LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORP - Annual Report: 2021 (Form 10-K)

Table of Contents

 

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
☑	ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED January 2, 2021
	or
☐	TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM __________ TO __________

 

Commission file number: 000-18032

 

 

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

Delaware	93-0835214
(State of Incorporation)	(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)
5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon	97124-6421
(Address of principal executive offices)	(Zip Code)

 

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (503) 268-8000

________________________________________________________

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

________________________________________________________

 

(Title of Class)	(Trading Symbol)	(Name of each exchange on which registered)
Common Stock, $.01 par value	LSCC	Nasdaq Global Select 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 Section 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 every Interactive Data File required to be submitted 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 such files). Yes ☑    No ☐

 

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.

 

Large accelerated filer ☑	Accelerated filer ☐	Non-accelerated filer ☐
Smaller reporting company ☐	Emerging growth company ☐

 

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).    Yes ☐    No ☑

 

Aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of June 27, 2020	$	3,252,740,803
Number of shares of common stock outstanding as of February 19, 2021	136,532,920

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The information required by Part III of this Report, to the extent not set forth herein, is incorporated herein by reference from the registrant's definitive proxy statement relating to the 2020 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which definitive proxy statement shall be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this Report relates.

 

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Table of Contents

 

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These involve estimates, assumptions, risks, and uncertainties. Any statements about our expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, or future events or performance are not historical facts and may be forward-looking. We use words or phrases such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” "possible," “predict,” “projects,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “continue,” “ongoing,” “future,” “potential,” and similar words or phrases to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about: our opportunities to increase our addressable market; our expectations and strategies regarding market trends and opportunities, including market segment drivers such as 5G infrastructure deployments, cloud and enterprise servers, client computing platforms, industrial Internet of Things, factory automation, automotive electronics, smart homes and prosumers; our beliefs about who we may compete with and how we are differentiated from those competitors; our future investments in research and development and our research and development expense efficiency; whether we will experience seasonality or cyclicality; our expectations about our patent portfolio, including the expiration of patents, whether, when and where we will make future filings, and the value of the patents generally and to our business; our ability to attract and retain personnel and their importance to our performance; our target or expected financial performance and our ability to achieve those results; future financial results or accounting treatments; future impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including as a result of actions by governments, businesses, and individuals in response to the situation, on consumer, industrial, and financial markets, our business operations, supply chain and partners, financial performance, results of operations, financial position, and the achievement of our strategic objectives; our use of cash; our judgments involved in accounting matters, including revenue recognition, inventories and cost of revenue and income taxes; our investments in research and development; the continued effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting; our expectations regarding product offerings; whether we will consider and act upon acquisition opportunities to extend our product, technology and product offerings; our expectations regarding our customer base; the expected costs of our restructuring plans; our expectations regarding taxes, including unrecognized tax benefits, and tax adjustments and allowances; our beliefs regarding the adequacy of our liquidity, capital resources and facilities; and our beliefs regarding legal proceedings.

These forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements expressed in the forward-looking statements. The key factors, among others, that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements include the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions by governments, businesses, and individuals in response to the situation, the effects of which may give rise to or amplify the risks associated with many of these factors listed here; global economic conditions and uncertainty, including as a result of trade-related restrictions or tariffs, the concentration of our sales in certain end markets, particularly as it relates to the concentration of our sales in the Asia Pacific region, market acceptance and demand for our existing and new products, market and technology trends, our ability to license or sell our intellectual property, any disruption of our distribution channels, the impact of competitive products and pricing, the effect of any downturn in the economy on capital markets and credit markets, unanticipated taxation requirements or positions of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service or other taxing authority, unanticipated effects of tax reform, or unexpected impacts of accounting guidance. In addition, actual results are subject to other risks and uncertainties that relate more broadly to our overall business, including those more fully described herein and that are otherwise described from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including, but not limited to, the items discussed in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

You should not unduly rely on forward-looking statements because our actual results could differ materially from those expressed by us. In addition, any forward-looking statement applies only as of the date of this filing. We do not plan to, and undertake no obligation to, update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information or new events, circumstances or developments, or otherwise.

PART I

Item 1. Business

Overview

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Lattice,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) develop technologies that we monetize through differentiated programmable logic semiconductor products, system solutions, design services, and licenses. Lattice is the low power programmable leader. We solve customer problems across the network, from the Edge to the Cloud, in growing communications, computing, industrial, automotive, and consumer markets. Our technology, long-standing relationships, and commitment to world-class support enable our customers to create a smart, secure, and connected world.

Our field programmable gate array ("FPGA") devices enable us to provide our customers with a strong, growing base of control, connect, and compute technologies. We believe there are multiple growth areas that will allow us to increase our addressable market. In particular, we believe there are several emerging trends in servers, infrastructure, and smart devices that are opportunities for Lattice:

To serve these emerging needs, customer solutions require low power, memory bandwidth, processing power, and the ability to integrate complex functionality into a highly compact footprint. These requirements align to the capabilities of our FPGA devices. Our flexible, low power, small form factor, easy to use FPGAs put us in a unique position to meet these growing market needs.

Our Markets and Customers

We sell our products globally in three end market groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. We also provide Intellectual Property ("IP") licensing and services to these end markets.

In the Communications and Computing Market, our solutions play key roles in computing systems such as servers and clients, 5G wireless infrastructure, switches / routers, and other related applications.

Our Communications and Computing customers need to address a variety of challenges.

Lattice FPGAs solve these customer problems. Our FPGAs are optimized for input/output ("I/O") expansion, low cost per look-up table, hardware acceleration, and hardware management. Our FPGAs consume power at very low rates, which reduces operating costs and supports the continued miniaturization of consumer devices. Their small form factor enables higher functional density in less space. Finally, our FPGAs are I/O rich, which allows for more connections with system application specific integrated circuits ("ASICs") and application specific standard products ("ASSPs").

Examples of where our products enable intelligent automation in the Industrial and Automotive Market include industrial Internet of Things ("IoT"), machine vision, robotics, factory automation, driver assistance, and automotive infotainment.

Our Industrial and Automotive customers face numerous challenges:

Our product portfolio helps solve these challenges. Our small-sized, low-power FPGAs not only provide the I/O expansion, bridging, connectivity, and processing inherent in FPGAs, but they also form the backbone of several integrated solutions, including motor control, complete High Definition ("HD") camera and DVR solutions on a single FPGA device, and Human-Machine Interfaces ("HMI") on a chip.

In the Consumer Market, you can find our solutions making products smarter and thinner, including: smart home devices, prosumer devices, sound bars, high end projectors, Augmented Reality ("AR") / Virtual Reality ("VR"), and wearables.

Our Consumer customers are driven by the need to deliver richer and more responsive experiences. They typically require:

Lattice FPGAs bring multiple benefits to these customers. An FPGA’s parallel architecture enables faster processing than competing devices, such as microcontrollers, allowing for a user experience with shorter pauses and fewer delays. Our FPGAs are among the lowest power consumption in the industry, enabling the application processor and other high-power components to remain dormant longer, resulting in longer battery life. Finally, with some of the industry’s smallest packages, we enable thinner end products.

Our proprietary solutions help our customers get their products to market faster than typical development cycles. With re-programmability and flexibility, our FPGAs inherently allow our customers to have quicker product development. The time-to-market advantages of Lattice's solutions are critical given the shorter product life cycles and higher competition in our customers’ end markets.

Our Products, Services, and Competition

We are focused on delivering FPGAs and related solutions to help solve our customers' problems. We also serve our customers with IP licensing and various other services.

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (“FPGAs”)

FPGAs are regular arrays of logic that can be custom-configured by the user through software. This programmability allows our customers flexibility and reduced time to market while allowing us to offer the chips to many different customers in many different markets. Four product families anchor our FPGA offerings:

To enable our customers to get to market faster we support our FPGAs with intellectual property cores, reference designs, development kits, and design software. We are investing in our design software, such as Lattice Radiant, to deliver best-in-class tools that enable predictable design convergence, and Lattice Propel for unparalleled ease in creating embedded processor-based designs. Further, we have developed integrated system-level solution stacks, such as Lattice sensAI, as well as Lattice mVision for low power embedded vision, and Lattice Sentry for implementing hardware security. We combine all of these elements to solve specific customer problems such as the need to quickly implement low power AI inferencing in Edge applications.

Depending on the application, we may compete with other FPGAs vendors, as well as producers of ASICs, ASSPs, and microcontrollers. We believe that Lattice has developed products and solutions with differentiated advantages.

Legacy Semiconductor Products

We also sell Video Connectivity ASSPs, although we are not developing new products in this area and their support requirements are minimal.

Intellectual Property (IP) Licensing and Services

Lattice has a broad set of technological capabilities and many U.S. and international patents. We generate revenue from our technology portfolio via upfront fees and on-going royalty payments through the following activities:

Research and Development

We place a substantial emphasis on new product development, where return on investment is the key driver. We believe that continued investment in research and development is required to maintain and improve our competitive position. Our research and development activities are focused on new proprietary products, advanced packaging, existing product enhancements, software development tools, soft IP cores and application focused solutions. These research and development activities occur primarily at our sites in Hillsboro, Oregon; San Jose, California; Shanghai, China; and Muntinlupa City, Philippines.

We believe that a continued commitment to research and development is essential to maintaining product leadership and providing an increased cadence of innovative new product offerings and, therefore, we expect to continue to make significant future investments in research and development.

Operations

We do not manufacture our own silicon products. We maintain strategic relationships with large, established semiconductor foundries to source our finished silicon wafers. This strategy allows us to focus our internal resources on product and market development and eliminate the fixed cost of owning and operating semiconductor manufacturing facilities. We are able to take advantage of the ongoing advanced process technology development efforts of semiconductor foundries and apply those technologies when they become most economically beneficial to us and to our customers.

We rely on third party vendors to provide cost-effective and efficient supply chain services. Among other activities, these outsourced services relate to direct sales logistics, which include order fulfillment, inventory management and warehousing, and the shipment of inventory to third party distributors.

Wafer Fabrication

Lattice partners with Samsung Semiconductor ("Samsung") to develop and manufacture the first low-power FPGA on 28nm FDS technology, which is used in our latest Nexus FPGA platform of products. We partner with United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC") and its subsidiary United Semiconductor Japan Corporation ("USJC") to manufacture our products on its 130nm, 90nm, 65nm & 40nm CMOS process technologies, as well as embedded flash memory in these process nodes. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (“TSMC”) manufactures our 350nm, 130nm, 55nm and 40nm products. Seiko Epson ("Epson") manufactures our 500nm, 350nm, 250nm and 180nm products.

We source silicon wafers from our foundry partners, Samsung, UMC, USJC, TSMC, and Epson, pursuant to agreements with each company and their respective affiliates. We negotiate wafer volumes, prices and other terms with our foundry partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.

Assembly

All of our assembly and test operations are performed by industry-leading outsourced assembly & test suppliers ("OSAT's") with our primary supplier being Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. ("ASE"). We perform certain test operations as well as reliability and quality assurance processes internally during the development process. We have achieved and maintained ISO9001:2015 Quality Management Systems Certification and released a line of products qualified to the AEC-Q100 Reliability Standard in support of Automotive product offerings in addition to ISO26262 certification on both automotive products and software.

After wafer fabrication and initial testing, we ship wafers to independent subcontractors for assembly. During assembly, wafers are separated into individual die and encapsulated in plastic packages. We have qualified two major assembly partners, ASE and Amkor Technology ("Amkor") and are second sourced where volume and customer requirements are necessary. All ASE and Amkor manufacturing of our products is in Asia. We negotiate assembly prices, volumes and other terms with our assembly partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.

We currently offer an extensive list of standard products in lead (Pb) free packaging. Our lead-free products meet the European Parliament Directive entitled "Restrictions on the use of Hazardous Substances" ("RoHS"). A select and growing subset of our RoHS compliant products are also offered with a "Halogen Free" material set.

Testing (Sort and Final Test)

We electrically sort test the die on most wafers prior to shipment for assembly. Wafer sort testing is primarily performed by Amkor in Japan and our second source King Yuan Electronics Co. (“KYEC”) in Taiwan.

Following assembly, but prior to customer shipment, each product undergoes final testing and quality assurance procedures. Final testing is performed by ASE and Amkor.

Sales and Revenue

We generate revenue by monetizing our technology and patents through product and technology sales. This involves the channel and direct sales of silicon-based products, as well as the licensing or sale of intellectual property that we have developed or acquired, some of which we use in our products, and certain design services that we may provide.

Sales and Customers

We primarily sell our products to customers from Lattice Semiconductor Corporation or our wholly-owned subsidiary, Lattice SG Pte. Ltd. Independent distributors are significant customers, and a substantial portion of our sales are made to this channel. Additionally, we sell both directly and through a network of independent manufacturers' representatives. We also employ a direct sales management and field applications engineering organization to support our end customers and indirect sales resources. End customers for our products are primarily OEMs in the Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer end markets. Our sales team uses our position within these OEMs to drive multi-generation design wins and leverages our distribution partners to grow our broad customer base.

We provide global technical support to our end customers with engineering staff based at our headquarters, product development centers and selected field sales offices. We maintain numerous domestic and international field sales offices in major metropolitan areas.

In fiscal years 2020, 2019, and 2018, sales to distributors accounted for approximately 83%, 82%, and 83%, respectively, of our net revenue. We depend on our distributors to sell our products to end customers, complete order fulfillment, and maintain sufficient inventory of our products. Our distributors also provide technical support and other value-added services to our end customers. We have two global distributors. We also have regional distribution in Asia, Japan, and Israel, and we sell through three major on-line distributors. Revenue from foreign sales as a percentage of total revenue was 89%, 89%, and 90% for fiscal 2020, 2019, and 2018, respectively. We assign revenue to geographies based on ship-to location of our customers. Both foreign and domestic sales are denominated in U.S. dollars.

Backlog

Our backlog consists of orders from distributors and certain Original Equipment Manufacturers ("OEMs") that require delivery within the next year. Historically, our backlog has not been a predictor of future sales or customer demand for the following reasons:

Seasonality

We may periodically experience variability in our sales volumes and financial results due to seasonal trends in the end markets we serve, the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, and general economic conditions.

Intellectual Property, Patents, and Licensing

We seek to protect our products, technologies, and intellectual property primarily through patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademark registrations, licensing restrictions, confidentiality agreements, and other approaches designed to protect proprietary information. We hold numerous United States and international patents and have patent applications pending in the United States and internationally. In addition to protecting innovations designed into our products, our ownership and maintenance of patents is an important factor in the determination of our share of the royalties for the HDMI standard. Our current patents will expire at various times between 2021 and 2039, subject to our payment of periodic maintenance fees. We believe that our patents have value, and we expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions, as we deem appropriate. We have acquired various licenses from third parties to certain technologies that are implemented in IP cores or embedded in our products. These licenses support our continuing ability to make and sell these products to our customers. While our various IP rights are important to our success, we believe our business as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular patent or license, or any particular group of patents or licenses.

Human Capital Management

We provide a safe and positive work environment for our employees that emphasizes respect for individuals and ethical conduct, learning and development, facilitated by a direct employee engagement model. The health and safety of our employees is of utmost important to us. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken actions to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and our business. We implemented social distancing policies at our locations around the world including working from home and eliminating substantially all travel. Recognizing and respecting our global presence, we strive to maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce everywhere we operate. As of January 2, 2021, we had 746 employees worldwide.

We believe our employees are the foundation of our success and that our future growth depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain key technical, sales, and management personnel, particularly highly-skilled engineers involved in the design, development, and support of new and existing products and processes. In order for us to attract the best talent, we provide a collaborative, diverse, inclusive and innovative work environment, competitive compensation, and recognition to give our employees the opportunity to grow. We are focused on developing diverse teams and continuing to build an inclusive culture that inspires leadership, encourages innovative thinking, and supports the development and advancement of all.

Our human capital management objectives include identifying, recruiting, incentivizing, and integrating our existing and future employees. We strive to attract and retain talented employees by offering competitive compensation and benefits that support their health, financial and emotional well-being. Our compensation philosophy is based on rewarding each employee’s individual contributions and striving to achieve equal pay for equal work. We use a combination of fixed and variable pay including base salary, bonuses, performance awards and stock-based compensation. The principal purposes of our equity incentive plans are to attract, retain and motivate employees through the granting of stock-based compensation awards. We offer employees benefits that vary by country and are designed to address local laws and cultures and to be competitive in the marketplace.

Corporate Information and Public Information Availability

Our corporate headquarters are located at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, and our website is www.latticesemi.com. Information contained or referenced on our website is not incorporated by reference into, and does not form a part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol LSCC.

We make available, free of charge through the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.latticesemi.com, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those reports and statements as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. You may also obtain free copies of these materials by contacting our Investor Relations Department at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, telephone (503) 268-8000. Our SEC filings are also available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

Our investor relations website also provides notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance and other items that may be material or of interest to our investors, including SEC filings, press releases, earnings releases, and webcasts of our earnings calls. Further, corporate governance information, including our corporate governance policies, director code of ethics, code of conduct, board committee charters, conflict minerals report and conflict minerals policy, is also available on the investor relations section of our website.

The content on any website referred to in this filing is not incorporated by reference into this filing unless expressly noted otherwise.

ITEM 1A. Risk Factors

The following risk factors and other information included in this Annual Report should be carefully considered in their entirety before making an investment decision relating to our common stock. If any of the risks described below occur, our business, financial condition, operating results, and cash flows could be materially adversely affected, and the trading price of our common stock could decline. 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 currently deem immaterial also may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results, particularly in light of the rapidly changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic containment measures and the related impacts to economic and operating conditions.

Risk Factor Summary

Factors Related to Economic, Legal, Regulatory & Political Business Conditions

Factors Related to Manufacturing our Products

Factors Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

Factors Related to Overall General Business & Operations

Factors Related to Our Markets and Product Development

Factors Related to Our Sales and Revenue

Factors Related to Strategic Transactions

Factors Related to Economic, Legal, Regulatory & Political Business Conditions

The COVID-19 pandemic could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition in a material way.

COVID-19 has spread internationally and been declared a pandemic, affecting the populations of the United States as well as many countries around the world. The outbreak has resulted in significant governmental measures being implemented to control the spread of COVID-19, including, among others, restrictions on travel, manufacturing and the movement of employees in many regions of the world, and the imposition of remote or work-from-home mandates in many of our offices, including in the United States, the Philippines and, for a time, China. The majority of our products are manufactured, assembled, and tested by third parties in Asia. In addition, we rely on third party vendors for certain logistics and shipping operations throughout the world, including in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. We also have other operations in China, the Philippines, and the United States. If the remote or work-from-home conditions in any of our offices continue for an extended period of time, we may experience delays in product development, a decreased ability to support our customers, reduced design win activity, and overall lack of productivity.

Pandemics and epidemics such as the current COVID-19 outbreak or other widespread public health problems could negatively impact our business. If, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to progress in ways that significantly disrupt the manufacture, shipment, and buying patterns of our products or the products of our customers, this may materially negatively impact our operating results, including revenue, gross margins, operating margins, cash flows and other operating results, and our overall business. Our customers may also experience closures of their manufacturing facilities or inability to obtain other components, either of which could negatively impact demand for our solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the overall economy and, as a result of the foregoing, could negatively impact our operating results and may do so in a material way. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic may increase or change the severity of our other risks reported in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including that:

The impact of COVID-19 may exacerbate the risk factors listed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, or cause them to change in importance. Developments related to the pandemic and to vaccine rollout have been rapidly changing, and additional impacts and risks may arise that we are not aware of or able to appropriately respond to currently. The ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations and financial performance depends on many factors that are not within our control, including, but not limited, to: governmental, business, and individuals’ actions that have been and continue to be taken in response to the pandemic; general economic uncertainty in key global markets and financial market volatility; global economic conditions and levels of economic growth; and the pace of recovery when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. As of the filing of this Annual Report, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic will affect our business is highly uncertain and dependent on future developments that are inherently unpredictable, which makes forecasting demand and providing guidance especially difficult. Accordingly, our expectations are subject to change without warning and investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on them.

Our global business operations expose us to various economic, legal, regulatory, political, and business risks, which could impact our business, operating results and financial condition.

We have significant domestic and international operations. Our international operations include foreign sales offices to support our international customers and distributors, which account for the majority of our revenue, and operational and research and development sites in China, the Philippines, and other Asian locations. In addition, we purchase our wafers from foreign foundries; have our commercial products assembled, packaged, and tested by subcontractors located outside of the United States; and rely on an international service provider for inventory management, order fulfillment, and direct sales logistics.

Our domestic and international business activities are subject to economic, political and regulatory risks, including volatility in the financial markets; fluctuations in consumer liquidity; changes in interest rates; price increases for materials and components; trade barriers or changes in trade policies; political instability; acts of war or terrorism; natural disasters; economic sanctions; weak economic conditions, environmental regulations; labor regulations; import and export regulations; tax or freight rates; duties; trade restrictions; interruptions in transportation or infrastructure; anti-corruption laws; domestic and foreign governmental regulations; potential vulnerability of and reduced protection for intellectual property; disruptions or delays in production or shipments; and instability or fluctuations in currency exchange rates, any of which could lead to decreased demand for our products or a change in our results of operation. Uncertainty about future political and economic conditions makes it difficult for us to forecast operating results and to make decisions about future investments. Any or all of these factors could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations in the future.

If we fail to comply with the many laws and regulations to which we are subject, both within the United States and internationally, we may be subject to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for noncompliance, which could harm our business and financial results. For example, effective May 2018, the European Union adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which established new requirements regarding the handling of personal data and non-compliance monetary penalties of up to the higher of 20 million Euros or 4% of worldwide revenue. California also recently adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which imposes significant fines and penalties for violations. Any inability or perceived inability to adequately comply with applicable laws or regulations, including GDPR or CCPA, could result in additional cost and liability to our business and could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Since late 2019, COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, prompting precautionary government-imposed closures of certain travel and business. The operations of customers and the Company may be affected by this and similar public health matters. Although our supply chain does not appear to be affected by this epidemic, it may lead to events outside of our control which could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our business could suffer as a result of tariffs and trade sanctions or similar actions.

The imposition by the United States of tariffs, sanctions or other restrictions on goods imported from outside of the United States or countermeasures imposed in response to such government actions could adversely affect our operations or our ability to sell our products globally, which could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. The materials subject to these tariffs may impact the cost of raw materials used by our suppliers or in our customers’ products. The imposition of further tariffs by the United States on a broader range of imports, or further retaliatory trade measures taken in response to additional tariffs, could increase costs in our supply chain or reduce demand of our customers’ products, either of which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our customers or suppliers could also become subject to U.S. regulatory scrutiny or export restrictions. For example, in 2019 the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against one of our customers in China and imposed a licensing requirement on this customer with a policy of denial for some items, which has limited our ability to do business with this customer. In 2020, the U.S. imposed additional regulatory restrictions on the sale of U.S. controlled technology to customers in China, including establishing additional licensing requirements for the sale of U.S.-originated technology for certain applications or to companies that participate in the Chinese national security supply chain and limiting the fabrication of devices for certain Chinese companies where U.S. technology is involved in the fabrication process. Furthermore, in August 2020 the U.S. established additional licensing requirements for one of our China customers and its affiliates that limit any sales of products to that customer or for that customer’s products absent a license. The U.S. government may add additional Chinese companies to its restricted entity list or impose additional licensing requirements that we may be unable to meet in a timely manner or at all. Where license requirements are imposed, there can be no assurance that the U.S. government will grant licenses to permit the continuation of business with these customers. Future sanctions similar to those imposed in the past and to those recently imposed could adversely affect our ability to earn revenue from these and similar customers. In addition, the imposition of sanctions on customers in China may cause those customers to seek domestic alternatives to our products and those of other United States semiconductor companies. Further, the Chinese government has indicated its intention to develop an unreliable entity list, which may limit the ability of companies on the list to engage in business with Chinese customers. We cannot predict what impact these and future actions, sanctions or criminal charges could have on our customers or suppliers, and therefore our business. If any of our other customers or suppliers become subject to sanctions or other regulatory scrutiny, if our customers are affected by tariffs or other government trade restrictions, or if we become subject to retaliatory regulatory measures, our business and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Factors Related to Manufacturing our Products

We rely on a concentrated number of subcontractors to supply and fabricate silicon wafers and to perform assembly and test operations for our semiconductor products. If they are unable to do so on a timely and cost-effective basis in sufficient quantities and using competitive technologies, we may incur significant costs or delays.

We rely on a concentrated number of independent foundries in Asia to supply and fabricate silicon wafers for our semiconductor products, including Samsung Semiconductor, United Microelectronics Corporation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Seiko Epson. Our success is dependent upon our ability to successfully partner with our foundry and OSAT partners and their ability to produce wafers and finished semiconductor products with competitive prices and performance attributes, including smaller process geometries. Establishing, maintaining and managing multiple foundry and OSAT relationships requires the investment of management resources and costs.

If we fail to maintain our foundry and OSAT relationships, if these partners do not provide facilities and support for our development efforts, if they are insolvent or experience financial difficulty, or if we elect or are required to change foundries or OSATs, we may incur significant costs and delays. If our foundry or OSAT partners are unable to, or do not, manufacture sufficient quantities of our products at acceptable yields, we may be required to allocate the affected products among our customers, prematurely limit or discontinue the sales of certain products, or incur significant costs to transfer products to other foundries or OSATs, which could adversely affect our customer relationships and operating results.

Our margins are dependent on our achieving continued yield improvement.

We rely on obtaining yield improvements and corresponding cost reductions in the manufacture of existing products and on introducing new products that incorporate advanced features and other price/performance factors that enable us to increase revenues while maintaining acceptable margins. To the extent such cost reductions and new product introductions do not occur in a timely manner, or that our products do not achieve market acceptance or market acceptance at acceptable pricing, our forecasts of future revenue, financial condition, and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Shortages in, or increased costs of, wafers and materials could adversely impact our gross margins and lead to reduced revenues.

Worldwide manufacturing capacity for silicon wafers is relatively inelastic. If the demand for silicon wafers or assembly material exceeds market supply, our supply of silicon wafers or assembly material could quickly become limited or prohibitively expensive. We typically have short-term wafer supply agreements that do not ensure long-term supply or allocation commitments. A shortage in manufacturing capacity could hinder our ability to meet product demand and therefore reduce our revenue. In addition, silicon wafers constitute a material portion of our product cost. If we are unable to purchase wafers at favorable prices, our financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected.

We may be subject to warranty claims and other costs related to our products.

In general, we warrant our products for varying lengths of time against non-conformance to our specifications and certain other defects. Because our products, including hardware, software, and intellectual property cores, are highly complex and increasingly incorporate advanced technology, our quality assurance programs may not detect all defects, whether these are specific manufacturing defects affecting individual products or these are systematic defects that could affect numerous shipments. Inability to detect a defect could result in a diversion of our engineering resources from product development efforts, increased engineering expenses to remediate the defect, and increased costs due to customer accommodation or inventory impairment charges. On occasion, we have also repaired or replaced certain components, made software fixes, or refunded the purchase price or license fee paid by our customers due to product or software defects. Our insurance may be unavailable or inadequate to protect against these issues. If there are significant product defects, the costs to remediate such defects, net of reimbursed amounts from our vendors, if any, or to resolve warranty claims may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations and may harm our reputation.

A material change in the agreements governing encryption keys we use could place additional restrictions on us, or our distributors or contract manufacturers, which could restrict product shipment or significantly increase the cost to track products throughout the distribution chain.

Certain components in our products contain encryption keys used in connection with High Definition Content Protection ("HDCP"). The regulation and distribution of these encryption keys are controlled through license agreements with Digital Content Protection ("DCP"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corporation. These license agreements have been modified by DCP from time to time, and such changes could impact us, our distributors, and our customers. An important element of HDMI is the ability to implement link protection for HD, and more recently, 4K UltraHD, content. We implement various aspects of the HDCP link protection within certain parts we sell. We also, for the benefit of our customers, include the necessary HDCP encryption keys in parts we ship to customers. These encryption keys are provided to us from DCP. We have a specific process for tracking and handling these encryption keys. If DCP changes any of the tracking or handling requirements associated with HDCP encryption keys, we may be required to change our manufacturing and distribution processes, which could adversely affect our manufacturing and distribution costs associated with these products. If we cannot satisfy new requirements for the handling and tracking of encryption keys, we may have to cease shipping or manufacturing certain products.

Factors Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

The intellectual property licensing component of our business strategy increases our business risk and fluctuation of our revenue and margins.

Our business strategy includes licensing our intellectual property to companies that incorporate it into their technologies that address multiple markets, including markets where we participate and compete. Our Licensing and services revenue may be impacted by the introduction of new technologies by customers in place of the technologies we license, changes in the law that may weaken our ability to prevent the use of our patented technology by others, the expiration of our patents, and changes of demand or selling prices for products using licensed patents. We cannot assure that our licensing customers will continue to license our technology on commercially favorable terms or at all, or that these customers will introduce and sell products incorporating our technology, accurately report royalties owed to us, pay agreed upon royalties, honor agreed upon market restrictions, or maintain the confidentiality of our proprietary information, or will not infringe upon or misappropriate our intellectual property. Our intellectual property licensing agreements are complex and may depend upon many factors that require significant judgments, including completion of milestones, allocation of values to delivered items and customer acceptance.

Our sale of patents and intermittent significant licensing transactions can cause material fluctuations in our revenue and gross margins.

We have generated revenue from the sale of certain patents from our portfolio in the past, generally for non-core technology that we are no longer actively developing. While we plan to continue to monetize our patent portfolio through sales of non-core patents, we may not be able to realize adequate interest or prices for those patents. Accordingly, we cannot provide assurance that we will continue to generate revenue from these sales. In addition, although we seek to be strategic in our decisions to sell patents, we might incur reputational harm if a purchaser of our patents sues one of our customers for infringement of the purchased patent, and we might later decide to enter a space that requires the use of one or more of the patents we sold. In addition, as we sell groups of patents, we no longer have the opportunity to further sell or to license those patents and receive a continuing royalty stream.

Our Licensing and services revenue fluctuates, sometimes significantly, from period to period because it is heavily dependent on a few key transactions being completed in a given period, the timing of which is difficult to predict and may not match our expectations. Licensing and services revenue may include revenue from the sales of patents, which sales may be difficult to complete and which may have complex terms for the payment which affects revenue recognition. Because of its high margin, the Licensing and services revenue portion of our overall revenue can have a disproportionate impact on gross profit and profitability. In addition, generating revenue from patent sales and intellectual property licenses is a lengthy and complex process that may last beyond the period in which our efforts begin, and the accounting rules governing the recognition of revenue from patent sales and intellectual property licensing transactions are increasingly complex and require significant judgment. As a result, the amount of license revenue recognized in any period may differ significantly from our expectations.

Litigation and unfavorable results of legal proceedings could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

From time to time we are subject to various legal proceedings and claims that arise out of the ordinary conduct of our business. Certain claims may not yet be resolved, including but not limited to any that are discussed under "Note 14 - Contingencies" contained in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, and additional claims may arise in the future. Results of legal proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty. Regardless of merit or outcome, claims or litigation may be both time-consuming and disruptive to our operations and cause significant expense and diversion of management attention and we may enter into material settlements to avoid these risks. Should we fail to prevail in certain matters or enter into a material settlement, we may be faced with significant monetary damages or injunctive relief against us that could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and operating results and certain portions of our business.

Our participation in the HDMI standard is evolving. We no longer act as agent for the HDMI standard, and our share of adopter fees and royalties for the HDMI standard is subject to variability.

We acted as agent of the HDMI consortium until December 31, 2016 and were responsible for promoting and administering the specification. We received all of the adopter fees paid by adopters of the HDMI specification in connection with our role as agent. In September 2016, the Founders of the HDMI consortium, of which we are a member, amended the Founders Agreement resulting in changes to our role as agent for the HDMI consortium and to the model for sharing adopter fee revenues. Under the terms of the agreement, our role as the agent was terminated effective January 1, 2017 and a new independent entity was appointed to act as the new HDMI licensing agent with responsibility for licensing and the distribution of royalties among Founders. As a result of the amended model for sharing adopter fee revenue, we are entitled to a share of the adopter fees paid by parties adopting the HDMI standard.

We share HDMI royalties with the other HDMI Founders based on an allocation formula, which is reviewed generally every three years. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, the HDMI Founders adopted a new agreement covering the five-year period beginning January 1, 2018. The amount of our portion of the royalty allocation is dependent on the royalties generated by adopter sales of royalty-bearing HDMI technology, which are subject to variability in economic trends particularly in the market for consumer electronics.

If we are unable to adequately protect our new and existing intellectual property rights, our financial results and our ability to compete effectively may suffer.

Our success depends in part on our proprietary technology and we rely upon patent, copyright, trade secret, mask work, and trademark laws to protect our intellectual property. We intend to continue to protect our proprietary technology, however, we may be unsuccessful in asserting our intellectual property rights or such rights may be invalidated, violated, circumvented, or challenged. From time to time, third parties, including our competitors, have asserted against us patent, copyright, and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to us. Third parties may attempt to misappropriate our intellectual property through electronic or other means or assert infringement claims against us in the future. Such assertions by third parties may result in costly litigation, indemnity claims, or other legal actions, and we may not prevail in such matters or be able to license any valid and infringed patents from third parties on commercially reasonable terms. This could result in the loss of our ability to import and sell our products or require us to pay costly royalties to third parties in connection with sales of our products. Any infringement claim, indemnification claim, or impairment or loss of use of our intellectual property could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Factors Related to Overall General Business & Operations

Our business depends on the proper functioning of internal processes and information technology systems. A failure of these processes and systems, data breaches, cyber-attacks, or cyber-fraud may cause business disruptions, compromise our intellectual property or other sensitive information, or result in losses.

We rely on various information technology ("IT") networks and systems to manage our operations, including financial reporting, and we regularly make changes to improve them as necessary by periodically implementing new, or upgrading or enhancing existing, operational and IT systems, procedures, and controls. These systems are supported by subcontractors, and they may also be subject to power and telecommunication outages or other general system failures. The legal, regulatory and contractual environment surrounding information security and data privacy is complex and evolving. We continue to commit significant resources to implementing new systems to standardize our processes worldwide and adopt best-in-class capabilities. We are focused on realizing the full analytical functionality of these conversions, which can be extremely complex, in part, because of the wide range of legacy systems and processes that must be integrated.

In the normal course of business, we may implement new or updated IT systems and, as a result, we may experience delays or disruptions in the integration of these systems, or the related procedures or controls. The policies and security measures established with our IT systems may be vulnerable to data breaches, cyber-attacks or fraud. We may also encounter errors in data, an inability to accurately process or record transactions, and security or technical reliability issues. All of these could harm our ability to conduct core operating functions such as processing invoices, shipping and receiving, recording and reporting financial and management information on a timely and accurate basis, and could impact our internal control compliance efforts. If the technical solution or end user training are inadequate, it could limit our ability to manufacture and ship products as planned. We have various systems that remain that may be nearing the end of their useful life or vendor support, which will ultimately need to be replaced.

We maintain sensitive data on our networks and the networks of our business partners and third-party providers, including proprietary and confidential information relating to our intellectual property, personnel, and business, and that of our customers and third-party providers. Companies have been increasingly subject to a wide variety of security incidents, cyber-attacks, hacking, phishing, and other attempts to gain unauthorized access or engage in fraudulent behavior. Cyber-attacks have become more prevalent, sophisticated and much harder to detect and defend against and it is often difficult to anticipate or detect such incidents and to assess the damage caused by them. Our policies and security measures cannot guarantee security, and our information technology infrastructure, including our networks and systems, may be vulnerable to data breaches, cyber-attacks or fraud. In the past, third parties have attempted to penetrate and/or infect our network and systems with malicious software and phishing attacks in an effort to gain access to our network and systems. In addition, we are subject to the risk of third parties falsifying invoices and similar fraud, frequently by obtaining unauthorized access to our vendors’ and business partners’ networks.

In some circumstances, we may partner with third-party providers and provide them with certain sensitive data. If these third parties fail to adopt or adhere to adequate data security practices, or in the event of a breach of their networks, this sensitive data may be improperly accessed, used or disclosed. These data breaches and any unauthorized access or disclosure of sensitive data could compromise our intellectual property, expose sensitive business information and subject us to third party claims.

The increase in cyber-attacks has resulted in an increased focus on cybersecurity by certain government agencies. Cyber-attacks or any investigation or enforcement action related to cybersecurity could cause us to incur significant remediation costs, result in product development delays, disrupt key business operations, and divert attention of management and key information technology resources. In addition, we may incur loss as a result of cyber-fraud, such as those experienced by other companies by making unauthorized payments irrespective of robust internal controls.

Failure of our IT systems or difficulties or delays in maintaining, managing, and integrating them could adversely affect the Company’s controls and procedures and could impact the Company's ability to perform necessary operations, which could materially adversely affect our business. Furthermore, our reputation, brand, and business could be significantly harmed, and we could be subject to third-party claims or governmental penalties in the event of a security breach.

We regularly test for goodwill and other impairments as required under U.S. GAAP, and we may incur future impairments.

We are required under U.S. GAAP to test goodwill for possible impairment on an annual basis and to test goodwill and long-lived assets, including amortizable intangible assets, for impairment at any other time that circumstances arise indicating the carrying value may not be recoverable. For purposes of testing goodwill for impairment, the Company currently operates as one reporting unit: the core Lattice ("Core") business, which includes intellectual property and semiconductor devices. We had no impairment charges in either fiscal 2020 or 2019. Impairment charges related to amortizable intangible assets from the Silicon Image acquisition totaled approximately $12.5 million in fiscal 2018. There is no certainty that future impairment tests will indicate that goodwill or amortizable intangible assets will be deemed recoverable. As we continue to review our business operations and test for impairment or in connection with possible sales of assets, we may have impairment charges in the future, which may be material.

Changes to financial accounting standards may affect our results of operations and could cause us to change our business practices.

We prepare our consolidated financial statements to conform to generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. These accounting principles are subject to interpretation by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the SEC and various bodies formed to interpret and create accounting rules and regulations. Changes in these rules, such as the adoption of ASC 606 - Revenue from Contracts with Customers in fiscal 2018 or ASC 842 - Leases in fiscal 2019, has had a material effect on our financial results and affected portions of our business differently. Future changes to these rules, or in the guidance relating to interpretation and adoption of the rules, could have a significant effect on our financial results and could affect portions of our business differently.

Changes in effective tax rates, tax laws and our global organizational structure and operations could expose us to unanticipated tax consequences.

We are subject to taxation in the United States and other countries. We have a global tax structure that aligns our corporate structure with our global business operations, and we currently operate legal entities in multiple countries. In some countries, we maintain multiple entities for tax or other purposes. We may choose to consolidate or integrate certain of these entities, and these integration activities, changes in tax laws, rates, regulations, future jurisdictional profitability of the Company, and related regulatory interpretations in the countries in which we operate may impact the taxes we pay or tax provision we record, which could adversely affect our results of operations. In addition, future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the composition of our earnings in countries with differing tax rates, and by changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities. We make no assurance as to what taxes we pay or the ability to estimate our future effective tax rate because of, among other things, uncertainty regarding the tax policies of the jurisdictions where we operate, or the potential impact of releasing our valuation allowance.

Weakness in our internal control over financial reporting could adversely affect our business and financial results.

We are required to maintain internal controls over financial reporting. We review these controls regularly and deficiencies may be identified from time to time. During the quarter ended December 28, 2019, we evaluated and remediated certain deficiencies in our information technology controls over system access and no material weakness existed at the end of the period. We previously disclosed a material weakness in 2017 related to our risk assessment involving significant unusual transactions that was remediated in 2018.  In the future, we may identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting. Any failure to maintain an effective system of internal controls over financial reporting could limit our ability to report our financial results accurately and timely, which could adversely affect our business, financial results, and stock price.

We compete with others to attract and retain key personnel, and any loss of, or inability to attract, such personnel could adversely affect our ability to compete effectively.

We depend on the efforts and abilities of certain key members of management and other technical personnel. Our future success depends, in part, upon our ability to retain such personnel and attract and retain other highly qualified personnel, particularly product engineers who can respond to market demands and required product innovation. Competition for such personnel is intense and we may not be successful in hiring or retaining new or existing qualified personnel. If we lose existing qualified personnel or are unable to hire new qualified personnel, as needed, we could have difficulty competing in our highly competitive and innovative environment.

Our outstanding indebtedness could reduce our strategic flexibility and liquidity and may have other adverse effects on our results of operations.

As of January 2, 2021, we had approximately $171.9 million outstanding under a credit agreement, dated May 17, 2019 (the “Current Credit Agreement”). Our obligations under the Current Credit Agreement are guaranteed by our U.S. subsidiaries, and include a requirement to pay quarterly installments of approximately $4.4 million with the remaining balance due upon maturity in May 2024. Our ability to meet our debt service obligations depends upon our operating and financial performance, which is subject to general economic and competitive conditions and to financial, business and other factors affecting our operations, many of which are beyond our control. If we are unable to service our debt, we may need to sell material assets, restructure or refinance our debt, or seek additional equity capital. Prevailing economic conditions and global credit markets could adversely impact our ability to sell material assets, restructure or refinance our debt on terms acceptable to us, or at all, or we may not be able to restructure or refinance our debt without incurring significant additional fees and expenses.

The Current Credit Agreement contains customary affirmative and negative covenants, including covenants limiting the ability of the Company to, among other things, incur debt, grant liens, undergo certain fundamental changes, make investments, make certain restricted payments, dispose of assets, enter into transactions with affiliates, and enter into burdensome agreements, in each case, subject to limitations and exceptions set forth in the Current Credit Agreement. We are also required to maintain compliance with a total leverage ratio and an interest coverage ratio, in each case, determined in accordance with the terms of the Current Credit Agreement.

The amount and terms of our indebtedness, as well as our credit rating, could have important consequences, including the following:

If we breach a loan covenant, the lenders could accelerate the repayment of the facility. We might not have sufficient assets to repay our indebtedness upon acceleration. If we are unable to repay or refinance the indebtedness upon acceleration or at maturity, the lenders could initiate a bankruptcy proceeding against us or collection proceedings with respect to our assets and subsidiaries securing the facility, which could materially decrease the value of our common stock.

We may have failed to adequately insure against certain risks, and, as a result, our financial condition and results may be adversely affected.

We carry insurance customary for companies in our industry, including, but not limited to, liability, property, and casualty; workers' compensation; and business interruption insurance. We also insure our employees for basic medical expenses. In addition, we have insurance contracts that provide director and officer liability coverage for our directors and officers. Other than the specific areas mentioned above, we are self-insured with respect to most other risks and exposures, and the insurance we carry in many cases is subject to a significant policy deductible or other limitation before coverage applies. Based on management's assessment and judgment, we have determined that it is more cost effective to self-insure against certain risks than to incur the insurance premium costs. The risks and exposures for which we self-insure include, but are not limited to, certain natural disasters, certain product defects, certain matters for which we indemnify third parties, political risk, certain theft, patent infringement, and employment practice matters. Should there be a catastrophic loss due to an uninsured event (such as an earthquake) or a loss due to adverse occurrences in any area in which we are self-insured, our financial condition or operating results could be adversely affected.

Factors Related to Our Markets and Product Development

The semiconductor industry routinely experiences cyclical market patterns and our products are used across different end markets. A significant downturn in the industry or in any of these end markets could cause a meaningful reduction in demand for our products and adversely affect our operating results.

Our revenue and gross margin can fluctuate significantly due to downturns in the highly cyclical semiconductor industry. These downturns can be severe and prolonged and can result in price erosion and weak demand for our products. Weak demand for our products resulting from general economic conditions affecting the end markets we serve or the semiconductor industry specifically and reduced spending by our customers can result, and in the past has resulted, in diminished product demand, high inventory levels, erosion of average prices, excess and obsolete inventories and corresponding inventory write-downs. Our expense levels are based, in part, on our expectations of future sales. Many of our expenses, particularly those relating to facilities, capital equipment, and other overhead, are relatively fixed. We might be unable to reduce spending quickly enough to compensate for reductions in sales. Accordingly, shortfalls in sales could adversely affect our operating results. Furthermore, any significant upturn in the semiconductor industry could result in increased competition for access to raw materials and third-party service providers.

Additionally, our products are used across different end markets, and demand for our products is difficult to predict and may vary within or among our Industrial and Automotive, Communications and Computing, and Consumer end markets. Our target markets may not grow or develop as we currently expect, and demand may increase or change in one or more of our end markets, and changes in demand may reduce our revenue, lower our gross margin and effect our operating results. We have experienced concentrations of revenue at certain customers and within certain end markets, and we regularly compete for design opportunities at these customers and within these markets. Any deterioration in these end markets, reductions in the magnitude of revenue streams, our inability to meet design and pricing requirements, or volatility in demand for our products could lead to a reduction in our revenue and adversely affect our operating results. Our success in our end markets depends on many factors, including the strength or financial performance of the customers in our end markets, our ability to timely meet rapidly changing product requirements, market needs, and our ability to maintain design wins across different markets and customers to dampen the effects of market volatility. The dynamics of the markets in which we operate make prediction of and timely reaction to such events difficult.

Due to these and other factors, our past results may not be reliable predictors of our future results. If we are unable to accomplish any of the foregoing, or to offset the volatility of cyclical changes in the semiconductor industry or our end markets through diversification into other markets, could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results.

Our success and future revenue depend on our ability to develop and introduce new products that achieve customer and market acceptance.

We compete in a dynamic environment characterized by rapid technology and product evolution, generally followed by a relatively longer process of ramping up to volume production on advanced technologies. Our end customers’ continued use of our products is frequently reevaluated, as certain of our customers' product life cycles are relatively short and they continually develop new products. The selection process for our products to be included in our customers' new products is highly competitive. There are no guarantees that our products will be included in the next generation of products introduced by these customers. Additionally, our markets are also characterized by evolving industry standards and increased demand for higher levels of integration and smaller process geometry. Our competitive position and success depend on our ability to innovate, develop, and introduce new products that compete effectively on the basis of price, density, functionality, power consumption, form factor, and performance, and our addressing the evolving needs of the markets we serve, among other things. With increased introduction of new products, we expect revenue related to mature products to decline over time in a normal product life cycle. As a result, we may be increasingly dependent on revenue derived from our newer products.

Our future growth and the success of new product introductions depend upon numerous factors, including:

The failure of any of these factors, among others, could adversely affect our product innovation, development and introduction efforts and our financial condition and results of operations.

We compete against companies that have significantly greater resources than us and numerous other product solutions.

The semiconductor industry is highly competitive and many of our direct and indirect competitors have substantially greater financial, technological, manufacturing, marketing, and sales resources. Consolidation in our industry may increasingly mean that our competitors have greater consolidated resources, or other synergies, that could put us at a competitive disadvantage. We currently compete directly with companies that have licensed our technology or have developed similar products, as well as numerous semiconductor companies that offer products based on alternative solutions, such as applications processor, application specific standard product, microcontroller, analog, and digital signal processing technologies. Competition from these semiconductor companies may intensify as we offer more products in any of our end markets. These competitors include established, multinational semiconductor companies, as well as emerging companies.

We depend on independent contractors and third parties to provide key services in our product development and operations, and any disruption of their services, or an increase in cost of these services, could negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations.

We depend on subcontractors to provide cost effective and efficient services in our product development and supply chain functions, including test and assembly services, software and hardware development, support of intellectual property cores, inventory management, order fulfillment and direct sales logistics.

Our operations and operating results may be adversely affected if we experience problems with our subcontractors that impact the delivery of product to our customers. These problems may include: delays in software or hardware development timelines, prolonged inability to obtain wafers or packaging materials with competitive performance and cost attributes; inability to achieve adequate yields or timely delivery; inability to meet customer timelines or demands, disruption or defects in assembly, test, or shipping services; or delays in stabilizing manufacturing processes or ramping up volume for new products. If our third-party supply chain providers were to reduce or discontinue services for us or their operations are disrupted as a result of a fire, earthquake, act of terrorism, political unrest, governmental uncertainty, war, disease, or other natural disaster or catastrophic event, weak economic conditions, or any other reason, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Factors Related to Our Sales and Revenue

Our revenues depend on our relationships with our distributors and on a concentrated group of end customers. An adverse change in the relationships with, or performance of, our distributors, or any reduction in the use of our products by our end customers, could harm our sales and significantly decrease our revenue.

We depend on a concentrated group of distributors to sell our products to end customers, complete order fulfillment, maintain sufficient inventory of our products and provide services to our end customers. In fiscal 2020, revenue attributable to sales to distributors accounted for 83% of our total revenue, with two distributors accounting for 60% of total revenue. We have significant outstanding receivables with our top distributors, and expect our distributors to generate a significant portion of our revenue in the future. Any adverse change to our relationships or agreements with our distributors or a failure by one or more of our distributors to perform its obligations to us could have a material impact on our business, including a reduction in our access to certain end customers or our ability to sell our products.

If our relationships with any material customers were to diminish, if these customers were to develop their own solutions or adopt alternative solutions or competitors' solutions, if any one or more of our concentrated groups of customers were to experience significantly adverse financial conditions, or if as a result of trade disputes or sanctions these customers were restricted from purchasing our products, our results could be adversely affected.

In addition, the inability of customers to obtain credit, the insolvency of one or more customers, or tariffs applicable to our customers’ products, could impact our sales. Any of these effects could impact our ability to effectively manage inventory levels and collect receivables, require additional restructuring actions, and decrease our revenue and profitability.

The nature of our business and length of our sales cycle makes our revenue, gross margin and net income subject to fluctuation and difficult to accurately predict.

A number of factors, including how products are manufactured to support end markets, yield, wafer pricing, cost of packaging raw materials, product mix, market acceptance of our new products, competitive pricing dynamics, product quality, geographic and/or end market mix, and pricing strategies, can cause our revenue, gross margins and net income to fluctuate significantly either positively or negatively from period to period.

We have limited visibility into the demand for our products, particularly new products, because demand for our products depends upon our products being designed into our end customers' products and those products achieving market acceptance. During our sales cycle, our customers typically test and evaluate our products prior to deciding to include our products into the design of their own products, and then require additional time to begin volume production of their products. This lengthy sales cycle may cause us to incur significant expenses, experience significant production delays and to incur additional inventory costs before we receive a customer order that may be delayed or never get placed. A key strategic customer may demand certain design or production resources to meet their requirements or work on a specific solution, which could cause delays in our normal development schedule and result in significant investment of our resources or missed opportunities with other potential customers. We may incur these expenses without generating revenue from our products to offset the expenses.

While our sales cycles are typically long, our average product life cycles tend to be short as a result of the rapidly changing technology environment in which we operate. Our inventory levels may be higher than historical norms, from time to time, due to inventory build decisions aimed at meeting expected demand from a single large customer, reducing direct material cost or enabling responsiveness to expected demand. In the event the expected demand does not materialize, or if our short sales cycle does not generate sufficient revenue, we may be subject to incremental excess and obsolescence costs.

These factors make it difficult for us to accurately forecast future sales and project quarterly revenues. The difficulty in forecasting future sales weakens our ability to project our inventory requirements, which could result, and in the past has resulted, in inventory write-downs or failure to meet customer product demands in a timely manner. While we may give guidance, the difficulty in forecasting revenues as well as the relative customer and product mix of those revenues limits our ability to provide accurate forward-looking revenue and gross margin guidance.

Accounting requirements related to sales through our distribution channel could result in our reporting revenue in excess of demand.

Revenue recognition standards require recognition of revenue based on estimates and may require us to record revenue from distributors that is in excess of actual end customer demand. Since we have limited ability to forecast inventory levels of our end customers, we depend on the timeliness and accuracy of resale reports from our distributors. Late or inaccurate resale reports could mask significant build-up of inventories in our distribution channel, have a detrimental effect on our ability to properly recognize revenue, and impact our ability to forecast future sales. An inventory build-up in our distribution channel could result in a slowdown in orders, requests for returns from customers, or requests to move out planned shipments. If our distributors do not ultimately sell the inventory and our estimates change, we could be required to materially correct our recognized revenue in a future period, depending on actual results. Any failure to manage these challenges could disrupt or reduce sales of our products and unfavorably impact our financial results.

Factors Related to Strategic Transactions

Acquisitions, divestitures, strategic investments and strategic partnerships could disrupt our business and adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

We may pursue growth opportunities by acquiring complementary businesses, solutions or technologies through strategic transactions, investments or partnerships. The identification of suitable acquisition, strategic investment or strategic partnership candidates can be costly and time consuming and can distract our management team from our current operations. If such strategic transactions require us to seek additional debt or equity financing, we may not be able to obtain such financing on terms favorable to us or at all, and such transaction may adversely affect our liquidity and capital structure. We may also choose to divest certain non-core assets, which divestitures could lead to charges against earnings and may expose us to additional liabilities and risks. Any strategic transaction might not strengthen our competitive position, may increase some of our risks, and may be viewed negatively by our customers, partners or investors. Even if we successfully complete a strategic transaction, we may not be able to effectively integrate the acquired business, technology, systems, control environment, solutions, personnel or operations into our business or global tax structure. We may experience unexpected changes in how we are required to account for strategic transactions pursuant to U.S. GAAP and may not achieve the anticipated benefits of any strategic transaction. We may incur unexpected costs, claims or liabilities that we incur during the strategic transaction or that we assume from the acquired company, or we may discover adverse conditions post acquisition for which we have limited or no recourse.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2. Properties

We lease a 47,800 square foot of space in Hillsboro, Oregon as our corporate headquarters and a research and development facility through November 2022. In San Jose, California, we have 98,874 square feet under lease through September 2026, of which we use 49,579 square feet as a research and development facility, while we vacated 49,295 square feet during the fourth quarter of 2018 and intend to sublease the vacated space. During 2019, we vacated a 23,680 square foot office space in Portland, Oregon, which we have subleased through the end of the lease in March 2025.

In Muntinlupa City, Philippines, we lease a total of 48,565 square feet through May 2025 and 1,938 square feet through June 2025 for research and development and operations facilities.

In Shanghai, China, we lease 68,027 square feet through May 2021 for research and development operations.

We also lease office facilities in multiple other metropolitan locations for our domestic and international sales staff. We believe that our existing facilities are suitable and adequate for our current and foreseeable future needs.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

The information contained under the heading "Legal Matters" in Note 14 - Contingencies to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 is incorporated by reference into this Part I, Item 3. Also, see “Litigation and unfavorable results of legal proceedings could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results” in “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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 Information

Our common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "LSCC".

Holders

As of February 19, 2021, we had approximately 203 stockholders of record.

Dividends

The payment of dividends on our common stock is within the discretion of our Board of Directors. We intend to retain earnings to finance our business. We have never paid cash dividends.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On February 24, 2020, we announced that our Board of Directors had approved a stock repurchase program with a duration of twelve months. Under this program during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we made open market purchases funded from available working capital totaling approximately $15.0 million. All repurchased shares were retired by the end of the 2020 fiscal year.

The following table contains information regarding our purchases of our common stock during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020:

Comparison of Total Cumulative Stockholder Return

The following graph shows the five-year comparison of cumulative stockholder return on our common stock, the Standard and Poor's (“S&P”) 500 Index and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (“PHLX”) from December 2015 through December 2020. Cumulative stockholder return assumes $100 invested at the beginning of the period in our common stock, the S&P and PHLX. Historical stock price performance is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.

Lattice Cumulative Stockholder Return

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

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

Overview

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Lattice,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) develop technologies that we monetize through differentiated programmable logic semiconductor products, system solutions, design services, and licenses. Lattice is the low power programmable leader. We solve customer problems across the network, from the Edge to the Cloud, in the growing communications, computing, industrial, automotive, and consumer markets. Our technology, long-standing relationships, and commitment to world-class support lets our customers quickly and easily unleash their innovation to create a smart, secure, and connected world.

Lattice has focused its strategy on delivering programmable logic products and related solutions based on low power, small size, and ease of use. We also serve our customers with IP licensing and various other services. Our product development activities include new proprietary products, advanced packaging, existing product enhancements, software development tools, soft IP, and system solutions for high-growth applications such as Edge Artificial Intelligence, 5G infrastructure, platform security, and factory automation.

This discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included in Item 8. "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this report. Discussions of results for prior periods (fiscal 2019 compared to fiscal 2018) are incorporated by reference from our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 28, 2019.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our Business

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, the global slowdown of economic activity (including the decrease in demand for goods and services), and significant volatility in and disruption to financial markets. Because the severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences are uncertain, rapidly changing, and difficult to predict, the pandemic’s impact on our operations and financial performance, as well as its impact on our ability to successfully execute our business strategy and initiatives, remains uncertain. We continue to take actions to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and our business. We implemented social distancing policies at our locations around the world including working from home and eliminating virtually all travel. Furthermore, we continue to manage our cash position and liquidity needs in light of the rapidly changing environment, and we have additional resources available under our Current Credit Agreement, if needed. As a result of the accelerated debt payments we made during the second quarter of fiscal 2020 to reduce our future interest rate expense, we do not have any required debt payments until June 30, 2021.

As COVID-19 has spread globally and been declared a pandemic, the full extent of this outbreak, the related governmental, business and travel restrictions in order to contain this virus are continuing to evolve globally. We anticipate that these actions and the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will negatively impact business activity across the globe. We expect our demand to be impacted in Q1 and potentially beyond Q1 given the global reach and economic impact of the virus. For example, governmental actions or policies or other initiatives to contain the virus, could lead to reductions in our end customers’ demand under which we would expect to lose revenue. We have previously seen and could again see delays or disruptions in our supply chain due to governmental restrictions. If our suppliers experience similar impacts, we may have difficulty sourcing materials necessary to fulfill customer production requirements and transporting completed products to our end customers.

We will continue to actively monitor the situation and may take further actions altering our business operations that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, partners, suppliers, and stakeholders, or as required by federal, state, or local authorities. It is not clear what the potential effects of any such alterations or modifications may have on our business, including the effects on our customers, employees, and prospects, or on our financial results. The full extent of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, results of operations and financial position is currently uncertain and will depend on many factors that are not within our control, including, but not limited to: the duration and scope of the pandemic; governmental, business and individuals’ actions that have been and continue to be taken in response to the pandemic; general economic uncertainty in key global markets and financial market volatility; global economic conditions and levels of economic growth; and the pace of recovery when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. See the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of this report for further information about related risks and uncertainties.

Critical Accounting Policies and Use of Estimates

Critical accounting policies are those that are both most important to the portrayal of a company's financial condition and results, and that require management's most difficult, subjective, and complex judgments, often as a result of the need to make estimates about the effect of matters that are inherently uncertain.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and judgments affecting the amounts reported in our consolidated condensed financial statements and the accompanying notes. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience, knowledge of current conditions, and our beliefs of what could occur in the future considering available information. While we believe that our estimates, assumptions, and judgments are reasonable, they are based on information available when made, and because of the uncertainty inherent in these matters, actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. We evaluate our estimates and judgments on an ongoing basis.

We believe the following accounting policies and the related estimates are critical in the portrayal of our financial condition and results of operations, and require management's most difficult, subjective, or complex judgments. See "Note 1 - Nature of Operations and Significant Accounting Policies" under Part II, Item 8 of this report for further information on the significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements.

Revenue from Contracts with Customers

We recognize revenue upon satisfaction of performance obligations when control of promised goods or services has been transferred to our customers. We measure revenue based on the amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for products or services. For revenue recognized on both sales to distributors and related to HDMI royalties, the amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to receive is based on estimates that require assumptions and judgments relating to trends in recent and historical activity. See "Note 1 - Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies" under Part II, Item 8 of this report for further information on our recognition of revenue. Sales to most distributors are made under terms allowing certain price adjustments upon sale to their end customers and limited rights of return of our products held in their inventory. The revenue recognized based on estimated price adjustments and stock rotation reserves may be materially different from the actual consideration received if the actual distributor price adjustments and stock rotation returns differ significantly from the historical trends used in the estimates.

Inventories and Cost of Revenue

Inventories are stated at the lower of actual cost (determined using the first-in, first-out method) or net realizable value. We review and set standard costs quarterly to approximate current actual manufacturing costs. Our manufacturing overhead standards for product costs are calculated assuming full absorption of actual spending over actual costs. The valuation of inventory requires us to estimate excess or obsolete inventory. Material assumptions we use to estimate necessary inventory carrying value adjustments can be unique to each product and are based on specific facts and circumstances. In determining provisions for excess or obsolete products, we consider assumptions such as changes in business and economic conditions, projected customer demand for our products, and changes in technology or customer requirements. The creation of such provisions results in a write-down of inventory to net realizable value and a charge to Cost of revenue. If in any period we anticipate a change in assumptions such as future market or economic conditions to be less favorable than our previous estimates, additional inventory write-downs may be required and would be reflected in Cost of revenue, resulting in a negative impact to our gross margin in that period. If in any period we are able to sell inventories that had been written down to a level below the ultimate realized selling price in a previous period, related revenue would be recorded with a lower or no offsetting charge to Cost of revenue resulting in a net benefit to our gross margin in that period.

Accounting for Income Taxes

Our provision for income tax is comprised of our current tax liability and changes in deferred tax assets and liabilities. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the expected tax consequences of temporary differences between the tax bases of assets and liabilities and their reported amounts in the financial statements using enacted tax rates and laws that will be in effect when the difference is expected to reverse. Valuation allowances are provided to reduce deferred tax assets to an amount that in management’s judgment is more-likely-than-not to be recoverable against future taxable income. The determination of a valuation allowance and when it should be released requires complex judgment. In assessing the ability to realize deferred tax assets, we regularly evaluate both positive and negative evidence that may exist and consider whether it is more-likely-than-not that some portion or all of the deferred tax assets will be realized. The ultimate realization of deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which those temporary differences become deductible.

As part of our regular financial review process, we also assess the likelihood that our tax reporting positions will ultimately be sustained. To the extent it is determined it is more likely than not (a likelihood of more than 50 percent) that some portion or all of a tax reporting position will ultimately not be recognized and sustained, a provision for unrecognized tax benefit is provided by either reducing the applicable deferred tax asset or accruing an income tax liability. Our judgment regarding the sustainability of our tax reporting positions may change in the future due to changes in U.S. or international tax laws and other factors. These changes, if any, may require material adjustments to the related deferred tax assets or accrued income tax liabilities and an accompanying reduction or increase in income tax expense which may result in a corresponding increase or decrease in net income in the period when such determinations are made.

Results of Operations

Key elements of our Consolidated Statements of Operations, including as a percentage of revenue, are presented in the following table:

* The year ended January 2, 2021 was a 53-week year as compared to the other years presented, which were based on our standard 52-week year

Revenue

Revenue increased $4.0 million, or 1%, in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019, primarily driven by increased demand for products used in computing solutions, 5G wireless infrastructure, and industrial applications, offset by broad market weakness and decreases in IP revenue.

Revenue by End Market

We sell our products globally to a broad base of customers in three primary end markets groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. We also provide Intellectual Property licensing and services to these end markets.

Within these end markets, there are multiple segment drivers, including:

We also generate revenue from the licensing of our IP, the collection of certain royalties, patent sales, the revenue related to our participation in consortia and standard-setting activities, and services. While these activities may be associated with multiple markets, Licensing and services revenue is reported as a separate end market as it has characteristics that differ from other categories, most notably a higher gross margin.

The end market data below is derived from data provided to us by our customers. With a diverse base of customers who may manufacture end products spanning multiple end markets, the assignment of revenue to a specific end market requires the use of judgment. We also recognize certain revenue for which end customers and end markets are not yet known. We assign this revenue first to a specific end market using historical and anticipated usage of the specific products, if possible, and allocate the remainder to the end markets based on either historical usage for each product family or industry application data for certain product types.

The following are examples of end market applications for the fiscal years presented:

The composition of our revenue by end market is presented in the following table:

Revenue from the Communications and Computing end market increased by 12% in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 primarily due to the continued adoption of our products used in servers and client computing platforms, as well as ongoing 5G infrastructure deployments.

Revenue from the Industrial and Automotive end market increased by 11% in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019, primarily to increased demand for our products used in a broad range of applications including industrial automation and safety, robotics, embedded vision, and automotive electronics.

Revenue from the Consumer end market decreased by 39% in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019. This segment has been impacted by lower end market demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the expected shift in the mix of revenue towards our other market segments.

Revenue from the Licensing and Services end market decreased by 9% in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 primarily due to lower HDMI revenue.

Revenue by Geography

We assign revenue to geographies based on ship-to location of the customer.

The composition of our revenue by geography is presented in the following table:

Revenue from Customers

We sell our products to independent distributors and directly to customers. Distributors have historically accounted for a significant portion of our total revenue, and the two distributors groups noted below accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in the periods covered by this report.

The composition of our revenue by customer is presented in the following table:

Gross margin

The composition of our gross margin, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Gross margin percentage increased 110 basis points from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2020. Improved margins were driven by benefits from pricing optimization programs, product cost reductions, and product mix.

Because of its higher margin, the licensing and services portion of our overall revenue can have a disproportionate impact on Gross Margin.

Operating Expenses

Research and development expense

The composition of our Research and development expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Research and development expense includes costs for compensation and benefits, stock compensation, engineering wafers, depreciation, licenses, and outside engineering services. These expenditures are for the design of new products, IP cores, processes, packaging, and software solutions.

The increase in Research and development expense for fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 was due primarily to increased expenses for stock compensation and increased headcount to support the expansion of our programmable logic product portfolio and acceleration of our new product introduction cadence.

We believe that a continued commitment to Research and development is essential to maintaining product leadership and providing innovative new product offerings and, therefore, we expect to continue to increase our investment in Research and development, particularly with expanded investment in the development of software solutions.

Selling, general, and administrative expense

The composition of our Selling, general, and administrative expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Selling, general, and administrative expense includes costs for compensation and benefits related to selling, general, and administrative employees, commissions, depreciation, professional and outside services, trade show, and travel expenses.

The increase in Selling, general, and administrative expense for fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 was due primarily to increased expenses for stock compensation and salaries, partially offset by reduced commissions resulting from our restructuring under the Q2 2019 Sales Plan, as discussed in "Note 7 - Restructuring" to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this report.

Amortization of acquired intangible assets

The composition of our Amortization of acquired intangible assets, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

The decrease in Amortization of acquired intangible assets for fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 was due to the end of the amortization period for the majority of our acquired intangible assets during the first quarter of fiscal 2020.

Restructuring charges

The composition of our Restructuring charges, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Restructuring charges are comprised of expenses resulting from reductions in our worldwide workforce, consolidation of our facilities, removal of fixed assets from service, and cancellation of software contracts and engineering tools. Details of our restructuring plans and expenses incurred under them are discussed in "Note 7 - Restructuring" to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this report.

The decrease in Restructuring charges in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 was driven was driven by lower charges in the current year for facility closures implemented under an earlier restructuring plan adopted in June 2017, and by lower charges in the current year for severance under the Q1 2020 Plan compared to charges in the prior year period resulting from contract cancellations under the Q2 2019 Sales Plan.

Impairment of acquired intangible assets

The composition of our Impairment of acquired intangible assets, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

We had no Impairments of acquired intangible assets in fiscal 2020 or 2019.

Acquisition related charges

The composition of our Acquisition related charges, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Acquisition related charges include legal and professional fees directly related to acquisitions. We incurred no Acquisition related charges in fiscal 2020 or 2019.

Interest Expense

The composition of our Interest expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Interest expense is primarily related to our long-term debt, which is further discussed under the Credit Arrangements heading in the Liquidity and Capital Resources section, below. This interest expense is comprised of contractual interest and amortization of original issue discount and debt issuance costs based on the effective interest method.

The decrease in Interest expense for fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019 was largely driven by the significant reduction in the effective interest rate on our long-term debt, coupled with the reduction in the principal balance of our long-term debt due to the additional principal payments made in the current and previous periods.

Other expense, net

The composition of our Other expense, net, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

For fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019, Other expense, net decreased primarily due to the non-recurrence of the $2.2 million loss on refinancing charge taken to write off the remaining unamortized balance of debt costs and original issue discount related to the long-term debt refinanced during the prior year.

Income taxes

The composition of our Income tax expense is presented in the following table:

Our Income tax expense is composed primarily of foreign income and withholding taxes, partially offset by benefits resulting from the release of uncertain tax positions ("UTP") due to statute of limitation expirations that occurred in the respective periods. The decrease in expense in fiscal 2020 as compared to fiscal 2019 is primarily due to the release of uncertain tax positions due to statute of limitations expirations.

We are not currently paying U.S. federal income taxes and do not expect to pay such taxes until we fully utilize our tax net operating loss and credit carryforwards. We expect to pay a nominal amount of state income tax. We are paying foreign income taxes, which are primarily related to withholding taxes on income from foreign royalties, foreign sales, and the cost of operating offshore research and development, marketing, and sales subsidiaries. We updated our evaluation of the valuation allowance position in the United States through January 2, 2021 and concluded that we should continue to maintain a full valuation allowance against the net federal and state deferred tax assets. We will continue to evaluate both positive and negative evidence in future periods to determine if we will realize the deferred tax assets. We accrue interest and penalties related to uncertain tax positions in income tax expense on our Consolidated Statements of Operations. The inherent uncertainties related to the geographical distribution and relative level of profitability among various high and low tax jurisdictions make it difficult to estimate the impact of the global tax structure on our future effective tax rate.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

The following sections discuss material changes in our financial condition from the end of fiscal 2019, including the effects of changes in our Consolidated Balance Sheets, and the effects of our credit arrangements and contractual obligations on our liquidity and capital resources.

We have historically financed our operating and capital resource requirements through cash flows from operations, and from the issuance of long-term debt to fund acquisitions. Cash provided by or used in operating activities will fluctuate from period to period due to fluctuations in operating results, the timing and collection of accounts receivable, and required inventory levels, among other things.

There is significant uncertaintyaround the extent and duration of the disruption to our business from the COVID-19 pandemic, and our liquidity and working capital needs may be impacted in future periods.

We believe that our financial resources, including current cash and cash equivalents, cash flow from operating activities, and our credit facilities, will be sufficient to meet our liquidity and working capital needs through at least the next 12 months. As of January 2, 2021, we did not have significant long-term commitments for capital expenditures. In the future, we may continue to consider acquisition opportunities to further extend our product or technology portfolios and further expand our product offerings. In connection with funding capital expenditures, acquisitions, securing additional wafer supply, increasing our working capital, or other operations, we may seek to obtain equity or additional debt financing, or advance purchase payments or similar arrangements with wafer manufacturers. We may also seek to obtain equity or additional debt financing if we experience downturns or cyclical fluctuations in our business that are more severe or longer than we anticipated when determining our current working capital needs. On May 17, 2019, we entered into a Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as administrative agent, and other lenders (our “Current Credit Agreement”) that is discussed under the "Credit Arrangements" heading, below.

Liquidity

Cash and cash equivalents

As of January 2, 2021, we had Cash and cash equivalents of $182.3 million, of which approximately $121.8 million in Cash and cash equivalents was held by our foreign subsidiaries.

We manage our global cash requirements considering, among other things, (i) available funds among our subsidiaries through which we conduct business, (ii) the geographic location of our liquidity needs, and (iii) the cost to access international cash balances. The repatriation of non-US earnings may require us to withhold and pay foreign income tax on dividends. This should not result in our recording significant additional tax expense as we have accrued expense based on current withholding rates. As of January 2, 2021, we could access all cash held by our foreign subsidiaries without incurring significant additional expense.

The net increase in Cash and cash equivalents of $64.3 million between December 28, 2019 and January 2, 2021 was primarily driven by cash flows from the following activities:

Operating activities — Cash provided by operating activities results from net income adjusted for certain non-cash items and changes in assets and liabilities. Cash provided by operating activities was $91.7 million in fiscal 2020 compared to $124.1 million in fiscal 2019. This $32.4 million decrease was driven by $45.7 million in changes in working capital, primarily the increase in cash used for inventories, prepaid expenses and other current assets, and accounts payable, partially offset by the cash provided by accrued expenses and accounts receivable. This was partially offset by an increase of $13.3 million provided by improved operating performance. We are using cash provided by operating activities to fund our operations.

Investing activities — Investing cash flows consist primarily of transactions related to capital expenditures and payments for software licenses, and, in the prior year, short-term marketable securities. Net cash used by investing activities in fiscal 2020 was $20.9 million compared to $15.5 million in fiscal 2019. This $5.4 million increase was primarily due to the non-recurrence of the $9.7 million provided by our liquidation of all short-term investments in the first quarter of fiscal 2019. Total cash used for capital expenditures and payments for software licenses decreased $4.3 million to $20.9 million in fiscal 2020 from $25.2 million in fiscal 2019 primarily due to lower expenditures for software enhancements, office consolidation, and test equipment.

Financing activities — Financing cash flows consist primarily of activity on our long-term debt, proceeds from the exercise of options to acquire common stock, tax payments related to the net share settlement of restricted stock units, and purchases of treasury stock. During fiscal 2020, we drew $50.0 million on our revolving loan facility to further strengthen our liquidity position, and we paid quarterly installments totaling $26.3 million on our long-term debt, which fulfilled the required quarterly installments through the first quarter of fiscal 2021. During fiscal 2019, we made a total of $117.0 million in principal payments in addition to the cash flows related to refinancing our long-term debt. Payments for tax withholdings on vesting of RSUs partially offset by employee exercises of stock options used net cash flows of $16.9 million in fiscal 2020, which is a change of approximately $24.0 million from the $7.1 million provided in fiscal 2019. During fiscal 2020, we also purchased $15.0 million of treasury stock, as further discussed below under "Share Repurchase Program."

Accounts receivable, net

Accounts receivable, net as of January 2, 2021 decreased by approximately $0.3 million, or approximately 1%, compared to December 28, 2019. This resulted primarily from the timing of shipments in December 2020 compared to December 2019. We calculate Days sales outstanding on the basis of a 365-day year as Accounts receivable, net at the end of the quarter divided by sales during the quarter annualized and then multiplied by 365.

Inventories

Inventories as of January 2, 2021 increased $9.6 million, or approximately 18%, compared to December 28, 2019 primarily to meet the increased demands of our customers.

The Days of inventory on hand ratio compares the inventory balance at the end of a quarter to the cost of sales in that quarter. We calculate Days of inventory on hand on the basis of a 365-day year as Inventories at the end of the quarter divided by Cost of sales during the quarter annualized and then multiplied by 365. Our Days of inventory on hand increased to 139 days at January 2, 2021 from 123 days at December 28, 2019. This increase resulted from inventory increases to meet the increased demands of our customers.

Credit Arrangements

On May 17, 2019, we entered into our Current Credit Agreement. The details of this arrangement are described in "Note 6 - Long-Term Debt" in the accompanying Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

As of January 2, 2021, we had no significant long-term purchase commitments for capital expenditures or existing used or unused credit arrangements beyond the secured revolving loan facility described above.

Share Repurchase Program

On February 14, 2020, our Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase program pursuant to which up to $40.0 million of outstanding common stock could be repurchased from time to time. The duration of the repurchase program was twelve months. Under this program during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, approximately 0.4 million shares were repurchased for $15.0 million, or an average price paid per share of $38.98. All repurchased shares were retired by the end of the 2020 fiscal year. All repurchases were open market transactions funded from available working capital. The twelve-month 2020 program expired during the first quarter of fiscal 2021, during which no additional shares were repurchased.

Contractual Cash Obligations

The following table summarizes our contractual cash obligations at January 2, 2021:

The table above does not include amounts related to uncertain tax positions because we cannot reliably estimate the timing of the settlement of such liabilities.

Our significant operating leases are for our facilities in Hillsboro and Portland, Oregon; San Jose, California; Muntinlupa City, Philippines; and Shanghai, China.

Our corporate headquarters is located in our facility in Hillsboro, Oregon, which is leased until November 2022. Annual rental costs are estimated at $0.6 million with 3% annual increases.

The lease for our former office space in Portland, Oregon expires in March 2025. Annual rental costs are estimated at $0.7 million with average annual increases of approximately 5%. Under a previously approved restructuring plan, we fully vacated the space in Portland, Oregon in early 2019 and subleased the vacated space.

Our lease in San Jose, California expires September 2026 with total annual rental costs estimated to be $2.4 million and annual increases of approximately 3%. Under a previously approved restructuring plan, we vacated approximately 50% or our facility in San Jose, California in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 and intend to sublease the vacated space.

Two of our leases in Muntinlupa City, Philippines expire in May 2025 and June 2025, with total annual rental costs estimated to be $0.7 million and annual increases of approximately 5%. Our lease in Shanghai expires in May 2021, with total annual rental costs estimated to be $1.8 million.

New Accounting Pronouncements

The information contained under the heading "New Accounting Pronouncements" in Note 1 - Nature of Operations and Significant Accounting Policies to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 is incorporated by reference into this Part II, Item 7.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

As of January 2, 2021, we did not have any off-balance sheet arrangements of the type described by Item 303(a)(4) of SEC Regulation S-K.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

Market risk represents the risk of loss that may impact our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. Our market risk exposure is primarily a result of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. We assess these risks on a regular basis and have established policies that are designed to protect against the adverse effects of these and other potential exposures.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

While our revenues and the majority of our expenses are denominated in U.S. dollars, our financial position and results of operations are subject to foreign currency exchange rate risk as a result of having various international subsidiary and branch operations. Historically, exposure to foreign currency exchange rate risk has not had a material impact on our results from operations. At times in the past we have entered into foreign currency forward exchange contracts in relation to certain activities, which mitigated the foreign currency exchange rate exposure from an economic perspective, but these were not designated as "effective" hedges under U.S. GAAP. The two foreign currency forward exchange contracts that we held at December 28, 2019 matured in June 2020, and we did not enter into any new contracts during fiscal 2020. As of January 2, 2021, we had no foreign currency foreign exchange contracts.

Interest Rate Risk

We are exposed to interest rate risk related to our indebtedness. At January 2, 2021, we had $171.9 million outstanding under our Current Credit Agreement. A hypothetical increase in the one-month LIBOR by 1% (100 basis points) would increase our future interest expense by approximately $0.4 million per quarter.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS)

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY