EVERSPIN TECHNOLOGIES INC - Annual Report: 2017 (Form 10-K)

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10‑K

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017

OR

Commission File Number 001‑37900

Everspin Technologies, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its Charter)

5670 W. Chandler Boulevard, Suite 100

Chandler, Arizona 85226

(Address of principal executive offices including zip code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (480) 347‑1111

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: Common Stock, Par Value $0.0001 Per Share; Common stock traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.  YES  ☐    NO  ☒

Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act.  YES  ☐    NO  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  YES  ☒    NO  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit and post such files).  YES  ☒    NO  ☐

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10‑K or any amendment to this Form 10‑K.  ☒

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer”, “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b‑2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b‑2 of the Exchange Act).   YES  ◻    NO  ☒

As of June 30, 2017, the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, the aggregate market value of the common stock of Registrant held by non-affiliates, based upon the closing sales price for the Registrant’s common stock for such date, as quoted on the Nasdaq Global Market, was approximately $179.5 million. Shares of common stock held by each officer, director and entities affiliated with directors have been excluded because such persons may be deemed to be “affiliates” as that term is defined under the rules and regulations of the Exchange Act. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for any other purpose.

The number of shares of Registrant’s Common Stock outstanding as of March 7, 2018 was 16,635,651.

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the Registrant’s Definitive Proxy Statement relating to the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the Registrant’s fiscal year ended December 31, 2017, are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Report.

 

Table of Contents

 

 

Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10‑K contains forward-looking statements concerning our business, operations and financial performance and condition, as well as our plans, objectives and expectations for our business operations and financial performance and condition. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “assume,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “due,” “estimate,” “expect,” “goal,” “intend,” “may,” “objective,” “plan,” “predict,” “potential,” “positioned,” “seek,” “should,” “will,” “would,” and other similar expressions that are predictions of or indicate future events and future trends, or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about:

Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts, and projections about our business and the industry in which we operate, and management’s beliefs and assumptions are not guarantees of future performance or development and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that are in some cases beyond our control. As a result, any or all of our forward-looking statements in this report may turn out to be inaccurate. Furthermore, if the forward-looking statements prove to be inaccurate, the inaccuracy may be material. In light of the significant uncertainties in these forward-looking statements, you should not regard these statements as a representation or warranty by us or any other person that we will achieve our objectives and plans in any specified time frame, or at all. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, those listed under “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this report. These statements, like all statements in this report, speak only as of their date, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise these statements in light of future developments. We caution investors that our business and financial performance are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information becomes available in the future.

 

PART I

Item 1. Business.

Overview

We are the leading provider of magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) solutions. Our MRAM solutions offer the persistence of non-volatile memory, a type of memory that retains information even in the absence of power, with the speed and endurance of random access memory (RAM), and enable the protection of mission critical data particularly in the event of power interruption or failure. Our MRAM solutions allow our customers in the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage markets to design high performance, power efficient and reliable systems without the need for bulky batteries or capacitors.

Our MRAM technology, unlike traditional semiconductor memory technologies, stores data as a magnetic state rather than an electrical charge, and is offered as either a discrete or embedded solution. Our products read and write data at speeds on par with most dynamic RAM (DRAM) and static RAM (SRAM). Our products offer the non-volatility of flash memory but with significantly superior endurance. We offer our MRAM products with different densities and interfaces to address the various needs of our customers. Our lower-density MRAM products, which we define as having bit densities from 128kb to 16Mb, offer write-speeds on par with SRAM, with virtually unlimited endurance. Our higher density products, which we define as having bit densities at or greater than 64Mb, offer write-speeds on par with DRAM and have superior endurance compared to most other non-volatile memory technologies.

Our lower-density products are optimized for use in industrial, and automotive and transportation applications, while our higher-density products are optimized for use in enterprise storage applications. In the enterprise storage market, we collaborate with industry-leading memory controller companies to enable compatibility of their controllers with our MRAM products, facilitating the adoption of our solutions into our customers’ existing end products. We sell our products directly and through our established distribution channel to industry-leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs)

We leverage both internal and outsourced manufacturing capabilities to produce our MRAM products. We purchase industry-standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) wafers from semiconductor foundries and complete the processing of our products by inserting our magnetic-bit technology at our 200mm fabrication facility in Chandler, Arizona. We have entered into a manufacturing agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES for 300mm high-volume production of our higher-density products. We believe our strategic relationship with GLOBALFOUNDRIES accelerates the development of our MRAM solutions, provides us with leading-edge outsourced manufacturing capabilities, and enables us to operate a variable cost financial model. In addition, GLOBALFOUNDRIES has the ability to embed our technology in its products for sale to its customers, from which we would earn licensing or royalty revenue.

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015 we recorded revenue of $35.9 million, $27.1 million, and $26.5 million, gross margin of 59.8%, 54.3%, and 52.7%, and a net loss of $21.1 million, $16.7 million, and $18.2 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2017, we had 90 employees, more than half of whom are engaged in research and development. Our headquarters are located in Chandler, Arizona. Our principal design center is in Austin, Texas, and we have additional sales operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.

The Opportunity for Fast, Persistent MemoryMRAM

Traditional memory technologies have either fast write-speeds or are non-volatile, but not both. MRAM combines both features into a single solution, making it an ideal memory to protect data in the event of power interruption or failure, and to store data that is frequently written and accessed. We believe customers that employ MRAM in their systems are better able to design higher performance, lower power, more reliable and simpler systems than they would be able to design using other existing memory technologies. The following attributes make MRAM an increasingly important application specific memory solution for system architectures that require non-volatile memory with the speed and endurance of RAM:

Non-volatile. MRAM can retain data in the event of power interruption or failure, which enables end-system designers to create products without costly power-loss protection systems, such as batteries and capacitors.

Fast Write- Speeds. MRAM offers write-speeds that are on par with the fastest available volatile memory technologies, including most DRAM and SRAM and is significantly faster than other non-volatile memories used today. For example, MRAM writes a block over 100,000 times faster than NAND flash, a type of non-volatile flash memory.

Superior Write- Cycle Endurance. MRAM offers superior write-cycle endurance to existing non-volatile solutions, enabling end-systems designers to offer products that are not limited by memory wear-out. For example, MRAM write-cycle endurance is nearly 10 million times greater than NAND flash.

Scalable to Greater Densities and Smaller Process Geometries. MRAM’s write-speed and endurance are scalable with increasing bit densities and smaller geometries, which we believe will allow system designers to employ MRAM in applications that require more memory and smaller form factors.

Proven to be Manufacturable at High Volumes. MRAM can be manufactured in high volumes and in advanced nodes, and is compatible with standard CMOS.

Low Energy Requirement. MRAM utilizes energy efficiently over the duration of its write and read cycles. It has the ability to be completely powered down, consuming no energy while still retaining data, which data can be accessed quickly once power is restored.

These attributes enable MRAM to be used as a true Persistent Memory, by which we mean a form of memory that has non-volatility that is similar to storage but with performance that is similar to DRAM or SRAM. MRAM has already proven its commercial viability as a discrete and embedded solution in application-specific memory markets and we believe it will become a mainstream memory technology in the future.

Discrete MRAM Market Opportunity

We expect the introduction of increasingly higher density MRAM solutions will result in greater adoption of MRAM technology into a wider range of applications and end markets.

We expect our Toggle MRAM solutions, which have lower bit densities ranging from 128kb to 16Mb, to continue to serve customers in the industrial, automotive and transportation end markets, where products tend to have long product life cycles. As MRAM bit densities increase, we believe MRAM solutions will be well-suited to address a wider range of large and growing markets, such as server and storage, increasing the overall market opportunity for MRAM. We believe our Spin-torque Transfer (STT) MRAM solutions, which are designed to have bit densities at or greater than 256b, will drive the rapid adoption of our products into enterprise storage applications. We believe the introduction of MRAM solutions with bit densities of 1Gb or greater will extend the opportunity for MRAM into additional adjacent markets such as server and mobile computing.

Embedded MRAM Technology

In addition to use as a discrete product, MRAM can serve as embedded memory in a variety of CMOS technologies. Memory accounts for a significant portion of the area of System-on-a-Chips (SoCs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), application-specific standard products, microcontrollers, baseband processors, storage

controllers, application processors and field-programmable gate arrays. Memory that is integrated in these products is called embedded memory and offers similar performance to its discrete counterparts.

Today’s mainstream embedded memory solutions include embedded SRAM (eSRAM), embedded Flash (eFlash), and embedded DRAM (eDRAM). We believe these technologies have process and cost challenges in scaling to advanced CMOS processing nodes at 28nm and below. Embedded MRAM’s (eMRAM) compatibility with CMOS processes, combined with its lower leakage, byte addressability, small cell size and high write-cycle endurance make it well-suited as a replacement for eSRAM, eFlash and eDRAM. We believe the use of eMRAM will be more cost effective for foundries by maintaining compatibility with standard CMOS, thus improving manufacturing efficiency.

eSRAM, which uses six transistors (6‑T) to construct a memory bit, requires more silicon area and additional power due to leakage current from its multiple-transistor architecture. Embedded MRAM, which uses a single transistor architecture, results in less leakage current and requires a smaller area on an integrated circuit to achieve equivalent or better performance than eSRAM.

eFlash requires relatively high voltage and area overhead to program the memory bits, which is contrary to the trend of scaling down the CMOS process for lower power and less chip area. eFlash also has a limited number of write cycles, which can render it ineffective as working memory on the chip. Compared to eFlash, eMRAM requires lower voltage to program bits, which results in greater power efficiency and it has higher write-cycle endurance. eMRAM is byte-addressable and has symmetric read and write timing, which makes it suitable as working memory. eFlash must be erased and programmed in pages, which is less efficient for intensive writing applications.

eDRAM is a volatile memory that does not retain data when power is off. eDRAM manufacturing requires additional process steps and costs to build a capacitor to store the data. This manufacturing process could diminish the functionality of the memory or logic components in the integrated circuit. eMRAM, however, can be added towards the end of the manufacturing process, which does not impact the overall performance of the integrated circuit.

The versatility of eMRAM can simplify the design and architecture of the overall integrated circuit by providing the ability to have one memory type serve as both working memory and code storage memory.

Our Solutions

We are the only commercial provider of MRAM products. We have a strong track record of innovation in MRAM technology, as demonstrated by our successive introduction of MRAM products that address an increasingly broad spectrum of applications. Our MRAM discrete solutions as well as other offerings are described as follows.

Toggle MRAM

Our Toggle products, which we have been shipping since 2008, are primarily designed to address applications in the industrial, automotive and transportation markets. Our customers in these markets require memory technology that is non-volatile, writes continuously at high speeds to limit data loss, operates in harsh environments, and maintains endurance over long product lifecycles. To address these requirements, we designed our Toggle MRAM products to offer the persistence of non-volatile memory, speeds comparable to SRAM, reliability across a wide temperature range, and virtually unlimited write-cycles. We have designed our Toggle products to be compatible with industry standard interfaces, including standard SRAM, SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) and QSPI (Quad SPI) interfaces, enabling our customers to replace incumbent memory solutions with our Toggle MRAM solutions. We believe this has been important for the initial success and early adoption of our Toggle products.

Spin-Transfer Torque MRAM

Our STT-MRAM products, which are currently shipping in 256Mb densities, are initially targeted for enterprise storage market, which includes high performance Solid-State Drives (SSDs), Redundant array of independent disks (RAID) and server applications. Our customers require low latency, protection of data against power interruption and failure, high density and reliability. Our STT-MRAM products offered performance comparable to DRAM, and were up to five orders of magnitude faster than flash block writes, non-volatile to protect against power loss, and offer endurance superior to Flash memory. We use our Perpendicular Magnetic Tunnel Junction (PMTJ) technology to deliver bit density and power efficiency increases to create a true Persistent Memory solution. Our STT-MRAM products are designed with

derivative standard DDR3 and DDR4 interfaces, which we believe will facilitate market adoption of our products in the enterprise storage and server markets. Our 1Gb density offering is currently in development.

Embedded MRAM

We offer embedded MRAM (eMRAM) to our customers for integration in their SoC solutions. We also enable GLOBALFOUNDRIES to offer eMRAM in the solutions they manufacture for their customers. Our embedded memory solutions offer high performance, low cost and low power and can be manufactured using standard CMOS. eMRAM offers significant advantages over existing embedded memory solutions, particularly in endurance, bandwidth, energy and area requirements, leakage and persistence. We believe our eMRAM solutions offer the performance benefits and process compatibility to become the embedded memory of choice for our current and future foundry partners.

Sensors

We have developed and are currently shipping a high performance, high-reliability magnetic sensor, which is based on our Magnetic Tunnel Junction (MTJ) technology, which is at the core of our memory technology. Our magnetic sensor offers three-axis orientation in a single die, and is integrated into consumer electronics applications as an electronic compass. We believe our magnetic sensor technology can be used for additional power management applications in the industrial, and automotive and transportation, end markets. We currently license our magnetic sensor technology to third parties for their commercial use and plan to continue this strategy.

Aerospace

Aerospace and satellite electronic systems require memory that is able to withstand exposure to the levels of radiation encountered in avionics and space applications. MRAM is not susceptible to radiation induced errors because data is stored as a magnetic state rather than as an electrical charge. Aerospace and satellite equipment manufacturers license our technology for use in their electronic systems. Through license agreements, we provide manufacturing service and technology access to certain of our customers, and we sell products to value added subcontractors.

Our Technology

Memory Architecture

Our MRAM solutions are based on our MTJ technology, which writes data by establishing a stable magnetic state, and reads data by measuring the resistance of the MTJ. MTJ devices are multilayered structures, including thin metal and dielectric layers, which are fabricated with methods commonly used in semiconductor manufacturing. The resistance is determined by the orientation of the magnetic field in the free layer relative to the fixed layer.

Toggle MRAM Technology

Our Toggle MRAM technology uses a magnetic field to program, or write, bits. A significant advantage of this “field switching” is virtually unlimited write endurance, as reversing the free-layer magnetization with a magnetic field does not have any wear-out mechanism. Field Switched MRAM products are currently in production at the 180nm and 130nm nodes.

Field Switched MRAM bit cell. Each bit cell comprises an MTJ connected in series with a select transistor.

STT-MRAM Technology

Our STT-MRAM technologies use the spin-torque transfer property, which is the manipulation of the spin of electrons with a polarizing current, to establish the desired magnetic state of the free layer to program, or write, the bits in the memory array. Spin-transfer torque MRAM (STT-MRAM), provides a significant reduction in switching energy compared to Field-switched (Toggle) MRAM, and is highly scalable, enabling higher density memory products. Our STT-MRAM uses a Perpendicular MTJ. We have developed materials and Perpendicular MTJ stack designs with high perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, which provides long data retention, small cell size, greater density, high endurance and low power.

Schematic depiction of the Perpendicular MTJ bit cell

 

Embedded MRAM Technology

MRAM technology is more easily embedded than most other memory technologies, due to the way the MRAM module is integrated in standard CMOS. Since the MRAM module is inserted between metal layers in the back-end-of-line part of the fabrication process, above the transistor layers, it does not disturb the CMOS fabrication process. Integrating MRAM in standard CMOS for SoC applications does not impact the performance of the integrated circuit.

Sales and Marketing

Our MRAM products are used by top-tier customers in the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage markets.

 

We consider our customer to be the end customer purchasing either directly from a distributor, a contract manufacturer or us. An end customer purchasing through a contract manufacturer typically instructs the contract manufacturer to obtain our products and to incorporate our products with other components for sale by the contract manufacturer to the end customer. Although we actually sell the products to, and are paid by, the distributors and contract manufacturers, we refer to the end customer as our customer.

During the year ended December 31, 2017, more than 600 end customers purchased our products. No end customers accounted for more than 10% of our revenue during 2017 or 2016. Sales to NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) and Avago Technologies Ltd. (Broadcom) whether directly by us or through distributors or contract manufacturers, each accounted for 13% of our revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015. No other end customers accounted for more than 10% of our revenue during 2015. NXP is a customer for our embedded MRAM and sensor solutions. Broadcom is a customer for our Toggle MRAM products.

We sell our products through a direct sales channel and a network of representatives and distributors. The majority of our customers, and their associated contract manufacturers, buy our products through our distributors. We maintain sales, supply chain and logistics operations and have distributors in Asia to service the production needs of contract manufacturers such as us Flextronics, Foxconn, Inventec and Sanmina. We also maintain direct selling relationships with several strategic customers. Our direct sales representatives are located in North America, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Our typical sales cycle consists of a sales and development process in which our field engineers and sales personnel work closely with our customers’ design engineers. This process can take from three to 18 months to

complete, and a successful sales cycle culminates in a design win. Note that some customers for our newer STT-MRAM products may need to modify their controllers to integrate our technology adding additional time to the cycle. Once we establish a relationship with a customer, we continue a sales process to maintain our position and to secure subsequent new design wins at the customer. Each customer lead, whether new or existing, is tracked through our CRM tool and followed in stages of prospect, design in, design win and production. This tracking results in a design win pipeline that provides a measure of the future business potential of the opportunities.

Our technical support personnel have expertise in hardware and software, and have access to our development team to ensure proper service and support for our OEM customers. Our field application and engineering team provides technical training and design support to our customers.

Manufacturing

We rely on third-party suppliers for most phases of the manufacturing process, including initial fabrication and assembly.

Wafer Manufacturing

We manufacture our Toggle MRAM products and provide foundry services for embedded MRAM, licensed MRAM products and MTJ-based sensors in our 200mm manufacturing facility. Our facility is in an ISO‑4 clean room and our equipment is certified for the production of automotive grade products. We actively manage inventory, including automated process flows, process controls and recipe management, and we use standard equipment to manufacture our products.

Our STT-MRAM is produced in a 300mm GLOBALFOUNDRIES fabrication facility.

Assembly and Test

We have designed test protocols to maximize yields at assembly and final test, reduce manufacturing costs and improve quality. Our design and product engineering teams have developed and implemented wafer-level test programs to characterize the behavior of our MRAM devices. We create predictive models and test each of our parts to assure the reliability of the products in the field. We also add unique electronic part identification numbers to provide material traceability.

To protect the Toggle MRAM devices from stray magnetic fields, we developed packaging solutions, which we have qualified at independent, industry-leading sub-contractors, including Amkor, OSE, GTC, ChipMos and UTAC. We have successfully qualified our MRAM devices in various packages at temperatures ranging from commercial to automotive grade. As part of our commitment to quality, our quality management system has been certified to ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14000 standards. Our foundry vendors and sub-contractors are also ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified.

STT-MRAM Joint Development Agreement

On October 17, 2014, we entered into a joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc., a semiconductor foundry, for the joint development of our STT-MRAM technology. The term of the agreement is the later of four years from the effective date or until the completion, termination, or expiration of the last statement of work entered into pursuant to the joint development agreement.

The joint development agreement also states that the specific terms and conditions for the production and supply of the developed MRAM technology would be pursuant to a separate manufacturing agreement entered into between the parties. See “—STT-MRAM Manufacturing Agreement” below.

Under the joint development agreement, each party granted licenses to its relevant intellectual property to the other party. For certain jointly developed works, the parties have agreed to follow an invention allocation procedure to determine ownership. In addition, GLOBALFOUNDRIES possesses the exclusive right to manufacture our discrete and embedded Spin Transfer Torque MRAM devices developed pursuant to the agreement until the earlier of three years after the qualification of the MRAM device for a particular technology node or four years after the completion of the

relevant statement of work under which the device was developed. For the same exclusivity period associated with the relevant device, GLOBALFOUNDRIES agreed not to license intellectual property developed in connection with the agreement to named competitors of ours.

Generally, unless otherwise specified in the agreement or a statement of work, we and GLOBALFOUNDRIES share defined project costs equally under the joint development agreement. If GLOBALFOUNDRIES manufactures, sells or transfers wafers containing production qualified MRAM devices that utilized certain Everspin design information to its customers, GLOBALFOUNDRIES will pay royalties to us for each such wafer transferred or sold to a customer.

Except for breaches of confidentiality provisions and each party’s indemnification obligations to one another under the agreement, liability under the agreement is capped at a range depending on project costs and royalty amounts. Either party may terminate the agreement if the other party materially breaches a term of the agreement, and fails to remedy the breach after receiving notice from the non-breaching party. If a party terminates the manufacturing agreement for material breach in accordance with its terms, that party may also terminate the joint development agreement.

On May 27, 2016, we entered into an amendment to the joint development agreement to modify the payment schedule and to clarify our payment obligations for certain past project costs. Under the amendment, GLOBALFOUNDRIES may terminate the joint development agreement with us if we materially breach a term of the agreement, such as, but not limited to, by our failing to pay any undisputed sum which has been outstanding for 45 or more days from the date of invoice, and fail to remedy the breach within 60 days after receiving notice from GLOBALFOUNDRIES. See “Risk Factors” for further discussion of our agreements with GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

STT-MRAM Manufacturing Agreement

On October 23, 2014, we entered into a manufacturing agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore Pte. Ltd. that sets forth the specific terms and conditions for the production and supply of wafers manufactured using our Spin Transfer Torque MRAM technology developed under the joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Pursuant to that joint development agreement, GLOBALFOUNDRIES possesses certain exclusive rights to manufacture such wafers for our discrete and embedded STT-MRAM devices. Our manufacturing agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES includes a customary forecast and ordering mechanism for the supply of certain of our wafers, and we are obligated to order and pay for, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES is obligated to supply, wafers consistent with the binding portion of our forecast. GLOBALFOUNDRIES also has the ability to discontinue its manufacture of any of our wafers upon due notice and completion of the notice period. The initial term of the manufacturing agreement is for three years, which automatically renews for successive one year periods thereafter unless either party provides sufficient advance notice of non-renewal.

Except for breaches of confidentiality provisions and each party’s indemnification obligations to one another under the agreement, liability under the agreement is capped at the lesser of a set amount or the total purchase price received by GLOBALFOUNDRIES from us in the twelve months immediately preceding the claim for the specific product that caused the damages. Either party may terminate the agreement if the other party materially breaches a term of the agreement, and fails to remedy the breach after receiving notice from the non-breaching party. GLOBALFOUNDRIES may terminate the agreement if we fail to pay any undisputed sum which has been outstanding for sixty or more days from the date of invoice.

Backlog

As of December 31, 2017, our backlog was $13.7 million, compared to $7.4 million as of December 31, 2016, and includes all purchase orders scheduled for delivery within the subsequent 12 months. Our business and, to a large extent, that of the entire semiconductor industry, is characterized by short-term orders and shipment schedules. Orders constituting our current backlog are subject to changes in delivery schedules, or to cancellation at the customer's option without significant penalty. Thus, while backlog is useful for scheduling production, backlog as of any particular date may not be a reliable measure of sales for any future period.

Competition

Our products, all of which offer the persistence of non-volatile memory with the speed and endurance of random access memory, enable the protection of mission critical data particularly in the event of power interruption or failure. Our solutions are designed for use in applications in the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage markets where the combination of high write-cycle endurance and fast write-speeds are of critical importance.

Our principal competitors to our Toggle Field Switched MRAM products, which are tailored primarily for the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage markets, include companies that offer nonvolatile SRAM (NVSRAM), SRAM, and ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) products, such as Cypress, Fujitsu, Integrated Silicon Solution (ISSI), Macronix, Microchip, Micron, Renesas, Samsung and Toshiba. Our STT-MRAM products are designed primarily for the enterprise storage market, which includes high performance SSDs, RAID systems and servers. Our STT-MRAM products are intended to replace DRAM-based solutions, which comprised DRAM and additional back-up power supply components, such as super capacitors and batteries that are required to make DRAM persistent. Customers typically purchase DRAM and super capacitors and batteries from separate vendors, and pair them together in order to create a DRAM-based solution capable of protecting data against power interruption or loss. Companies that offer DRAM devices include Hynix, Micron, Samsung, and several other smaller companies. In the future we may also face competition from companies developing MRAM technologies, such as Avalanche, Spin Transfer Technologies, Samsung and other larger and smaller semiconductor companies. We may also face indirect competition from RRAM, 3D XPoint and NAND Flash manufacturers in some market applications.

Our sensor products compete with giant magnetoresistive (GMR), anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) and Hall effect sensors supplied by Alps, Asahi Kasei Microdevices, Crocus, Fairchild, Invensys (now Schneider), Kionix and Micronix.

Our ability to compete successfully in the market for our products is based on a number of factors, including:

and

We believe we compete favorably with respect to each of these factors.

Intellectual Property

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our products and technologies from unauthorized third-party copying and use. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks, as well as customary contractual protections. As of December 31, 2017, we held 399 issued patents that expire at various times between December 31, 2017,and October 2036, and had 145 patent applications pending. Included in our issued patents and pending applications are patents/applications in the United States, China, Europe, France, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

We seek to file for patents that have broad application in the semiconductor industry and that would be helpful in the magnetoresistive memory and sensor markets. However, there can be no assurance that our pending patent applications or any future applications will be approved, that any issued patents will provide us with competitive advantages or will not be challenged by third parties, or that the patents or applications of others will not have an adverse effect on our ability to do business. In addition, there can be no assurance that others will not independently develop substantially equivalent intellectual property or otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or intellectual property, or disclose such intellectual property or trade secrets, or that we can effectively protect our intellectual property.

We seek to enforce our IP and to monetize our patent portfolio through licensing of third parties in return for cash remuneration, patent cross licenses or both. We anticipate that we will recognize revenue from licensing our IP during the first quarter of 2018 which, if that occurs, would be revenue in addition to product sales.

We generally control access to and use of our confidential information through employing internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors and customers. We rely in part on U.S. and international copyright laws to protect our mask work. All employees and consultants are required to execute confidentiality agreements in connection with their employment and consulting relationships with us. We also require them to agree to disclose and assign to us all inventions conceived or made in connection with the employment or consulting relationship.

Environmental Regulation

We must comply with many different federal, state, local and foreign governmental regulations related to the use, storage, discharge and disposal of certain chemicals and gases used in our manufacturing processes. Our facilities have been designed to comply with these regulations and we believe that our activities are conducted in material compliance with such regulations. Any changes in such regulations or in their enforcement could require us to acquire costly equipment or to incur other significant expenses to comply with environmental regulations. Any failure by us to adequately control the storage, use, discharge and disposal of regulated substances could result in significant future liabilities.

Increasing public attention has been focused on the environmental impact of electronic manufacturing operations. While we have not experienced any materially adverse effects on our operations from recently adopted environmental regulations, our business and results of operations could suffer if for any reason we fail to control the storage or use of, or to adequately restrict the discharge or disposal of, hazardous substances under present or future environmental regulations.

Employees

At December 31, 2017, we had 90 employees in the United States and 28 full time equivalent contractors and consultants in Singapore, China, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. None of our employees are either represented by a labor union or subject to a collective bargaining agreement. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we consider our relations with our employees to be good.

Financial Information

Revenue from customers designated based on the geographic region or country to which the product is delivered or licensee is located is set forth in Note 10 to our financial statements, which information is incorporated by reference here. Of our revenues, 13%, 16% and 20% are from customers in the United States for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. All of our assets are located in the United States. Our research and development expenses were $25.4 million, $19.2 million and $21.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Corporate Information

We were incorporated in Delaware in May 2008. In June 2008, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of NXP Semiconductors N.V.), spun-out its MRAM business as Everspin. Our offices are located at 5670 W. Chandler Boulevard, Suite 100, Chandler, Arizona 85226. Our telephone number is (480) 347-1111. Our corporate website is at www.Everspin.com.  Our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current

reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act are available free of charge on our website. The information contained on or that can be accessed through our website is not incorporated by reference into this report, and you should not consider information on our website to be part of this report.  

 

Item 1A. Risk Factors.

The following are important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements made by us or on our behalf. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we deem immaterial also may impair our business operations. If any of the following risks or such other risks actually occurs, our business could be harmed. 

 

 

Risk Factors Related to Our Business and Our Industry

We have a history of losses which may continue in the future, and we cannot be certain that we will achieve or sustain profitability.

We have incurred net losses since our inception. We incurred net losses of $21.1 million, $16.7 million and $18.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. As of December 31, 2017, we had an accumulated deficit of $117.5 million. We expect to incur significant expenses related to the continued development and expansion of our business, including in connection with our efforts to develop and improve upon our products and technology, maintain and enhance our research and development and sales and marketing activities and hire additional personnel. While our products offer unique benefits over other industry memory technologies, our per-bit cost to product our product is currently higher than competing technologies. As a result, our ability to capture market share and generate sufficient revenue to transition to profitability and generate consistent positive cash flows is uncertain. We do not know whether our revenue will grow rapidly enough to absorb these costs, and our limited operating history makes it difficult to assess the extent of these expenses, or their impact on our results of operations.

Further, our revenue may not increase or may decline for a number of possible reasons, many of which are outside our control, including a decline in demand for our products, increased competition, business conditions that adversely affect the semiconductor memory industry, including reduced demand for products in the end markets that we serve, or our failure to capitalize on growth opportunities. If we fail to generate sufficient revenue to support our operations, we may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability.

Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects.

We have been in existence as a stand-alone company since 2008, when Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. spun-out its MRAM business as Everspin. We have been shipping magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) products since our incorporation in 2008, and we have experienced a high rate of growth for our products. However, we may not be able to sustain the growth rate for sales of these products and our revenue could decline. We are just starting the manufacture of Spin Transfer Torque MRAM, (STT-MRAM) products. Adoption of these products is important to the future growth of our business, but revenue associated with these products has not been material to date.

Our limited operating history and limited experience selling products, combined with the rapidly evolving and competitive nature of our market, makes it difficult to evaluate our current business and future prospects. In addition, we have limited insight into emerging trends that may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by growing companies in rapidly changing industries, including unpredictable and volatile revenue and increased expenses as we continue to grow our business. The viability and demand for our products may be affected by many factors outside of our control, such as the factors affecting the growth of the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage industries and changes in macroeconomic conditions. If we do not manage these risks and overcome these difficulties successfully, our business will suffer.

We may be unable to match production with customer demand for a variety of reasons including our inability to accurately forecast customer demand or the capacity constraints of our suppliers, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We make planning and spending decisions, including determining production levels, production schedules, component procurement commitments, personnel needs and other resource requirements, based on our estimates of product demand and customer requirements. Our products are typically purchased pursuant to individual purchase orders. While our customers may provide us with their demand forecasts, they are not contractually committed to buy any quantity of products beyond purchase orders. Furthermore, many of our customers may increase, decrease, cancel or delay purchase orders already in place without significant penalty. The short-term nature of commitments by our customers and the possibility of unexpected changes in demand for their products reduce our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements. On occasion, customers may require rapid increases in production, which can strain our resources, necessitate more onerous procurement commitments and reduce our gross margin. If we overestimate customer demand, we may purchase products that we may not be able to sell, which could result in decreases in our prices or write-downs of unsold inventory. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand or if sufficient manufacturing capacity is unavailable, we could lose sales opportunities and could lose market share or damage our customer relationships. We manufacture MRAM products at our 200mm facility we lease in Chandler, Arizona and use a single foundry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore Pte. Ltd., for production of higher density products on advanced technology nodes, which may not have sufficient capacity to meet customer demand. The rapid pace of innovation in our industry could also render significant portions of our inventory obsolete. Excess or obsolete inventory levels could result in unexpected expenses or write-downs of inventory values that could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

We may require additional capital to fund our business, which may not be available to us on favorable terms or at all.

We believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents as of December 31, 2017, coupled with our anticipated growth and sales levels, and net proceeds from the follow-on underwritten public offering in February 2018, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash requirements for at least the next 12 months from the filing of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our growth rate, the timing and extent of our spending to support research and development activities, the timing and cost of establishing additional sales and marketing capabilities, and the introduction of new products. We may be required to seek additional equity or debt financing, and we cannot assure you that any such additional financing will be available to us on acceptable terms or at all. If we are unable to raise additional capital or generate sufficient cash from operations to adequately fund our operations, we will need to curtail planned activities to reduce costs. Doing so will likely harm our ability to execute on our business plan.

If we raise additional funds through issuances of equity, convertible debt securities or other securities convertible into equity, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution in their percentage ownership of our company, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges senior to those of holders of our common stock. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us, when we require it, our ability to continue to grow or support our business and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited.

As we expand into new potential markets, we expect to face intense competition, including from our customers and potential customers, and may not be able to compete effectively, which could harm our business.

We expect that our new and future MRAM products will be applicable to markets in which we are not currently operating. Selling into these markets, including higher density memory markets and the module business could put us into direct competition with our current or potential customers or other competitors with substantially more resources and experience than us. The markets in which we operate and may operate in the future are extremely competitive and are characterized by rapid technological change, continuous evolving customer requirements and declining average selling prices. We may not be able to compete successfully against current or potential competitors, which include our current or potential customers as they seek to internally develop solutions competitive with ours or as we develop products potentially competitive with their existing products. If we do not compete successfully, our market share and revenue may decline. We compete with large semiconductor manufacturers and designers and others, and our current and potential competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater resources and name recognition and a larger base of customers than we do. This may allow them to respond more quickly than we can to new or emerging

technologies or changes in customer requirements. In addition, these competitors may have greater credibility with our existing and potential customers. Some of our current and potential customers with their own internally developed solutions may choose not to purchase products from third-party suppliers like us.

We rely on third parties to distribute, manufacture, package, assemble and test our products, which exposes us to a number of risks, including reduced control over manufacturing and delivery timing and potential exposure to price fluctuations, which could result in a loss of revenue or reduced profitability.

Although we operate an integrated magnetic fabrication line located in Chandler, Arizona, we purchase wafers from third parties and outsource the manufacturing, packaging, assembly and testing of our products to third-party foundries and assembly and testing service providers. We use a single foundry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore Pte. Ltd., for production of higher density products on advanced technology nodes. Our primary product package and test operations are located in China, Taiwan and other Asian countries. We also use standard CMOS wafers from third-party foundries, which we process at our Chandler, Arizona, facility.

Relying on third-party distribution, manufacturing, assembly, packaging and testing presents a number of risks, including but not limited to:

We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with our third-party contract manufacturers for our MRAM products, including NXP, United Microelectronics Corporation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited (TSMC), United Test and Assembly Center (UTAC), Global Testing Corporation (GTC), ChipMos, OSE Taiwan, and Amkor, and we typically negotiate pricing on a per-purchase order basis and in some cases on an annual basis. Therefore, they are not obligated to perform services or supply components to us for any specific period, in any specific quantities, or at any specific price, except as may be provided in a particular purchase order. During periods of high demand and tight inventories, our third-party foundries and packaging, assembly and testing contractors may allocate capacity to the production of other companies’ products while reducing deliveries to us, or significantly raise their prices. In particular, they may allocate capacity to other customers that are larger and better financed than us or that have long-term agreements, decreasing the capacity available to us. Shortages of capacity available to us may be caused by the actions of their other, large customers that may be difficult to predict, such as major product launches.

Our manufacturing agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES includes a customary forecast and ordering mechanism for the supply of certain of our wafers, and we are obligated to order and pay for, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES is obligated to supply, wafers consistent with the binding portion of our forecast. However, our manufacturing arrangement is also subject to both a minimum and maximum order quantity that while we believe currently addresses our projected foundry capacity needs, may not address our maximum foundry capacity requirements in the future. We may also be obligated to pay for unused capacity if our demand decreases in the future, or if our estimates prove inaccurate. GLOBALFOUNDRIES also has the ability to discontinue its manufacture of any of our wafers upon due notice and completion of the notice period. This could cause us to have to find another foundry to manufacture those wafers or redesign our core technology and would mean that we may not have products to sell until such time. Any time spent

engaging a new manufacturer or redesigning our core technology could be costly and time consuming and may allow potential competitors to take opportunities in the market place. Moreover, if we are unable to find another foundry to manufacture our products or if we have to redesign our core technology, this could cause material harm to our business and operating results.

If we need other foundries or packaging, assembly and testing contractors, or if we are unable to obtain timely and adequate deliveries from our providers, we might not be able to cost-effectively and quickly retain other vendors to satisfy our requirements. Because the lead-time needed to establish a relationship with a new third-party supplier could be several quarters, there is no readily available alternative source of supply for any specific component. In addition, the time and expense to qualify a new foundry could result in additional expense, diversion of resources or lost sales, any of which would negatively impact our financial results.

If any of our current or future foundries or packaging, assembly and testing subcontractors significantly increases the costs of wafers or other materials or services, interrupts or reduces our supply, including for reasons outside of their control, or if any of our relationships with our suppliers is terminated, our operating results could be adversely affected. Such occurrences could also damage our customer relationships, result in lost revenue, cause a loss in market share or damage our reputation.

Our joint development agreement and strategic relationships involve numerous risks.

We have entered into strategic relationships to manufacture products and develop new manufacturing process technologies and products. These relationships include our joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES to develop advanced MTJ technology and STT-MRAM. These relationships are subject to various risks that could adversely affect the value of our investments and our results of operations. These risks include the following:

Further, GLOBALFOUNDRIES may terminate the joint development agreement with us if we materially breach a term of the agreement, such as, but not limited to, by our failing to pay any undisputed sum which has been outstanding for 45 or more days from the date of invoice, and fail to remedy the breach within 60 days after receiving notice from GLOBALFOUNDRIES. If GLOBALFOUNDRIES terminates the joint development agreement, our ability to continue to develop our MRAM technology will be significantly impaired.

If our strategic relationships are unsuccessful, our business, results of operations, or financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

The market for semiconductor memory products is characterized by declines in average selling prices, which we expect to continue, and which could negatively affect our revenue and margins.

Our customers expect the average selling price of our products to decrease year-over-year and we expect this trend to continue. When such pricing declines occur, we may not be able to mitigate the effects by selling more or higher margin units, or by reducing our manufacturing costs. In such circumstances, our operating results could be materially and adversely affected. Our stand-alone and embedded MRAM products have experienced declining average selling prices over their life cycle. The rate of decline may be affected by a number of factors, including relative supply and demand, the level of competition, production costs and technological changes. As a result of the decreasing average selling prices of our products following their launch, our ability to increase or maintain our margins depends on our ability to introduce new or enhanced products with higher average selling prices and to reduce our per-unit cost of sales and our operating costs. We may not be able to reduce our costs as rapidly as companies that operate their own manufacturing, assembly and testing facilities, and our costs may even increase because we rely in part on third parties to manufacture, assemble and test our products, which could also reduce our gross margins. In addition, our new or enhanced products may not be as successful or enjoy as high margins as we expect. If we are unable to offset any reductions in average selling prices by introducing new products with higher average selling prices or reducing our costs, our revenue and margins will be negatively affected and may decrease.

The semiconductor memory market is highly cyclical and has experienced severe downturns in the past, generally as a result of wide fluctuations in supply and demand, constant and rapid technological change, continuous new product introductions and price erosion. During downturns, periods of intense competition, or the presence of oversupply in the industry, the selling prices for our products may decline at a high rate over relatively short time periods as compared to historical rates of decline. We are unable to predict selling prices for any future periods and may experience unanticipated, sharp declines in selling prices for our products.

Unfavorable economic and market conditions, domestically and internationally, may adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

We have significant customer sales both in the U.S. and internationally. We also rely on domestic and international suppliers, manufacturing partners and distributors. We are therefore susceptible to adverse U.S. and international economic and market conditions. If any of our manufacturing partners, customers, distributors or suppliers experience serious financial difficulties or cease operations, our business will be adversely affected. In addition, the adverse impact of an unfavorable economy may adversely impact customer spending, which may adversely impact demand for our products.

We must continuously develop new and enhanced products, and if we are unable to successfully market our new and enhanced products for which we incur significant expenses to develop, our results of operations and financial condition will be materially adversely affected.

To compete effectively in our markets, we must continually design, develop and introduce new and improved products with improved features in a cost-effective manner in response to changing technologies and market demand. This requires us to devote substantial financial and other resources to research and development. We are developing new products, which we expect to be one of the drivers of our revenue growth in the future. However, as it is taking us longer than we expected to develop our 1Gb STT-MRAM product, we may not succeed in developing and marketing this and other new and enhanced products. We also face the risk that customers may not value or be willing to bear the cost of incorporating our new and enhanced products into their products, particularly if they believe their customers are satisfied with current solutions. Regardless of the improved features or superior performance of our new and enhanced products, customers may be unwilling to adopt our solutions due to design or pricing constraints, or because they do not want to rely on a single or limited supply source. Because of the extensive time and resources that we invest in developing new and enhanced products, if we are unable to sell customers our new products, our revenue could decline and our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows would be negatively affected. For example, we generated limited revenue from sales of our STT-MRAM products to date. While we expect revenue from our STT-MRAM products to increase, if we are unable to scale MRAM to gigabit densities to address applications currently served by DRAM, we may not be able to materially increase our revenue. If we are unable to successfully develop and market our new and enhanced products that we have incurred significant expenses developing, our results of operations and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected.

Our success and future revenue depend on our ability to secure design wins and on our customers’ ability to successfully sell the products that incorporate our solutions. Securing design wins is a lengthy, expensive and competitive process, and may not result in actual orders and sales, which could cause our revenue to decline.

We sell to customers that incorporate MRAM into their products. A design win occurs after a customer has tested our product, verified that it meets the customer’s requirements and qualified our solutions for their products. We believe we are dependent on the adoption of our 256Mb and 1Gb MRAM products by our customers to secure design wins. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded revenue for our first sale of 40nm 256Mb STT-MRAM products and we are in process of ramping up production in 2018. To date we have not sold any of our 1Gb MRAM products. Our customers may need several months to years to test, evaluate and adopt our product and additional time to begin volume production of the product that incorporates our solution. Due to this generally lengthy design cycle, we may experience significant delays from the time we increase our operating expenses and make investments in our products to the time that we generate revenue from sales of these products. Moreover, even if a customer selects our solution, we cannot guarantee that this will result in any sales of our products, as the customer may ultimately change or cancel its product plans, or efforts by our customer to market and sell its product may not be successful. We may not generate any revenue from design wins after incurring the associated costs, which would cause our business and operating results to suffer. Any delay in the development of our 256Mb and 1Gb MRAM products, or failure of our customers to adopt our 256Mb and 1Gb MRAM products, could inhibit revenue growth or cause declines, which would significantly harm our business and prevent us from becoming profitable.

If a current or prospective customer designs a competitor’s solution into its product, it becomes significantly more difficult for us to sell our solutions to that customer because changing suppliers involves significant time, cost, effort and risk for the customer even if our solutions are superior to other solutions and remain compatible with their product design. Our ability to compete successfully depends on customers viewing us as a stable and reliable supplier to mission critical customer applications when we have less production capacity and less financial resources compared to most of our larger competitors. If current or prospective customers do not include our solutions in their products and we fail to achieve a sufficient number of design wins, our results of operations and business may be harmed.

We rely on our relationships with OEMs and ODMs to enhance our solutions and market position, and our failure to continue to develop or maintain such relationships in the future would harm our ability to remain competitive.

We develop our products for leading OEMs and ODMs that serve a variety of end markets and are developing devices for automotive, transportation, industrial and storage applications. For each application, manufacturers create products that incorporate specialized semiconductor technology, which makers of memory products use as the basis for their products. These manufacturers set the specifications for many of the key components to be used on each generation of their products and, in the case of memory components, generally qualify only a few vendors to provide memory components for their products. As each new generation of their products is released, vendors are validated in a similar fashion. We must work closely with OEMs and ODMs to ensure our products become qualified for use in their products. As a result, maintaining close relationships with leading OEMs and ODMs that are developing devices for automotive, transportation, industrial and storage applications is crucial to the long-term success of our business. We could lose these relationships for a variety of reasons, including our failure to qualify as a vendor, our failure to demonstrate the value of our new solutions, declines in product quality, or if OEMs or ODMs seek to work with vendors with broader product suites, greater production capacity or greater financial resources. If our relationships with key industry participants were to deteriorate or if our solutions were not qualified by our customers, our market position and revenue could be materially and adversely affected.

The loss of one or several of our customers or reduced orders or pricing from existing customers may have a significant adverse effect on our operations and financial results.

We have derived and expect to continue to derive a significant portion of our revenues from a small group of customers during any particular period due in part to the concentration of market share in the semiconductor industry. Our four largest end customers together accounted for 28% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2017, but none of these customers individually accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue during the period. Our four largest end customers together accounted for 32% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2016, but none of these customers individually accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue during the period. Our four largest end customers together accounted for 41% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015, and two customers each accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue during the period. The loss of a significant customer, a business

combination among our customers, a reduction in orders or decrease in price from a significant customer or disruption in any of our commercial or distributor arrangements may result in a significant decline in our revenues and could have a material adverse effect on our business, liquidity, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our results of operations can fluctuate from period to period, which could cause our share price to fluctuate.

Our results of operations have fluctuated in the past and may fluctuate from period to period in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these fluctuations include the following factors, as well as other factors described elsewhere in this report:

The semiconductor memory industry is highly cyclical and our markets may experience significant cyclical fluctuations in demand as a result of changing economic conditions, budgeting and buying patterns of customers and other factors. As a result of these and other factors affecting demand for our products and our results of operations in any given period, the results of any prior quarterly or annual periods should not be relied upon as indicative of our future revenue or operating performance. Fluctuations in our revenue and operating results could also cause our stock price to decline.

If sales of our customers’ products decline or if their products do not achieve market acceptance, our business and operating results could be adversely affected.

Our revenue depends on our customers’ ability to commercialize their products successfully. The markets for our customers’ products are extremely competitive and are characterized by rapid technological change. Competition in our customers’ markets is based on a variety of factors including price, performance, product quality, marketing and distribution capability, customer support, name recognition and financial strength. As a result of rapid technological change, the markets for our customers’ products are characterized by frequent product introductions, short product life cycles, fluctuating demand and increasing product capabilities. As a result, our customers’ products may not achieve market success or may become obsolete. We cannot assure you that our customers will dedicate the resources necessary to promote and commercialize their products, successfully execute their business strategies for such products, or be able to manufacture such products in quantities sufficient to meet demand or cost-effectively manufacture products at a high volume. Our customers do not have contracts with us that require them to manufacture, distribute or sell any products. Moreover, our customers may develop internally, or in collaboration with our competitors, technology that they may utilize instead of the technology available to them through us. Our customers’ failure to achieve market success for their products, including as a result of general declines in our customers’ markets or industries, could negatively affect their willingness to utilize our products, which may result in a decrease in our revenue and negatively affect our business and operating results.

Our revenue also depends on the timely introduction, quality and market acceptance of our customers’ products that incorporate our solutions. Our customers’ products are often very complex and subject to design complexities that may result in design flaws, as well as potential defects, errors and bugs. We incur significant design and development costs in connection with designing our solutions for customers’ products. If our customers discover design flaws, defects, errors or bugs in their products, or if they experience changing market requirements, failed evaluations or field trials, or issues with other vendors, they may delay, change or cancel a project. If we have already incurred significant development costs, we may not be able to recoup those costs, which in turn would adversely affect our business and financial results.

We face competition and expect competition to increase in the future. If we fail to compete effectively, our revenue growth and results of operations will be materially and adversely affected.

The global semiconductor market in general, and the semiconductor memory market in particular, are highly competitive. We expect competition to increase and intensify as other semiconductor companies enter our markets, many of which have greater financial and other resources with which to pursue technology development, product design, manufacturing, marketing and sales and distribution of their products. Increased competition could result in price pressure, reduced profitability and loss of market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenue and operating results. Currently, our competitors range from large, international companies offering a wide range of traditional memory technologies to companies specializing in other alternative, specialized emerging memory technologies. Our primary memory competitors include Cypress, Fujitsu, Integrated Silicon Solution, Macronix, Microchip, Micron, Renesas, Samsung, and Toshiba. The main competition for sensor products includes AMR, Crocus, GMR and Hall Effect. These technologies directly compete with our products and are supplied by Alps, Asahi Kasei Microdevices, Fairchild, Invensys (now Schneider), Kionix and Micronas. In addition, as the MRAM market opportunity grows, we expect new entrants such as Avalanche will enter this market and existing competitors, including leading semiconductor companies, may make significant investments to compete more effectively against our products. These competitors could develop technologies or architectures that make our products or technologies obsolete.

Our ability to compete successfully depends on factors both within and outside of our control, including:

Competition could result in pricing pressure, reduced revenue and loss of market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and prospects. In the event of a market downturn, competition in the markets in which we operate may intensify as our customers reduce their purchase orders. Our competitors that are significantly larger and have greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution, customer support and other resources or more established market recognition than us may be better positioned to accept lower prices and withstand adverse economic or market conditions.

Our customers require our products and our third-party contractors to undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, our business and operating results would suffer.

Prior to selecting and purchasing our products, our customers typically require that our products undergo extensive qualification processes, which involve testing of our products in the customers’ systems, as well as testing for reliability. This qualification process may continue for several months or years. However, obtaining the requisite qualifications for a memory product does not assure any sales of the product. Even after successful qualification and sales of a product to a customer, a subsequent revision in our third-party contractors’ manufacturing process or our selection of a new contract manufacturer may require a new qualification process, which may result in delays and excess or obsolete inventory. After our products are qualified and selected, it can and often does take several months or more before the customer commences volume production of systems that incorporate our products. Despite these uncertainties, we devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualify our products with customers in anticipation of sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, sales of those products may be precluded or delayed, which may impede our growth and harm our business.

Our costs may increase substantially if we or our third-party manufacturing contractors do not achieve satisfactory product yields or quality.

The fabrication process is extremely complicated and small changes in design, specifications or materials can result in material decreases in product yields or even the suspension of production. From time to time, we and/or the third-party foundries that we contract to manufacture our products may experience manufacturing defects and reduced manufacturing yields. In some cases, we and/or our third-party foundries may not be able to detect these defects early in the fabrication process or determine the cause of such defects in a timely manner. There may be a higher risk of product yield issues in newer STT-MRAM products.

Generally, in pricing our products, we assume that manufacturing yields will continue to improve, even as the complexity of our products increases. Once our products are initially qualified either internally or with our third-party foundries, minimum acceptable yields are established. We are responsible for the costs of the units if the actual yield is above the minimum set with our third-party foundries. If actual yields are below the minimum we are not required to purchase the units. Typically, minimum acceptable yields for our new products are generally lower at first and gradually improve as we achieve full production, but yield issues can occur even in mature processes due to break downs in mechanical systems, equipment failures or calibration errors. Unacceptably low product yields or other product manufacturing problems could substantially increase overall production time and costs and adversely impact our operating results. Product yield losses will increase our costs and reduce our gross margin. In addition to significantly harming our results of operations and cash flow, poor yields may delay shipment of our products and harm our relationships with existing and potential customers.

The complexity of our products may lead to defects, which could negatively impact our reputation with customers and result in liability.

Products as complex as ours may contain defects when first introduced to customers or as new versions are released. Delivery of products with production defects or reliability, quality or compatibility problems could significantly delay or hinder market acceptance of the products or result in a costly recall and could damage our reputation and adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers. Defects could cause problems with the functionality of our products, resulting in interruptions, delays or cessation of sales of these products to our customers. We may also be required to make significant expenditures of capital and resources to resolve such problems. We cannot assure you that problems will not be found in new products, both before and after commencement of commercial production, despite testing by us, our suppliers or our customers. Any such problems could result in:

Any such event could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may experience difficulties in transitioning to new wafer fabrication process technologies or in achieving higher levels of design integration, which may result in reduced manufacturing yields, delays in product deliveries and increased expenses.

We aim to use the most advanced manufacturing process technology appropriate for our solutions that is available from our third-party foundries. As a result, we periodically evaluate the benefits of migrating our solutions to other technologies to improve performance and reduce costs. These ongoing efforts require us from time to time to modify the manufacturing processes for our products and to redesign some products, which in turn may result in delays in product deliveries. We may face difficulties, delays and increased expense as we transition our products to new processes, and potentially to new foundries. We will depend on our third-party foundries as we transition to new processes. We cannot assure you that our third-party foundries will be able to effectively manage such transitions or that we will be able to maintain our relationship with our third-party foundries or develop relationships with new third-party foundries. If we or any of our third-party foundries experience significant delays in transitioning to new processes or fail to efficiently implement transitions, we could experience reduced manufacturing yields, delays in product deliveries and increased expenses, any of which could harm our relationships with our customers and our operating results.

As smaller line width geometry manufacturing processes become more prevalent, we intend to move our future products to increasingly smaller geometries to reduce costs while integrating greater levels of functionality into our products. This transition will require us and our third-party foundries to migrate to new designs and manufacturing processes for smaller geometry products. We may not be able to achieve smaller geometries with higher levels of design integration or to deliver new integrated products on a timely basis. We periodically evaluate the benefits, on a product-by-product basis, of migrating to smaller geometry process technologies to reduce our costs and increase performance. We are dependent on our relationships with our third-party foundries to transition to smaller geometry processes successfully. We cannot assure you that our third-party foundries will be able to effectively manage any such transition. If we or our third-party foundries experience significant delays in any such transition or fail to implement a transition, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially harmed.

Changes to industry standards and technical requirements relevant to our products and markets could adversely affect our business, results of operations and prospects.

Our products are only a part of larger electronic systems. All products incorporated into these systems must comply with various industry standards and technical requirements created by regulatory bodies or industry participants to operate efficiently together. Industry standards and technical requirements in our markets are evolving and may change significantly over time. For our products, the industry standards are developed by the Joint Electron Device Engineering

Council, an industry trade organization. In addition, large industry-leading semiconductor and electronics companies play a significant role in developing standards and technical requirements for the product ecosystems within which our products can be used. Our customers also may design certain specifications and other technical requirements specific to their products and solutions. These technical requirements may change as the customer introduces new or enhanced products and solutions.

Our ability to compete in the future will depend on our ability to identify and comply with evolving industry standards and technical requirements. The emergence of new industry standards and technical requirements could render our products incompatible with products developed by other suppliers or make it difficult for our products to meet the requirements of certain of our customers in automotive, transportation, industrial, storage and other markets. As a result, we could be required to invest significant time and effort and to incur significant expense to redesign our products to ensure compliance with relevant standards and requirements. If our products are not in compliance with prevailing industry standards and technical requirements for a significant period of time, we could miss opportunities to achieve crucial design wins, our revenue may decline and we may incur significant expenses to redesign our products to meet the relevant standards, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and prospects.

Failure to protect our intellectual property could substantially harm our business.

Our success and ability to compete depend in part upon our ability to protect our intellectual property. We rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, mask work protection, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and know-how, in the United States and other jurisdictions. The steps we take to protect our intellectual property rights may not be adequate, particularly in foreign jurisdictions such as China. Any patents we hold may not adequately protect our intellectual property rights or our products against competitors, and third parties may challenge the scope, validity or enforceability of our issued patents, which third parties may have significantly more financial resources with which to litigate their claims than we have to defend against them. In addition, other parties may independently develop similar or competing technologies designed around any patents or patent applications that we hold. Some of our products and technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application, as we do not believe patent protection of these products and technologies is critical to our business strategy at this time. A failure to timely seek patent protection on products or technologies generally precludes us from seeking future patent protection on these products or technologies.

In addition to patents, we also rely on contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees and consultants, and we implement security measures designed to protect our trade secrets and know-how. However, we cannot assure you that these contractual protections and security measures will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any such breach or that our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees or consultants will not assert rights to intellectual property or damages arising out of such contracts.

We may initiate claims against third parties to protect our intellectual property rights if we are unable to resolve matters satisfactorily through negotiation. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management. It could also result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property, as an adverse decision could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property rights, limit the value of our technology or otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, any enforcement of our patents or other intellectual property may provoke third parties to assert counterclaims against us. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could materially harm our business.

We may face claims of intellectual property infringement, which could be time-consuming, costly to defend or settle, result in the loss of significant rights, harm our relationships with our customers and distributors, or otherwise materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The semiconductor memory industry is characterized by companies that hold patents and other intellectual property rights and that vigorously pursue, protect and enforce intellectual property rights. These companies include patent holding companies or other adverse patent owners who have no relevant product revenue and against whom our own patents may provide little or no deterrence. From time to time, third parties may assert against us and our customers’ patent and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to our business. We have in the past, and may in the future, face such claims.

Claims that our products, processes or technology infringe third-party intellectual property rights, regardless of their merit or resolution, could be costly to defend or settle and could divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel. We may also be obligated to indemnify our customers or business partners in connection with any such litigation, which could result in increased costs. Infringement claims also could harm our relationships with our customers or distributors and might deter future customers from doing business with us. If any such proceedings result in an adverse outcome, we could be required to:

Any of the foregoing results could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, our exposure to the foregoing risks may also be increased if we acquire other companies or technologies. For example, we may have a lower level of visibility into the development process with respect to intellectual property or the care taken to safeguard against infringement risks with respect to the acquired company or technology. In addition, third parties may make infringement and similar or related claims after we have acquired technology that had not been asserted prior to the acquisition.

We make significant investments in new technologies and products that may not achieve technological feasibility or profitability or that may limit our revenue growth.

We have made and will continue to make significant investments in research and development of new technologies and products, including new and more technically advanced versions of our MRAM technology.

Investments in new technologies are speculative and technological feasibility may not be achieved. Commercial success depends on many factors including demand for innovative technology, availability of materials and equipment, selling price the market is willing to bear, competition and effective licensing or product sales. We may not achieve significant revenue from new product investments for a number of years, if at all. Moreover, new technologies and products may not be profitable, and even if they are profitable, operating margins for new products and businesses may not be as high as the margins we have experienced historically or originally anticipated. Our inability to capitalize on or realize substantial revenue from our significant investments in research and development could harm our operating results and distract management, harming our business.

Our success depends on our ability to attract and retain key employees, and our failure to do so could harm our ability to grow our business and execute our business strategies.

Our success depends on our ability to attract and retain our key employees, including our management team and experienced engineers. Competition for personnel in the semiconductor memory technology field, and in the MRAM space in particular, is intense, and the availability of suitable and qualified candidates is limited. We compete to attract and retain qualified research and development personnel with other semiconductor companies, universities and research institutions. Given our experience as an early entrant in the MRAM space, our employees are frequently contacted by MRAM startups and MRAM groups within larger companies seeking to employ them. The members of our management and key employees are at-will employees and although we issued refresh equity awards to our personnel in connection with our initial public offering, and repriced options in mid-December 2016 to reflect our then current stock price, there can be no assurance that these awards will be effective to retain our key employees. If we lose the services of any key senior management member or employee, we may not be able to locate suitable or qualified replacements, and may incur additional expenses to recruit and train new personnel, which could severely impact our business and prospects. The loss

of the services of one or more of our key employees, especially our key engineers, or our inability to attract and retain qualified engineers, could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may not be able to effectively manage our growth, and we may need to incur significant expenditures to address the additional operational and control requirements of our growth, either of which could harm our business and operating results.

As we continue to expand our business, we expect our headcount and overall size of our operations to grow significantly. To effectively manage our growth, we must continue to expand our operational, engineering and financial systems, procedures and controls and to improve our accounting and other internal management systems, such as our new ERP system that we have recently implemented. This may require substantial managerial and financial resources, and our efforts in this regard may not be successful. Our current systems, procedures and controls may not be adequate to support our future operations. If we fail to adequately manage our growth, or to improve our operational, financial and management information systems, or fail to effectively motivate or manage our new and future employees, the quality of our products and the management of our operations could suffer, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We may engage in acquisitions of, or investments in, other companies, each of which may divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to stockholders or use resources that are necessary to operate our business.

We may in the future seek to acquire or invest in businesses, products or technologies that we believe could complement or expand our business, enhance our technical capabilities or otherwise offer growth opportunities. However, our term loan and revolving credit facility prohibits our ability to merge with or acquire any other entity. Even if we were allowed to pursue such acquisitions or investments, they could create risks for us, including:

A significant portion of the purchase price of companies we acquire may be allocated to acquired goodwill, which must be assessed for impairment at least annually. If such acquisitions do not yield expected returns, we may be required to take charges to our earnings based on this impairment assessment process, which could harm our results of operations.

We may be unable to complete acquisitions at all or on commercially reasonable terms, which could limit our future growth. Acquisitions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of additional debt, which could adversely affect our operating results and result in a decline in our stock price and further restrict our ability to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, if an acquired business fails to meet our expectations, our operating results may suffer.

We maintain operations outside of the United States and intend to expand our international operations, which exposes us to significant risks.

We have limited operations in Europe and Asia. We intend to expand our operations internationally. The success of our business depends, in large part, on our ability to operate successfully from geographically disparate locations and to further expand our international operations and sales. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and subjects us to regulatory, economic and political risks that are different from those we face in the United States. We cannot be sure that further international expansion will be successful. In addition, we face risks in doing business internationally that could expose us to reduced demand for our products, lower prices for our products or other adverse effects on our operating results. Among the risks we believe are most likely to affect us are:

Our failure to manage any of these risks successfully could harm our operations and reduce our revenue.

To comply with environmental laws and regulations, we may need to modify our activities or incur substantial costs, and if we fail to comply with environmental regulations we could be subject to substantial fines or be required to have our suppliers alter their processes.

The semiconductor memory industry is subject to a variety of international, federal, state and local governmental regulations directed at preventing or mitigating environmental harm, as well as to the storage, discharge, handling, generation, disposal and labeling of toxic or other hazardous substances. Failure to comply with environmental regulations could subject us to civil or criminal sanctions and property damage or personal injury claims. Compliance with current or future environmental laws and regulations could restrict our ability to expand our business or require us to modify processes or incur other substantial expenses which could harm our business. In response to environmental concerns, some customers and government agencies impose requirements for the elimination of hazardous substances, such as lead (which is widely used in soldering connections in the process of semiconductor packaging and assembly), from electronic equipment. For example, the European Union adopted its Restriction on Hazardous Substance Directive which prohibits, with specified exceptions, the sale in the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead or other hazardous materials and China has enacted similar regulations. Environmental laws and regulations such as these could become more stringent over time, causing a need to redesign technologies, imposing greater compliance costs and increasing risks and penalties associated with violations, which could seriously harm our business.

Some of the facilities of our suppliers are located near known earthquake fault zones, and the occurrence of an earthquake or other catastrophic disaster could damage our facilities, which could cause us to curtail our operations.

Some of our foundries and suppliers’ facilities in Asia are located near known earthquake fault zones and, therefore, are vulnerable to damage from earthquakes. We are also vulnerable to damage from other types of disasters, such as power loss, fire, floods and similar events. If any such disaster were to occur, our ability to operate our business could be seriously impaired. In addition, we may not have adequate insurance to cover our losses resulting from disasters or other similar significant business interruptions. Any significant losses that are not recoverable under our insurance policies could seriously impair our business and financial condition.

Provisions of our credit facility may restrict our ability to pursue our business strategies.

Borrowings under our existing credit facility are secured by substantially all of our assets, except for intellectual property. Our term loan facility prohibits our ability to, among other things:

These restrictions are subject to certain exceptions. In addition, our existing credit facility requires that we meet certain operating covenants, such as maintaining insurance on the collateral and meeting certain financial covenants, such as a minimum liquidity ratio. The operating restrictions and covenants in the term loan facility, as well as any future financing agreements that we may enter into, may restrict our ability to finance our operations, engage in business activities or expand or fully pursue our business strategies. Our ability to comply with these covenants may be affected by events beyond our control, and we may not be able to meet those covenants. A breach of any of these covenants could result in a default under the credit facility, which could cause all of the outstanding indebtedness thereunder to either become immediately due and payable or increase by five percent of the interest rate charged during the period of the unremedied breach.

The recently enacted tax reform bill could adversely affect our business and financial condition.

On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“2017 Tax Act”), which significantly amends the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. The 2017 Tax Act, among other things, reduces the corporate tax rate from a top marginal rate of 35% to a flat rate of 21%, limits the tax deduction for interest expense to 30% of adjusted earnings, eliminates net operating loss carrybacks, imposes a one-time tax on offshore earnings at reduced rates regardless of whether they are repatriated, allows immediate deductions for certain new investments instead of deductions for depreciation expense over time, and modifies or repeals many business deductions and credits. The rate reduction took effect on January 1, 2018. Under the new corporate income tax rate of 21%, we expect deferred income tax assets will decrease by $14.8 million and the valuation allowance will decrease by $14.8 million. The net effect of the tax reform enactment on the financial statements is $0 as of December 31, 2017. We continue to examine the impact these changes may have on the business. We are currently analyzing the 2017 Tax Act and this Annual Report on Form 10-K does not fully discuss the 2017 Tax Act or the manner in which it might affect us or holders of our common stock. We urge our stockholders, including potential purchasers of our common stock, to consult with their legal and tax advisers with respect to the 2017 Tax Act and the potential tax consequences of investing in our common stock.

Our ability to use net operating losses to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.

In general, under Section 382 of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, or the Code, a corporation that undergoes an “ownership change” is subject to limitations on its ability to utilize its pre-change net operating losses, or NOLs, to offset future taxable income, and tax credits to offset tax. As of December 31, 2017, we had federal net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $100.1 million which will begin to expire in 2028 if not utilized, and state net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $39.3 million which will begin to expire in 2023 if not utilized. The federal NOLs generated prior to 2018 will continue to be governed by the NOL tax rules as they existed prior to the adoption of the new Tax Act, which means that generally they will expire 20 years after they were generated if not used prior thereto. The federal NOLs generated prior to 2018 will continue to be governed by the NOL tax rules as they existed prior to the adoption of the new Tax Act, which means that generally they will expire 20 years after they were generated if not used prior thereto. We may experience an ownership change in the future, and our ability to utilize our NOLs and tax credits could be further limited by Section 382 of the Code. Future changes in our stock ownership, many

of which are outside of our control, could result in an ownership change under Section 382 of the Code. Our net operating losses and tax credits could also be impaired under state laws. As a result, we might not be able to utilize a material portion of our state NOLs and tax credits.

If we fail to retain finance personnel and strengthen our financial reporting systems and infrastructure, we may not be able to timely and accurately report our financial results or comply with the requirements of being a public company, including compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and SEC reporting requirements.

We have hired additional accounting and finance staff members to augment our current staff and to improve the effectiveness of our closing and financial reporting processes. Any inability to retain such personnel would have an adverse impact on our ability to accurately and timely prepare our financial statements. We may be unable to locate and hire qualified professionals with requisite technical and public company experience when and as needed. In addition, new employees will require time and training to learn our business and operating processes and procedures. If our finance and accounting organization is unable for any reason to respond adequately to the demands of being a public company, the quality and timeliness of our financial reporting may suffer, which could result in the identification of material weaknesses in our internal controls. Any consequences resulting from inaccuracies or delays in our reported financial statements could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline and could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Interruptions in our information technology systems could adversely affect our business.

We rely on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of complex information technology systems and networks to operate our business. Any significant disruption to our systems or networks, including, but not limited to, new system implementations, computer viruses, security breaches, facility issues, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication failures or energy blackouts, could have a material adverse impact on our operations, sales and financial results. Such disruption could result in a loss of our intellectual property or the release of sensitive competitive information or supplier, customer or employee personal data. Any loss of such information could harm our competitive position, result in a loss of customer confidence, and cause us to incur significant costs to remedy the damages caused by any such disruptions or security breaches. Additionally, any failure to properly manage the collection, handling, transfer or disposal of personal data of employees and customers may result in regulatory penalties, enforcement actions, remediation obligations, litigation, fines and other sanctions.

We may experience attacks on our data, attempts to breach our security and attempts to introduce malicious software into our IT systems. If attacks are successful, we may be unaware of the incident, its magnitude, or its effects until significant harm is done. Any such attack or disruption could result in additional costs related to rebuilding of our internal systems, defending litigation, responding to regulatory actions, or paying damages. Such attacks or disruptions could have a material adverse impact on our business, operations and financial results.

Third-party service providers, such as wafer foundries, assembly and test contractors, distributors and other vendors have access to certain portions of our and our customers’ sensitive data. In the event that these service providers do not properly safeguard the data that they hold, security breaches and loss of data could result. Any such loss of data by our third-party service providers could negatively impact our business, operations and financial results, as well as our relationship with our customers.

If we experience material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls in the future, we may not be able to accurately report our financial condition or results of operations which may adversely affect investor confidence in us and, as a result, the value of our common stock.

As a result of being a public company, we are required, under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to furnish a report by management on, among other things, the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. This assessment includes disclosure of any material weaknesses identified by our management in our internal control over financial reporting. A material weakness is a deficiency or combination of deficiencies in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual and interim financial statements will not be detected or prevented on a timely basis. In connection with the audit of our financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, we identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, as defined in the standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board of the United States. Although we enhanced our internal controls, processes and related documentation necessary to remediate

our material weakness and to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404, and have concluded that we do not currently have any material weaknesses, there can be no assurances that we will not have any material weaknesses in the future.

When we cease to be an “emerging growth company” under the federal securities laws, our auditors will be required to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls. If we are unable to confirm that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls, we could lose investor confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

The issuance of new accounting standards or future interpretations of existing accounting standards could adversely affect our operating results.

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, or GAAP. A change in those principles could have a significant effect on our reported results and might affect our reporting of transactions completed before a change is announced. GAAP is issued and subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the SEC and various other bodies formed to promulgate and interpret accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported financial results, and could affect the reporting of transactions completed before the announcement of a change. For example, beginning with our first quarter of 2018, we will adopt the new revenue recognition standard, which will change the way we recognize revenue. We do not expect the adoption of the standard to have a material impact on our quarterly and/or annual statement of operations, however the exact impact will be dependent on facts and circumstances that could vary from quarter to quarter. The issuance of new accounting standards or future interpretations of existing accounting standards, or changes in our business practices or estimates, could result in future changes in our revenue recognition or other accounting policies that could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may force us to incur additional expenses, may make our supply chain more complex and may result in damage to our reputation with customers.

Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC has adopted requirements for companies that use certain minerals and metals, known as conflict minerals, in their products, whether or not these products are manufactured by third parties. These requirements will require companies to perform diligence and disclose and report whether or not such minerals originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries. The implementation of these requirements could adversely affect the sourcing, availability and pricing of minerals used in the manufacture of our products, and affect our costs and relationships with customers, distributors and suppliers as we must obtain additional information from them to ensure our compliance with the disclosure requirement. In addition, we will incur additional costs to comply with the disclosure requirements, including costs related to determining the source of any of the relevant minerals and metals used in our products. Since our supply chain is complex, we may not be able to sufficiently verify the origins for these minerals and metals used in our products through the due diligence procedures that we implement, which may harm our reputation. In such event, we may also face difficulties in satisfying customers who require that all of the components of our products are certified as conflict mineral free and these customers may discontinue, or materially reduce, purchases of our products, which could result in a material adverse effect on our results of operations and our financial condition may be adversely affected.

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

An active trading market may not be sustained.

Prior to the initial public offering of our common stock in October 2016, there was no public market for our common stock. Although our stock is currently traded on the Nasdaq Stock Market, an active trading market may not be sustained. The lack of an active market may impair the value of your shares and your ability to sell your shares at the time you wish to sell them. An inactive market may also impair our ability to both raise capital by selling shares and acquire other complementary products, technologies or businesses by using our shares as consideration.

We expect that the price of our common stock will fluctuate substantially.

The market price of our common stock is likely to be highly volatile and may fluctuate substantially due to many factors, including:

In recent years, the stock markets generally have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Broad market and industry factors may significantly affect the market price of our common stock, regardless of our actual operating performance. These fluctuations may be even more pronounced in the trading market for our common stock.

In addition, in the past, class action litigation has often been instituted against companies whose securities have experienced periods of volatility in market price. Securities litigation brought against us following volatility in our stock price, regardless of the merit or ultimate results of such litigation, could result in substantial costs, which would hurt our financial condition and operating results and divert management’s attention and resources from our business.

These and other factors may make the price of our stock volatile and subject to unexpected fluctuation.

Securities analysts may not publish favorable research or reports about our business or may publish no information at all, which could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

The trading market for our common stock will be influenced to some extent by the research and reports that industry or financial analysts publish about us and our business. We do not control these analysts. As a newly public company, we may be slow to attract research coverage and the analysts who publish information about our common stock will have had relatively little experience with our company or industry, which could affect their ability to accurately forecast our results and could make it more likely that we fail to meet their estimates. In the event we obtain securities or industry analyst coverage, if any of the analysts who cover us provide inaccurate or unfavorable research or issue an adverse opinion regarding our stock price, our stock price could decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our company or fail to publish reports covering us regularly, we could lose visibility in the market, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline.

We are an “emerging growth company” and we cannot be certain if the reduced disclosure requirements applicable to “emerging growth companies” will make our common stock less attractive to investors.

We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions and relief from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not “emerging growth companies.” In particular, while we are an “emerging growth company” (1) we will not be required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, (2) we will be exempt from any rules that may be adopted by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board requiring mandatory audit firm rotations or a supplement to the auditor’s report on financial statements, (3) we will be subject to reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and (4) we will not be required to hold nonbinding advisory votes on executive compensation or stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved.

We may remain an “emerging growth company” until as late as December 31, 2021, the fiscal year-end following the fifth anniversary of the completion of our initial public offering, though we may cease to be an “emerging growth

company” earlier under certain circumstances, including (1) if the market value of our common stock that is held by nonaffiliates exceeds $700 million as of any June 30, in which case we would cease to be an “emerging growth company” as of the following December 31, or (2) if our gross revenue exceeds $1.07 billion in any fiscal year.

Investors may find our common stock less attractive if we rely on the exemptions and relief granted by the JOBS Act. If some investors find our common stock less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our common stock and our stock price may decline or become more volatile.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market by our existing stockholders could cause our stock price to fall.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. We are unable to predict the effect that sales may have on the prevailing market price of our common stock.

Our directors, officers and principal stockholders have significant voting power and may take actions that may not be in the best interests of our other stockholders.

Our officers, directors and principal stockholders each holding more than 5% of our common stock, collectively, control a significant percentage of our outstanding common stock. As a result, these stockholders, if they act together, will be able to control the management and affairs of our company and most matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of directors and approval of significant corporate transactions. This concentration of ownership may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control and might adversely affect the market price of our common stock. This concentration of ownership may not be in the best interests of our other stockholders.

Our disclosure controls and procedures may not prevent or detect all errors or acts of fraud.

We are subject to the periodic reporting requirements of the Exchange Act. We have designed our disclosure controls and procedures to provide reasonable assurance that information we must disclose in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, and recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the SEC. We believe that any disclosure controls and procedures, no matter how well-conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met.

These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people or by an unauthorized override of the controls. Accordingly, because of the inherent limitations in our control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

Provisions in our corporate charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult and may prevent attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and our amended and restated bylaws may discourage, delay or prevent a merger, acquisition or other change in control of us that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which stockholders might otherwise receive a premium for their shares. These provisions could also limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock, thereby depressing the market price of our common stock. In addition, these provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our board of directors. Because our board of directors is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions could in turn affect any attempt by our stockholders to replace current members of our management team. Among others, these provisions include that:

Moreover, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which prohibits a person who owns in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock from merging or combining with us for a period of three years after the date of the transaction in which the person acquired in excess of 15% of our outstanding voting stock, unless the merger or combination is approved in a prescribed manner.

Item 1B Unresolved Staff Comments.

None.

Item 2. Properties.

We lease office space for our corporate headquarters located in Chandler, Arizona and for our design facility located in Austin, Texas. The leases expire in January 2022.

We have an operating lease for our Arizona manufacturing facility, as amended, for certain of the fabrication, laboratory and office premises of Freescale, a related party. This lease is cancellable upon 24 months’ notice by either of the parties. In the first quarter of 2017, we extended the lease through January 28, 2019 and amended the premises covered to remove laboratory space, decrease fabrication space and expand office space. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we extended the lease through January 2020.

In the first quarter of 2017, we entered into a five-year operating lease with Freescale for 10,023 square feet of office and laboratory space. In the third quarter of 2017, we amended the lease with Freescale to add 17,951 square feet of office space. The initial term of this amendment to the lease ends on January 31, 2022, with an option to renew the lease through August 31, 2024.

We believe our existing facilities are well maintained and in good operating condition and they are adequate for our foreseeable business needs.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.

From time to time, we may become involved in legal proceedings arising from the ordinary course of our business. Management is currently not aware of any matters that will have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.

Market Price of Common Stock

Our common stock has been listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “MRAM” since October 7, 2016. Prior to that date, there was no public trading market for our common stock. The following table sets forth for the period indicated the high and low sales prices per share of our common stock as reported on the Nasdaq Global Market:

 

Holders of Record

As of March 7, 2018, we had 31 holders of record of our common stock. The actual number of stockholders is greater than this number of record holders, and includes stockholders who are beneficial owners, but whose shares are held in street name by brokers and other nominees. This number of holders of record also does not include stockholders whose shares may be held in trust by other entities.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. We intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings, if any, to fund the development and expansion of our business and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any future determination related to dividend policy will be made at the discretion of our board of directors. Under our Loan and Security Agreement with Silicon Valley Bank entered into in May 2017, we are not allowed to pay any cash dividends without the consent of Silicon Valley Bank.

Stock Performance Graph

This performance graph shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the SEC for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (Exchange Act), or otherwise subject to the liabilities under that Section, and shall not be deemed to be incorporated by reference into any of our filings under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Exchange Act.

The graph below shows the cumulative total stockholder return for Everspin Technologies, Inc., the Nasdaq Composite Index and the PHLX Semiconductor Index, assuming the investment of $100.00 in our common stock on the date specified. The comparisons in the graph are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of future performance of our common stock.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

 

 

Use of Proceeds from our Public Offering of Common Stock

On October 7, 2016, our registration statement on Form S‑1 (File No. 333‑213569) relating to our initial public offering (IPO) of common stock became effective. The IPO closed on October 13, 2016 at which time we issued 5,000,000 shares of our common stock at an initial offering price of $8.00 per share for gross proceeds of $40.0 million. We received net proceeds from the IPO of $33.9 million, after deducting the underwriting discount and other offering-related expenses paid by us.

There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from the IPO from that described in the prospectus filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b)(4) under the Securities Act on October 7, 2016. As of December 31, 2017, we had used approximately $30.9 million of the proceeds from our IPO.

Repurchases of Shares or of Company Equity Securities

None.

 

Item 6. Selected Financial Data.

The information set forth below should be read together with "Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and our financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report. The selected balance sheet data at December 31, 2017 and 2016, and the selected statements of operations data for each of the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, have been derived from our audited financial statements that are included elsewhere in this report. The selected balance sheet data at December 31, 2015 and 2014, and the selected statements of operations data for the year ended December 31, 2014, were derived from our audited financial statements which are not included in this report. Historical results are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected in any future period.

 

 

Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as a financial measure and should not be considered a substitute for other measures of financial performance reported in accordance with GAAP. These limitations include the following:

Because of these limitations, you should consider Adjusted EBITDA alongside other financial performance measures, including net loss and our financial results presented in accordance with GAAP. The following table presents a reconciliation of net loss, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, to Adjusted EBITDA for each of the periods indicated:

 

 

Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.

You should read the following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations together with the “Selected Financial Data” and our audited financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report. This discussion and other parts of this report contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties, such as statements of our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions. As a result of many factors, including those factors set forth in the “Risk Factors” section of this report, our actual results could differ materially from the results described in or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in the following discussion and analysis.

Overview

We are the leading provider of MRAM solutions. Our MRAM solutions offer the persistence of non-volatile memory, a type of memory that retains information even in the absence of power, with the speed and endurance of random access memory (RAM), and enable the protection of mission critical data particularly in the event of power interruption or failure. Our MRAM solutions allow our customers in the industrial, automotive and transportation, and enterprise storage markets to design high performance, power efficient and reliable systems without the need for bulky batteries or capacitors.

Our revenue is derived from the sale of our MRAM-based products in discrete unit form, as embedded technology, and through licensing and royalties of our MRAM and magnetic sensor technology.

We work directly with our customers to have our MRAM devices designed into and qualified for their products. Although we maintain direct sales, support, and development relationships with our customers, once our products are designed into a customer’s product, we sell a majority of our products to those customers through distributors. We generated 74%, 79%, and 66% of our revenue from products sold through distributors for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

We maintain a direct selling relationship, for strategic purposes, with several key customer accounts. Our direct sales personnel and representatives are organized into three primary regions: North America; Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific (APAC). In North America, our revenue was $6.3 million, $5.7 million and $6.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. Our revenue in North America decreased for the year ended December 31, 2016, compared to the same period in 2015 primarily due to our licensing revenue decreasing as a result of more subscription type licensing in 2016. In EMEA, our revenue was $8.0 million, $5.1 million, and $4.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. In APAC, our revenue was $21.6 million, $16.3 million, and $16.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. Our revenue in EMEA and APAC increased for the year ended December 31, 2017, compared to the same period in 2016 due to both expansion of footprint and entry into new verticals. We recognize revenue by geography based on the region in which our products are sold, and not to where the end products are shipped.

We leverage both internal and outsourced capabilities to manufacture our MRAM products. We purchase industry-standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) wafers from semiconductor foundries and complete the fabrication by inserting our magnetic-bit technology at our 200mm fabrication facility in Chandler, Arizona. We believe this allows us to streamline research and development, rapidly prototype new products, and bring new products to market quickly and cost effectively. This strategy significantly reduces the capital investment that would otherwise be required to operate manufacturing facilities of our own. We intend to utilize leading semiconductor foundries, including GLOBALFOUNDRIES, to support high-volume production of our high density MRAM products on 300mm wafers at advanced process nodes.

During the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, we continued to invest in research and development to support the development and production of our STT-MRAM technology. We believe our continued investment will allow us to continue to develop and deploy products based on our STT-MRAM technology. For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, our research and development expenses were $25.4 million, $19.2 million, and $21.1 million, respectively. We expect that our research and development expenses will increase in the future as we continue to develop our MRAM technology internally and through our joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, we recorded revenue of $35.9 million, $27.1, million, and $26.5 million, gross margin of 59.8%, 54.3%, and 52.7%, and a net loss of $21.1 million, $16.7 million, and $18.2 million, respectively.

Key Metrics

We monitor a variety of key financial metrics to help us evaluate trends, establish budgets, measure the effectiveness of our business strategies and assess operational efficiencies. These financial metrics include revenue, gross margin, operating expenses and operating income determined in accordance with GAAP. Additionally, we monitor and project cash flow to determine our sources and uses for working capital to fund our operations. We also monitor Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure.

Our management and board of directors use Adjusted EBITDA to understand and evaluate our operating performance and trends, to prepare and approve our annual budget and to develop short-term and long-term operating and financing plans. Accordingly, we believe that Adjusted EBITDA provides useful information for investors in understanding and evaluating our operating results in the same manner as our management and our board of directors. Adjusted EBITDA was $(15.6) million, $(11.4) million, and $(14.0) million in 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. The changes were primarily a result of increased personnel-related costs, excluding stock-based compensation, contract labor and expenses resulting from our joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Personnel-related costs and contract labor costs were $18.8 million in 2017, $15.8 million in 2016, and $15.2 million in 2015. The increase in personnel-related and contract labor is consistent with our strategy to expand our operations and develop our MRAM technologies and products to support future growth. Expenses from our joint development agreement were $5.2 million in 2017, $2.9 million in 2016, and $3.6 million in 2015.

See “Selected Financial Data” for more information and reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net loss, the most directly comparable financial measure calculated in accordance with GAAP.

Factors Affecting Our Results of Operations

Design wins. To continue to grow our revenue, we must continue to achieve design wins for our MRAM products. We consider a design win to occur when an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or contract manufacturer notifies us that it has qualified one of our products as a component in a product or system for production. We believe we are dependent on the adoption of our 256Mb and 1Gb MRAM products by our customers to secure design wins. Because the life cycles for our customers’ products can last for several years, if these products have successful commercial introductions, we expect to continue to generate revenues over an extended period of time for each successful design win. Any delay in the development of our 1Gb MRAM products, or failure of our customers to adopt our 1Gb MRAM products, could inhibit revenue growth or cause declines, which would significantly harm our business and prevent us from becoming profitable. In the fourth quarter of 2017, we recorded revenue for our first sale of 40nm 256Mb STT-MRAM products and we are in process of ramping up production in 2018.

Customer acceptance of our technology and customer product success. For our customers to use our products, they may have to redesign certain components of their existing designs. We have established relationships with several controller companies, including Broadcom (formerly LSI and Avago), Marvell and Microsemi (formerly PMC-Sierra), and IP core companies, including Cadence, Synopsys, and Northwest Logic, and FPGA manufacturers, including Xilinx and Altera (now part of Intel), to accelerate the integration of our MRAM solutions into our customers’ end products. Delays in our customers’ design cycles may have adverse effects on the demand, and therefore sales, of our products.

Customer concentration. A relatively small number of end customers have historically accounted for a significant percentage of our revenue. Revenue, including through distributors, from Broadcom, NXP, STMicroelectronics, and Dell, collectively, accounted for 25%, 32%, and 41% of our total revenue in 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively. Two of these customers accounted for more than 10% of our revenue in 2015. None of these customers individually accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in 2017 and 2016. It would be difficult to replace lost revenue resulting from the loss, reduction, cancellation or delay in purchase orders by any one of these customers. Consolidation among our customers may further concentrate our customer base and expose us to increased risks relating to increased customer concentration. In addition, any significant pricing pressure exerted by a significant customer could adversely affect our operating results.

Pricing, product cost and gross margins of our products. Our gross margin has been, and will continue to be, affected by a variety of factors, including the timing of changes in pricing, shipment volumes, new product introductions, changes in product mix, changes in our purchase price of fabricated wafers, assembly and test service expenses, manufacturing yields and inventory write downs, if any. In general, newly introduced products, and products with higher densities and performance, tend to be priced higher than older, more mature products. Average selling prices in the semiconductor industry typically decline as products mature. Consistent with this historical trend, we expect that the average selling prices of our products will decline as they mature. In the normal course of business, we seek to offset the effect of declining average selling prices on existing products by reducing manufacturing costs and introducing newer, higher value-added products. If we are unable to maintain overall average selling prices or to offset any declines in average selling prices with savings on product costs, our gross margin will decline.

Gross margin impact of licensing revenue. Our licensing revenue, which we collect as licensing fees and royalty payments, generates significantly higher gross margin than product revenue. Due to the high gross margin profile of this revenue stream, fluctuations in licensing revenue may have a greater impact on gross margin than a corresponding change in the demand for our products. Therefore, as licensing revenue fluctuates, we may see significant variations in gross margin.

Technology, process, and product development investment. We invest heavily to develop our MRAM technology, including the core MRAM technology, the joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and the design of new and innovative products based on MRAM, to provide solutions to our current and future customers. We anticipate that we will continue to invest in our research and development to achieve our technology and product roadmaps. Our product development is targeted to specific segments of the market where we believe the densities and performance of our products can provide the most benefit. We believe our close coordination with our customers regarding their future product requirements enhances the efficiency of our research and development expenditures.

Components of Results of Operations

Revenue

We derive our revenue from the sale of our MRAM-based products in discrete unit form, as embedded technology, and through licensing of and royalties on our MRAM and magnetic sensor technology. Our distributors worldwide generally have broad price protection and product return rights which prevent the sales pricing from being fixed or determinable at the time of shipment to our distributors. Therefore, for sales through distributors of our discrete MRAM products, revenue recognition is deferred until the pricing uncertainty is resolved, which generally occurs when the distributor sells the product to their customer. We recognize license fees when the applicable development milestones have been met in accordance with the terms of the licensing agreement. Our licensing revenue is largely dependent on a small number of transactions during a given year. We recognize revenue for royalties resulting from our licensing agreements in accordance with the terms of the licensing agreement.

Cost of Sales and Gross Margin

Cost of sales primarily includes the cost of our products including costs to purchase wafers, costs paid for wafer fabrication, costs associated with the assembly and testing of our products, shipping costs and costs of our manufacturing personnel. Cost of sales also includes indirect costs, such as warranty, inventory valuation reserves and overhead costs.

Gross profit is revenue less cost of sales. Gross margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of total revenue. We expect that our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period, primarily as a result of changes in average selling price, revenue mix among our products, product yields and manufacturing costs. In addition, we may reserve against the value at which we carry our inventory based upon the product’s life cycle and conditions in the markets in which we sell. Declines in average selling prices may be paired with improvements in our cost of sales, which may offset some of the gross margin reduction that could result from lower selling prices.

Operating Expenses

Our operating expenses consist of research and development, general and administrative and sales and marketing expenses. Personnel-related expenses, including salaries, benefits, bonuses and stock-based compensation, are the most significant component of each of our operating expense categories.

Research and Development Expenses

Our research and development expenses consist primarily of personnel-related expenses for the design and development of our products and technologies, test wafers required to characterize our technology, and expenses associated with our joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Research and development expenses also include consulting services, circuit design costs, materials and laboratory supplies, fabrication and new packaging technology, compensation charges related to the vesting of the shares of common stock issued to GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and an allocation of related facilities and equipment costs. We recognize research and development expenses as they are incurred.

General and Administrative Expenses

Our general and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, allocated facilities costs, expenses for outside professional services, and expenses for personnel and consultants engaged in executive, finance, legal, information technology and administrative activities. We expect our general and administrative expenses will increase as a result of operating as a public company following our IPO in October 2016, including expenses related to compliance with the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and those of the Nasdaq Global Market exchange, additional insurance expenses, investor relations activities and other administrative and professional services.

Sales and Marketing Expenses

Our sales and marketing expenses consist primarily of compensation for our sales, marketing, and business development personnel, including bonuses and commissions for our sales representatives. We expect our sales and marketing expenses to increase as we hire additional sales personnel and representatives and increase our marketing activities.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consists of cash and non-cash components. The non-cash component consists of interest expense recognized from the amortization of debt discounts derived from the issuance of warrants and debt issuance costs capitalized on our balance sheets as a reduction of the debt balance. The non-cash component also includes interest expense on our convertible promissory notes as well as the amortization of debt discounts from the bifurcation of an embedded derivative related to the notes. These notes were converted into shares of our common stock upon the completion of our IPO in October 2016.The cash component of interest expense is attributable to our borrowings under our loan agreements.

Other Income, Net

Other income, net consists primarily of the change in fair value of our convertible preferred stock warrant liability. Prior to the completion of our IPO, our convertible preferred stock warrants were exercisable into shares that were contingently redeemable. As such, these warrants were classified as a liability on our balance sheets at their estimated fair value and were marked to market at each reporting period. We continued to record adjustments to the estimated fair values of the convertible preferred stock warrants until they converted into common stock warrants upon the closing of the IPO.

Loss on extinguishment of debt

In the second quarter of 2017, we repaid the outstanding balance of our revolving loan and term loan at which time the unamortized balance of the debt discount and a prepayment penalty for the term loan were recognized as a loss on extinguishment of debt.

Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our results of operations for the periods indicated:

 

The following table set forth the statements of operations data for each of the periods presented as a percentage of revenue:

 

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2017 and 2016

Revenue

 

Total revenue increased by $8.8 million, or 32.6%, from $27.1 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $35.9 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. Product sales increased by $7.1 million or 26.6% from $26.6 million, to $33.7 million. The increase in product sales was primarily due to increased sales volume in our Toggle MRAM products resulting in $5.7 million in additional sales and $1.4 million increase in sales of legacy products, of which $0.9 million was related to embedded products and $0.5 million related to sensor products.

Licensing and royalty revenue is a highly variable revenue item characterized by a small number of transactions annually with revenues based on size and terms of each transaction. Licensing and royalty revenue increased by $1.8 million primarily due to $1.6 million in milestone fees earned for the achievement of specified events during 2017 under the joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

 

Cost of Sales and Gross Margin

*Not meaningful.

Cost of sales increased by $2.1 million, or 16.6%, from $12.4 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $14.5 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was primarily due to the increased sales volume on our Toggle MRAM and legacy products.

Gross margin increased from 54.3% during the year ended December 31, 2016, to 59.8% during the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was primarily due to increased sales and product mix on our Toggle MRAM products.

Operating Expenses

 

Research and Development. Research and development expenses increased by $6.2 million, or 32.3%, from $19.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $25.4 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was due to a $2.8 million increase in equipment maintenance and supplies expenses related to the move to our new office and laboratory space in March 2017 and more equipment purchases in the year ended December 31, 2017 compared to the same period in 2016, a $2.3 million increase in expenses incurred related to our joint development agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES due to the use of more technologically advanced materials, a $0.9 million increase in employee and contract labor costs due to an increase in headcount, bonuses and stock-based compensation expense, and a $0.5 million increase in the amount attributable to the vesting of shares of common stock issued to GLOBALFOUNDRIES due to revaluing shares.

General and Administrative. General and administrative expenses increased by $4.2 million, or 58.2%, from $7.3 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $11.5 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was due to a $2.2 million increase in professional services incurred due to becoming a publicly traded company, such as accounting services, legal and investor relations, and a $2.0 million increase in employee and contract labor costs, of which $0.6 million was due to our change in Chief Executive Officer and $1.3 million was due to increases in headcount and stock-based compensation expense.

Sales and Marketing. Sales and marketing expenses increased by $1.0 million, or 27.9%, from $3.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $4.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The increase was primarily due to a $1.0 million increase in employee and contract labor costs as a result of higher headcount and an increase in salaries, bonuses and stock-based compensation expense.

Interest Expense

 

Interest expense decreased by $1.6 million, or 67.4%, from $2.3 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $0.8 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The decrease was primarily related to a $0.9 million decrease in interest expense on our 2016 convertible promissory notes which were converted to equity in October 2016, and a $0.7 million decrease due to lower interest expense on our 2017 Credit Facility with Silicon Valley Bank, compared to our prior facility with Ares Venture Finance.

Other Income, Net

 

Other income, net decreased by $1.0 million, or 89.8%, from $1.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2016, to $0.1 million during the year ended December 31, 2017. The decrease was primarily related to a $1.2 million gain on the fair value remeasurement of our warrant liabilities in 2016 which were reclassified to equity upon the IPO in October 2016, offset in part by an increase of $0.1 million in interest income in 2017.

Loss on extinguishment of debt

*Not meaningful.

Loss on extinguishment of debt was $0.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2017, due to the payoff of our prior facility with Ares Venture Finance in May 2017. There was no such loss during the year ended December 31, 2016.

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2016 and 2015

Revenue

 

Total revenue increased by $0.6 million, or 2.1%, from $26.5 million during the year ended December 31, 2015, to $27.1 million during the year ended December 31, 2016. Product sales increased by $0.7 million or 2.8% from $25.9 million, to $26.6 million. The increase in product sales was primarily due to increased sales volume in our Toggle MRAM products resulting in $1.4 million in additional sales, partially offset by a decrease of $0.7 million in legacy product sales.