modems and high-throughput gateway technologies. Directly comparable to WORK Microwave's A-Series DVB-S2X modem and converter portfolio serving teleport and gateway operators.
• Gilat Satellite Networks: Provider of satellite ground equipment and VSAT modems/terminals for commercial and defense markets. Comparable to WORK Microwave's SatCom product line in the broadband satellite modem and gateway category.
• Teledyne Paradise Datacom: Supplies RF satellite amplifiers, frequency converters and ground segment hardware. Direct competitor to WORK Microwave's block up/down converters and Q/V-band converter product families.
• Mynaric: Specialist in optical/laser satellite communication terminals for space and ground segments. Directly competes with WORK Microwave's DOG (Digital Optical Ground Station) suite for space-to-ground laser link deployments.
• ST Engineering iDirect: Major supplier of satellite modems and ground infrastructure (built on the legacy Newtec and VT iDirect product lines). Direct competitor to WORK Microwave's A-Series modem family in the DVB-S2X and broadcast teleport market.

Broad incumbents

• Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace: Large Norwegian defense/space prime that owns Kongsberg Satellite Services, a customer of WORK Microwave. Comparable as a broader satellite ground and defense electronics incumbent whose product portfolio overlaps with WORK Microwave's defense electronics and ground segment.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/work-microwave-gmbh

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Work Microwave