NETLIST INC - Annual Report: 2014 (Form 10-K)

 

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

Commission file number 001-33170

NETLIST, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

175 Technology Drive, Suite 150

Irvine, CA 92618 

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

(949) 435-0025

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

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

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

None

(Title of class)

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 and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes ☒  No ☐

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

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

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

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock held by non-affiliates, based on the closing price of the registrant’s common stock as reported on The NASDAQ Global Market on June 28, 2014, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $45.4  million. For purposes of this calculation, it has been assumed that all shares of the registrant’s common stock held by directors, executive officers and shareholders beneficially owning five percent or more of the registrant’s common stock are held by affiliates. The treatment of these persons as affiliates for purposes of this calculation is not conclusive as to whether such persons are, in fact, affiliates of the registrant.

The number of shares outstanding of the registrant’s common stock, as of the latest practicable date:

Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share

50,347,488 shares outstanding at February 28, 2015

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions of the definitive Proxy Statement for the registrant’s Annual Meeting of Stockholders for 2015  have been incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

 

 

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

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Unless the context otherwise requires, references to the “Company,” “Netlist,” “we,” “us” or “our” refer to Netlist, Inc. and its subsidiaries.

 

The registered trademarks of Netlist, Inc. and its subsidiaries include: HyperCloud® and NVvault™.  Other trademarks used in this Report are the property of their respective owners.

 

This Annual Report on Form 10-K includes “forward‑looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward‑looking statements relate to expectations concerning matters that are not historical facts, and are generally identified by words such as “believe”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “estimate”, “intend”, “strategy”, “may”, “will likely” and similar words or phrases. A forward‑looking statement is neither a prediction nor a guarantee of future events or circumstances, and our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward‑looking statement.  These forward‑looking statements are all based on currently available market, operating, financial and competitive information and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict.  Important information regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such expectations is disclosed in this Report, including, without limitation, information under the caption “Risk Factors”.  These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to risks associated with the launch and commercial success of our products, programs and technologies; the success of product partnerships; continuing development, qualification and volume production of HyperVault™, EXPRESSvault™, NVvault™, HyperCloud® and VLP Planar-X RDIMM; the timing and magnitude of the continued decrease in sales to our key customer; our ability to leverage our NVvault™ and EXPRESSvault™ technology in a more diverse customer base; our need to raise additional capital and our ability to obtain financing; the rapidly-changing nature of technology; risks associated with intellectual property, including patent infringement litigation against us as well as the costs and unpredictability of litigation over infringement of our intellectual property and the possibility of our patents being reexamined or reviewed by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) or the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”); volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND; changes in and uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and demand for, our existing products and products under development, including uncertainty of and/or delays in product orders and product qualifications; delays in our and our customers’ product releases and development; introductions of new products by competitors; changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; our ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; our reliance on suppliers of critical components and vendors in the supply chain; fluctuations in the market price of critical components; evolving industry standards; and the political and regulatory environment in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”).  Given these risks, uncertainties and other important factors, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date made. Except as required by law, we do not undertake any obligation to revise or update any forward‑looking statements for any reason.

 

PART I

 

Item 1.  Business

 

Overview

 

We design, manufacture and sell a wide variety of high performance, logic‑based memory subsystems for the global datacenter, storage and high‑performance computing markets. Our memory subsystems consist of combinations of dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”), NAND flash memory (“NAND”), application‑specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”) and other components assembled on printed circuit boards (“PCBs”). We primarily market and sell our products to leading original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) customers, hyperscale datacenter operators and storage vendors. Our solutions are targeted at applications where memory plays a key role in meeting system performance requirements. We leverage a portfolio of proprietary technologies and design techniques, including combining discrete semiconductor technologies from third parties such as DRAM and NAND flash to function as one, efficient planar design, and alternative packaging techniques to deliver memory subsystems with persistence, high density, small form factor, high signal integrity, attractive thermal characteristics, reduced power consumption and low cost per bit. Our NVvault™ product is the first to offer both DRAM and NAND in a standard form factor memory subsystem as a persistent dual‑in line memory module (“DIMM”) in mission critical applications. Our HyperCloud® technology incorporates our patented rank multiplication and load reduction technologies. We also have pending and

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issued patents covering fundamental aspects of hybrid memory DIMM designs that incorporate combinations of DRAM and/or NAND flash, such as our NVvault™ product.  We are focused on monetizing our patent portfolio through our products business and, where appropriate, through licensing arrangements with third parties that wish to incorporate our patented technologies in their products.

 

We were incorporated in Delaware in June 2000 and commenced operations in September 2000.  Our principal executive offices are located at 175 Technology Drive, Suite 150, Irvine, California 92618 and our telephone number at that address is (949) 435-0025. Our website address is http://www.netlist.com. The information contained on our website is not incorporated by reference into, and does not form any part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We have included our website address as a factual reference and do not intend it to be an active link to our website.

 

Intellectual Property and Licensing

 

Our high performance memory subsystems are developed in part using our proprietary intellectual property, and we believe that the strength of our intellectual property rights will be important to the success of our business. We utilize patent and trade secret protection, confidentiality agreements with customers and partners, disclosure and invention assignment agreements with employees and consultants and other contractual provisions to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary information. We plan to license specific, custom designs to our customers, charging royalties at a fixed amount per product or a percentage of sales. More generally, we intend to vigorously defend and monetize our intellectual property through licensing arrangements and, where necessary, enforcement actions against those entities using our patented solutions in their products. Royalties resulting from these patent monetization efforts can be structured in a variety of ways, including but not limited to one-time paid up licenses or on-going royalty arrangements. We expect to generate a portion of our revenues with these types of licensing arrangements.

 

As of December 27, 2014, we had 54 U.S. and foreign patents issued and 33 U.S. and foreign patent applications pending. Assuming that they are properly maintained, our patents will expire at various dates between 2022 and 2029. Our issued patents and patent applications relate to the use of custom logic in high performance memory subsystems, PCB design, layout and packaging techniques. We intend to actively pursue the filing of additional patent applications related to our technology advancements. While we believe that our patent and other intellectual property rights are important to our success, our technical expertise and ability to introduce new products in a timely manner also will continue to be important factors in developing and maintaining our competitive position. Accordingly, we believe that our business is not materially dependent upon any one claim in any of our existing patents or pending patent applications.

 

Litigation & Patent Reexamination

 

We own numerous patents and continue to enlarge and strengthen our patent portfolios which cover different aspects of our technology innovations with various claim scopes. We plan to generate revenue by selling or licensing our technology, and intend to vigorously enforce our patent rights against infringers. We dedicate substantial resources in protecting our intellectual property, including efforts to defend our patents against challenges made by way of reexamination and review proceedings at the USPTO and PTAB. These activities are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, without any guarantee that any ongoing or future patent protection and litigation activities will be successful. We also are subject to litigation claims that we have infringed on the intellectual property of others, against which we intend to defend vigorously.

 

Our Products

 

NVvault™ Family

 

We were the first to develop and market memory subsystems that incorporate both DRAM and NAND in a single NVvault™ persistent DIMM solution. NVvault™ was originally used for mission critical backups during power interruption in Redundant Array of Independent Disks (“RAID”) and main memory. NVvault™ has moved beyond its original application to a variety of other applications, including hyperscale computing for cloud, big data, on-line banking and other real time applications where NVvault™ is also used as a data accelerator. We are working to further

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enhance the capabilities of our NVvault™ technology in these new applications, and we are also seeking to expand our customer base through the integration of NVvault™ into leading storage motherboards. NVvault™ is incorporated in our EXPRESSvault™ PCIe solution for both acceleration and backup in storage applications.  Our NVvault™ product line consists primarily of battery-free and battery-powered flash backed cache memory subsystems targeting RAID storage, application acceleration and mission critical data integrity. NVvault™ battery-free provides server and storage OEMs a solution for enhanced datacenter fault recovery. Our NVvault™ products have historically been sold primarily to Dell, for incorporation in its PERC 7 server products. Following Intel’s launch of its Romley platform in the first quarter of 2012, we experienced a steady decline in NVvault™ sales to Dell. There were no sales of NVvault™ products to Dell in the year ended December 27, 2014 and sales were $5.5 million in year ended December 28, 2013. We expect no future demand from Dell for our DDR2 NVvault™.  We continue to pursue qualifications with other potential significant customers within the industry and we are currently working to remedy our ongoing supply chain disruptions, however, our efforts to expand our qualifications and manage our supply chain may not result in significant revenues from the sale of NVvault™ family products.

 

For the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013, our NVvault™ non-volatile RDIMM used in cache-protection and data logging applications, including our NVvault™ battery-free, the flash-based cache system, accounted for approximately 44% and 39% of total net sales, respectively.

 

HyperCloud ®

 

Our HyperCloud® technology incorporates our patented rank multiplication technology, which increases memory capacity and our patented load reduction technology, which increases memory bandwidth. We expect that these patented technologies will make possible improved levels of performance for memory intensive datacenter applications and workloads, including enterprise virtualization, cloud computing infrastructure, business intelligence real- time data analytics, and high performance computing.

 

Specialty Memory Modules and Flash-Based Products

 

The remainder of our revenues are primarily from OEM sales of specialty memory modules and flash-based products, the majority of which are utilized in data center and industrial applications. When developing custom modules for an equipment product launch, we engage with our OEM customers from the earliest stages of new product definition, providing us unique insight into their full range of system architecture and performance requirements. This close collaboration has also allowed us to develop a significant level of systems expertise. We leverage a portfolio of proprietary technologies and design techniques, including efficient planar design, alternative packaging techniques and custom semiconductor logic, to deliver memory subsystems with high speed, capacity and signal integrity, small form factor, attractive thermal characteristics and low cost per bit. Revenues from our specialty modules and flash-based products are subject to fluctuation as a result of the life cycles of the products into which our modules are incorporated. Our ability to continue to generate revenues from specialty memory modules and flash-based products is dependent on our ability to qualify our products on new platforms as current platforms reach the end of their lifecycles, and on the state of the global economy. 

 

Technology

 

We have a portfolio of proprietary technologies and design techniques and have assembled an engineering team with expertise in semiconductors, printed circuit boards, memory subsystem and system design. Our technology competencies include:

 

IC Design Expertise.  We have designed special algorithms that can be implemented in stand-alone integrated circuits or integrated into other functional blocks in ASICs. We utilize these algorithms in the HyperCloud ® chipset to incorporate rank multiplication and load reduction functionality. We also incorporate these algorithms in our NVvault™ product line of RDIMMS.

 

NVvault™.  We were the first to develop and market memory subsystems that incorporate both DRAM and NAND flash in a single NVvault™ persistent DIMM solution. NVvault™ combines the best attributes of DRAM,

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including speed, durability and reliability with high densities, lower power and lowest costs provided by NAND. This combination enables us to provide application acceleration and mission critical backup during power interruption for cloud infrastructure, virtualization, analytics and database applications. NVvault™ is incorporated in our EXPRESSvault™ PCIe solution for both acceleration and backup in storage applications.

 

Proprietary PCB Designs.    We utilize advanced techniques to optimize electronic signal strength and integrity within a PCB. These techniques include the use of 8-layer or 10-layer boards, matching conductive trace lengths, a minimized number of conductive connectors, or vias, and precise load balancing to, among other benefits, help reduce noise and crosstalk between adjacent traces. In addition, our proprietary designs for the precise placement of intra-substrate components allow us to assemble memory subsystems with significantly smaller physical size, enabling OEMs to develop products with smaller footprints for their customers.

 

Very Low Profile Designs.  We were the first company to create memory subsystems in a form factor of less than one inch in height. We believe our proprietary board design technology is particularly useful in the blade server market, where efficient use of motherboard space is critical. Our technology has allowed us to decrease the system board space required for memory, and improve thermal performance and operating speeds, by enabling our customers to use alternative methods of component layout.

 

Thermal Management Designs.    We design our memory subsystems to ensure effective heat dissipation. We use thermal cameras to obtain thermal profiles of the memory subsystem during the design phase, allowing us to rearrange components to enhance thermal characteristics and, if necessary, replace components that do not meet specifications. We also develop and use proprietary heat spreaders to enhance the thermal management characteristics of our memory subsystems.

 

Customers

 

During our 2014 fiscal year we primarily marketed and sold our products to leading OEMs in the server, storage and communications markets. Consistent with the concentrated nature of the OEM customer base in our target markets, a small number of large customers have historically accounted for a significant portion of our net sales.  Net sales to our three largest customers, Dell, IBM and Nimble Storage, Inc., represented approximately 20%, 14% and 19% of our net sales in 2014, respectively.  Dell and IBM represented approximately 45% and 15% of our net sales in 2013, respectively. Net sales to some of our OEM customers include memory modules that are qualified by us directly with the OEM customer and sold to electronic manufacturing services providers (“EMSs”), for incorporation into products manufactured exclusively for the OEM customer or, in some instances, to facilitate credit and logistics.  These net sales to EMSs have historically fluctuated period to period as a portion of the total net sales to the OEM customers.  Net sales to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Ltd., an EMS operating under the trade name of Foxconn that purchases memory modules from us for incorporation into products manufactured exclusively for Dell, represented approximately 77% and 74% of net sales to Dell for 2014 and 2013, respectively.  Net sales to Kingston Technology, an EMS manufacturer for IBM, represented approximately 46% and 29% of net sales to IBM for 2014 and 2013, respectively. For further information regarding our sales to our OEM customer base, please refer to Note 10 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report. 

 

We expect that our key customers or other large OEMs will no longer continue to account for a substantial portion of our net sales in 2014 and in the foreseeable future. The composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net sales have varied and will likely continue to vary from period to period as our OEMs progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell.  For example, we have experienced a significant decline in sales of our NVvault™ sales to Dell following its launch of servers incorporating Intel’s Romley platform.  We expect that after product in the supply chain is consumed, sales of NVvault™ products for incorporation into PERC 7 servers will be minimal.  This reduction in sales is expected to continue to have a significant impact on our revenue and gross profit. 

 

Our sales are made primarily pursuant to standard purchase orders that may be rescheduled on relatively short notice. Customers are generally allowed limited rights of return for up to 30 days, except for sales of excess inventories, which contain no right-of-return privileges. Estimated returns are provided for at the time of sale based on historical

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experience or specific identification of an event necessitating a reserve. While these returns have historically been within our expectations and the provisions established, we cannot guarantee that we will continue to experience similar return rates in the future. Any significant increase in product failure rates and the resulting product returns could have a material adverse effect on our operating results for the period or periods in which such returns materialize.

 

We offer warranties on our memory subsystems generally ranging from one to three years, depending on the product and negotiated terms of purchase agreements with our customers. Such warranties require us to repair or replace defective product returned to us during such warranty period at no cost to the customer. Our estimates for warranty related costs are recorded at the time of sale based on historical and estimated future product return rates and expected repair or replacement costs. While such costs have historically been within our expectations and the provisions established, unexpected changes in failure rates could have a material adverse impact on us, requiring additional warranty reserves, and adversely affecting our gross profit and gross margins.

 

Sales and Marketing

 

We market and sell our products through a direct sales force and a network of independent sales representatives. Our sales activities focus primarily on developing strong relationships at the technical, marketing and executive management levels within market-leading OEMs.

 

We utilize well-trained, highly technical program management teams to successfully drive new product development and quickly respond to our customers' needs and expectations. Our program management teams provide quick response times and act as a single point-of-contact for routine issues during the sales process. Additionally, they address the long-term business and technology goals of our customers. We employ a team approach to business development whereby our sales team and independent representatives identify, qualify and prioritize customer prospects through offices in a number of locations worldwide.

 

For additional information regarding our net sales from external customers by geographic area, refer to Note 11 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report.

 

Manufacturing

 

We manufacture substantially all of our products at our facility in Suzhou in the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC”). Our advanced engineering and design capabilities, combined with our in-house manufacturing processes, allow us to assemble our memory subsystems reliably and in high volume. Our advanced, customized manufacturing facilities are capable of surface mount assembly, subsystem testing, system‑level burn-in testing, programming, marking, labeling and packaging. At each stage of the production cycle, including product prototyping, qualification sample production and high-volume manufacturing and delivery, we focus on providing our customers with rapid response and short manufacturing turn-around times. Manufacturing cycle times for our products are typically one week or less, and in some cases as few as two days, from receipt of order.

 

We acquire components and materials such as ASICs, DRAM ICs and NAND directly from integrated circuit manufacturers and assemble them into finished subsystems. We believe that one of our key strengths is the efficient procurement and management of components for our subsystems, which benefits our customers in the form of lower costs and increased product availability. We have a limited number of suppliers, including Arrow Electronics which comprised more than 10% of our total purchases in 2014 and SK Hynix Semiconductor America (“SK Hynix”) and Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. (“Samsung”) each of which comprised more than 10% of our total purchases in 2013. For further information regarding our supplier concentrations, refer to Note 10 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report.  We have developed strong supplier relationships with these and other key DRAM IC and NAND manufacturers, which we believe gives us direct and ready access to the critical components that we need for our production activities. We typically qualify our products with our customers using multiple manufacturers of DRAM ICs and NAND. The flexibility to choose from several DRAM IC and NAND providers allows us to minimize product cost and maximize product availability. We schedule production based on purchase order commitments and anticipated orders. We release raw materials to the manufacturing floor by means of an on-line shop floor control system, which allows for internal quality analysis, direct access to inventory information and

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production floor material tracking. We have a flexible manufacturing workforce which allows us to manage unforecasted demand. In addition, in order to mitigate inventory risks, we have the capability to sell excess quantities of certain component inventories of DRAM ICs and NAND to distributors and other users of memory integrated circuits.    

 

Our quality assurance engineers work with our suppliers to ensure that the raw materials we receive meet our high quality standards. These engineers also perform onsite supplier factory audits and use our internal test and inspection systems to verify that purchased components and materials meet our specifications. Our supplier quality program and incoming material quality control program are important aspects of our overall manufacturing process.

 

We perform ongoing reliability testing on our memory subsystems and share the results of that testing with our customers. We believe that this improves the system design process and allows for the elimination of potential problems at the earliest possible stage. In addition, we have implemented procedures which require that all of our memory subsystems undergo functional and system burn-in testing prior to delivery to the customer. We complement our test capabilities with advanced imaging technology to inspect the quality of our assemblies.

 

We are certified in ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems and ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Standards.

 

Competition 

 

Our products are primarily targeted for the server, high performance computing and communications markets. These markets are intensely competitive, as numerous companies vie for business opportunities at a limited number of large OEMs.  We face competition from DRAM suppliers, including SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron for many of our products, including NVvault and HyperCloud®. Our primary competitors for the rest of our product lines are mainly memory module providers such as STEC, SMART Modular Technologies, Inc., AgigA Tech, SanDisk, and Viking Interworks, a division of Sanmina-SCI Corporation.  We also face potential direct or indirect competition from logic suppliers such as Inphi, IDT, Montage, Diablo Technologies and Texas Instruments. As we enter new markets and pursue additional applications for our products, we may face competition from a larger number of competitors that produce solutions utilizing similar or competing technologies.

 

Certain of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution and other resources, broader product lines, lower cost structures, greater brand recognition and longer standing relationships with customers and suppliers. Some of our competitors may also have a greater ability to influence industry standards than we do, as well as more extensive patent portfolios.

 

Some of our customers and suppliers may have proprietary products or technologies that are competitive with our products, or could develop internal solutions or enter into strategic relationships with, or acquire, existing high-density memory module providers. Any of these actions could reduce our customers’ demand for our products. Some of our significant suppliers of memory integrated circuits may be able to manufacture competitive products at lower costs by leveraging internal efficiencies, or could choose to reduce our supply of memory integrated circuits, adversely affecting our ability to manufacture our memory subsystems on a timely basis, if at all.

 

Our ability to compete in our current target markets and in future markets will depend in large part on our ability to successfully develop, introduce and sell new and enhanced products on a timely and cost-effective basis, and to respond to changing market requirements. We believe that the principal competitive factors in the selection of high performance memory subsystems by potential customers are:

 

 

 

 

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We believe that we compete favorably with respect to these factors. However, our current and future competitors could develop competing products that could cause a decline in sales or loss of market acceptance of our products.

 

Research and Development

 

The market for high performance memory subsystems is constantly changing and therefore continuous development of new technology, processes and product innovation is mandatory to be successful as a leading supplier. We believe that the continued and timely development of new products and improvement of existing products are critical to maintaining our competitive position. Our team of engineers focuses on developing custom semiconductor logic devices, hybrid memory, DRAM and NAND flash products with innovative packaging solutions, improved electrical signal integrity and thermal characteristics that enhances reliability over the life of the system and achieves higher speeds and lowers power consumption. Also, our engineers incorporate various new techniques and methodologies for testing as well as new processes for manufacturing our products.

 

Our engineering staff closely engages with our customers and their engineering teams at early stages in their system development. This collaboration allows our engineers to understand the customer’s system architecture, power budget, operating environment such as air flow and operating temperature and any mechanical constraints. Our engineers use this information to provide guidance and solutions to implement optimum memory subsystems to our customers. An important aspect of our research and development effort is to understand the challenges faced by our customers and provide cost effective solutions that satisfy their requirements by utilizing our industry knowledge, proprietary technologies and technical expertise.

 

We use advanced design tools in development of our products that allow us to model behavior of a signal trace on our memory modules as well as airflow and thermal profiles of all components in the system. These design tools enable real-time simulation for signal integrity and behavioral modeling of our designs using the Input/Output Buffer Information Specification (“IBIS”) and Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis (“SPICE”) models of our suppliers’ components. These simulation tools help us reduce or eliminate electronic signal reflections, clock skews, signal jitter and noise which can reduce system performance and reliability. These efforts allow our engineers to develop optimum thermal solutions for our customer base.

 

We believe that to remain competitive we must continue to focus on developing advanced memory technologies. We have invested significant resources in the design of custom semiconductor logic devices. These logic devices are integrated into our next-generation memory subsystems in order to improve their performance. Logic devices in our NVvault™ hybrid memory product enable DRAM and flash memory to be efficiently combined for the purposes of accelerating system performance and providing mission critical back up. The development of these semiconductor devices are an important part of our overall effort to maintain a strong competitive position in our industry based on advanced memory technologies.

 

Our customers typically do not separately compensate us for design and engineering work involved in developing application‑specific products for them.  Our total expenditures for research and development were approximately $4.8 million and $4.5 million for 2014 and 2013, respectively.

 

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Employees

 

At December 27, 2014, we had approximately 114 employees (including 79 regular employees and 35 temporary employees). Approximately 35 of the regular employees were located in the U.S., and approximately 44 were located in the PRC. We had 47 employees in operations, 16 employees in research and development, 9 employees in sales and marketing, and 7 employees engaged in other administrative functions. We are not party to any collective bargaining agreements with any of our employees. We have never experienced a work stoppage, and we believe our employee relations are good.

 

General Information

 

We maintain a website at www.netlist.com (this uniform resource locator, or URL, is an inactive textual reference only and is not intended to incorporate our website into this Form 10-K). We file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), and make available, free of charge, on or through our website, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy and information statements and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the SEC. Our website also contains copies of our corporate governance policy, code of business conduct and ethics, insider trading policy and whistleblower policy, as well as copies of the charters for our audit committee, compensation committee and nominating and corporate governance committee.

 

Item 1A.  Risk Factors

 

You should consider each of the following factors as well as the other information in this Report in evaluating our business and our prospects.  The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks we are not presently aware of or that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business operations. If any of the events described below were to occur, our financial condition, our ability to access capital resources, our results of operations and/or our future growth prospects could be materially and adversely affected and the market price of our common stock could decline. In assessing these risks, you should also refer to the other information contained or incorporated by reference in this Report, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes.

 

Risks related to our business

 

Our operating results have varied significantly in the past and will continue to fluctuate from quarter‑to‑quarter or year‑to‑year in the future due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these quarterly and annual fluctuations include the following factors, as well as other factors described elsewhere in this prospectus supplement:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Due to the various factors mentioned above, and others, the results of any prior quarterly or annual periods should not be relied upon as an indication of our future operating performance. In one or more future periods, our results of operations may fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors. In that event, the market price of our common stock would likely decline. In addition, the market price of our common stock may fluctuate or decline regardless of our operating performance.

 

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We have historically incurred losses and may continue to incur losses.

 

Since the inception of our business in 2000, we have only experienced one fiscal year (2006) with profitable results. In order to regain profitability, or to achieve and sustain positive cash flows from operations in the future, we must further reduce operating expenses and/or increase our revenues and gross margins. Although we have in the past engaged in a series of cost reduction actions, and believe that we could reduce our current level of expenses through elimination or reduction of strategic initiatives, such expense reductions alone may not make us profitable or allow us to sustain profitability if it is achieved. Our ability to achieve profitability will depend on increased revenue growth from, among other things, our ability to monetize our intellectual property, increased demand for our memory subsystems and related product offerings, as well as our ability to expand into new and emerging markets. We may not be successful in achieving the necessary revenue growth or the expected expense reductions. Moreover, we may be unable to sustain past or expected future expense reductions in subsequent periods. We may not achieve profitability or sustain such profitability, if achieved, on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.

 

Any failure to achieve profitability could result in increased capital requirements and pressure on our liquidity position. We believe our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our levels of net sales, the timing and extent of expenditures to support sales, marketing, research and development activities, the expansion of manufacturing capacity both domestically and internationally and the continued market acceptance of our products. Our capital requirements could result in our having to, or otherwise choosing to, seek additional funding through public or private equity offerings or debt financings. Such funding may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all, either of which could result in our inability to meet certain of our financial obligations and other related commitments.

 

Our future capital needs are uncertain, and we may need to raise additional funds, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all.

 

We believe our existing cash balances, borrowing availability under our bank credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”), borrowing availability under our loan agreement with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP (“Fortress”), an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC and successor to DBD Credit Funding LLC, net of cash expected to be used in operations, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. However, we may need significant additional capital, which we may seek to raise through, among other things, public and private equity offerings and debt financings. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our levels of net sales, the timing and extent of expenditures to support research and development activities and patent infringement litigation, the expansion of manufacturing capacity both domestically and internationally and the continued market acceptance of our products. Additional funds may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all. Furthermore, if we issue equity or convertible debt securities to raise additional funds, our existing stockholders may experience dilution, and the new equity or debt securities may have rights, preferences, and privileges senior to those of our existing stockholders. If we incur additional debt, it may increase our leverage relative to our earnings or to our equity capitalization.  If adequate working capital is not available when needed, we may be required to significantly modify our business model and operations to reduce spending to a sustainable level. It could cause us to be unable to execute our business plan, take advantage of future opportunities, or respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. It may also cause us to delay, scale back or eliminate some or all of our research and development programs, or to reduce or cease operations.

 

We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and any return to investors is expected to come, if at all, only from potential increases in the price of our common stock.

 

At the present time, we intend to use available funds to finance our operations. Accordingly, while payment of dividends rests within the discretion of our board of directors, no cash dividends on our common shares have been declared or paid by us and we have no intention of paying any such dividends in the foreseeable future. Any return to investors is expected to come, if at all, only from potential increases in the price of our common stock.

 

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We have incurred a material amount of indebtedness to fund our operations, the terms of which require that we pledge substantially all of our assets as security and that we agree to share certain patent monetization revenues that may accrue in the future.  Our level of indebtedness and the terms of such indebtedness, could adversely affect our operations and liquidity.

 

We have incurred debt secured by all of our assets under our credit facilities and term loans with Fortress and SVB. Our credit facility with Fortress is secured by a first-priority security interest in our intellectual property assets (other than certain patents and related assets relating to the NVvault™ product line) and a second priority security interest in substantially all of our other assets. Our credit facility with SVB is secured by a first priority security interest in all of our assets other than our intellectual property assets, to which SVB has a second priority security interest. The credit facility with Fortress contains customary representations, warranties and indemnification provisions, as well as affirmative and negative covenants that, among other things restrict our ability to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The credit facilities also include events of default, including, among other things, payment defaults, breaches of representations, warranties or covenants, certain bankruptcy events, and certain material adverse changes. If we were to default under either credit facility and were unable to obtain a waiver for such a default, interest on the obligations would accrue at an increased rate. In the case of a default, the lenders could accelerate our obligations under the credit agreements and exercise their rights to foreclose on their security interests, which would cause substantial harm to our business and prospects.

 

Incurrence and maintenance of this debt could have material consequences, such as:

 

 

 

 

 

Concurrently with the execution of the credit facility with Fortress, we entered into a Monetization Letter Agreement (as amended, the “Letter Agreement”), which provides, among other things, that Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP (“Drawbridge”) may be entitled to share in certain monetization revenues that we may derive in the future related to our patent portfolio.  We amended the Letter Agreement on February 17, 2015. Monetization revenues subject to this arrangement include revenues recognized during the seven year term of the Letter Agreement

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from net amounts actually paid to us or our subsidiaries in connection with any assertion of, agreement not to assert, or license of, our patent portfolio, including revenues arising from litigation. Monetization revenues subject to the arrangement also include the value attributable to our patent portfolio in any sale of the Company during the seven year term, subject to a maximum amount. The Letter Agreement also requires that we use commercially reasonable efforts to pursue opportunities to monetize our patent portfolio during the term of the Letter Agreement, provided that we are under no obligation to pursue any such opportunities that we do not deem to be in our best interest in our reasonable business judgment. Notwithstanding the foregoing, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in these efforts, and we may expend resources in pursuit of monetization revenues that may not result in any benefit to us. Moreover, the revenue sharing obligation will reduce the benefit we receive from any monetization transactions, which could adversely affect our operating results and would reduce the amounts payable to our stockholders in the event of a sale transaction.

 

Our revenues and results of operations have been substantially dependent on NVvault™ and we may be unable to replace revenue lost from the rapid decline in prior generation NVvault™ sales to Dell.

 

For the fiscal years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013, our NVvault™ non‑volatile RDIMM used in cache‑protection and data logging applications, including our NVvault™ battery‑free, the flash‑based cache system, accounted for approximately 44% and 39% of total net sales, respectively. Following Intel’s launch of its Romley platform in the first quarter of 2012, we have experienced a rapid decline in NVvault™ sales to Dell, and we recognized no NVvault™ sales to Dell in the fiscal year ended December 27, 2014, as compared to $5.5 million in the year ended December 28, 2013. We expect no future demand from Dell for our DDR2 NVvault™. In order to leverage our NVvault™ technology and diversify our customer base, and to secure one or more new key customers other than Dell, we continue to pursue additional qualifications of NVvault™ with other OEMs and to target customer applications such as online transaction processing (“OLTP”), virtualization, big data analytics, high speed transaction processing, high performance database, and in‑memory database applications. We also introduced EXPRESSvault™ in March 2011, and we continue to pursue qualification of next generation DDR3 NVvault™ with customers. Our future operating results will depend on our ability to commercialize these NVvault™ product extensions, as well as other products such as HyperCloud® and HyperVault and other high‑density and high-performance solutions. HyperVault is still under development and may require substantial additional investment. We may not be successful in expanding our qualifications or in marketing any new or enhanced products.

 

We are subject to risks relating to our focus on developing our HyperCloud® and NVvault™ products and lack of market diversification.

 

We have historically derived a substantial portion of our net sales from sales of our high performance memory subsystems for use in the server market. We expect these memory subsystems to continue to account for a portion of our net sales in the near term, although we may be unable to meet customer demand for our HyperCloud® or NVvault™ products in future periods if we experience disruptions in the supply of raw materials. We believe that continued market acceptance of these products or derivative products that incorporate our core memory subsystem technology for use in servers is critical to our success.

 

We have invested a significant portion of our research and development budget into the design of ASIC and hybrid devices, including the HyperCloud® memory subsystem, introduced in November 2009, as well as our NVvault family of products. These designs and the products they are incorporated into are subject to increased risks as compared to our legacy products. For example:

 

 

 

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We experienced a longer qualification cycle than anticipated with our HyperCloud® memory subsystems, and as a result, we have not generated significant HyperCloud® product revenues to date relative to our investment in the product. We entered into collaborative agreements with both IBM and HP pursuant to which these OEMs qualified the 16GB and 32GB versions of HyperCloud® for use with their products. While we and each of the OEMs committed financial and other resources toward the collaboration, the efforts undertaken with each of these collaborative agreements have not resulted in significant product margins for us to date relative to our investment in developing and marketing these products. We must secure an adequate supply of DRAM in order to continue to sell our HyperCloud® product in future periods and, even assuming we are successful in maintaining an adequate supply, we cannot provide any assurances that we will achieve sufficient revenues or margins from our HyperCloud® products.

 

Additionally, if the demand for servers deteriorates or if the demand for our products to be incorporated in servers declines, our operating results would be adversely affected, and we would be forced to diversify our product portfolio and our target markets. We may not be able to achieve this diversification, and our inability to do so may adversely affect our business.

 

We use a small number of custom ASIC, DRAM ICs and NAND suppliers and are subject to risks of disruption in the supply of custom ASIC, DRAM ICs and NAND.

 

Our ability to fulfill customer orders or produce qualification samples is dependent on a sufficient supply of DRAM ICs and NAND, which are essential components of our memory subsystems. We are also dependent on a sufficient supply of custom ASIC devices to produce our HyperCloud® memory modules. There are a relatively small number of suppliers of DRAM ICs and NAND, and we purchase from only a subset of these suppliers. We have no long‑term DRAM or NAND supply contracts.

 

From time to time, shortages in DRAM ICs and NAND have required some suppliers to limit the supply of their DRAM ICs and NAND. We have experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of DRAM and flash required to create our HyperCloud®, NVvault and Planar X VLP products, and we are continually working to secure adequate supplies of DRAM and flash necessary to fill customers’ orders for our products in a timely manner. If we are unable to obtain a sufficient supply of DRAM ICs or NAND flash to meet our customers’ requirements, these customers may reduce future orders for our products or not purchase our products at all, which would cause our net sales to decline and harm our operating results. In addition, our reputation could be harmed and, even assuming we are successful in resolving supply chain disruptions, we may not be able to replace any lost business with new customers, and we may lose market share to our competitors.

 

Additionally, we could face obstacles in moving production of our ASIC components away from our current design and production partners. Our dependence on a small number of suppliers and the lack of any guaranteed sources of ASIC components, DRAM and NAND supply expose us to several risks, including the inability to obtain an adequate supply of these important components, price increases, delivery delays and poor quality.

 

Historical declines in customer demand and our revenues caused us to reduce our purchases of DRAM ICs and NAND. Such fluctuations could occur in the future. Should we not maintain sufficient purchase levels with some suppliers, our ability to obtain supplies of raw materials may be impaired due to the practice of some suppliers to allocate their products to customers with the highest regular demand.

 

Our customers qualify the ASIC components, DRAM ICs and NAND of our suppliers for use in their systems. If one of our suppliers should experience quality control problems, it may be disqualified by one or more of our

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customers. This would disrupt our supplies of ASIC components, DRAM ICs and NAND and reduce the number of suppliers available to us, and may require that we qualify a new supplier. If our suppliers are unable to produce qualification samples on a timely basis or at all, we could experience delays in the qualification process, which could have a significant impact on our ability to sell that product.

 

We may lose our competitive position if we are unable to timely and cost-effectively develop new or enhanced products that meet our customers’ requirements and achieve market acceptance.

 

Our industry is characterized by intense competition, rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and rapid product obsolescence. Evolving industry standards and technological change or new, competitive technologies could render our existing products obsolete. Accordingly, our ability to compete in the future will depend in large part on our ability to identify and develop new or enhanced products on a timely and cost-effective basis, and to respond to changing customer requirements. In order to develop and introduce new or enhanced products, we need to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our product development efforts are costly and inherently risky. It is difficult to foresee changes or developments in technology or anticipate the adoption of new standards. Moreover, once these things are identified, if at all, we will need to hire the appropriate technical personnel or retain third party designers, develop the product, identify and eliminate design flaws, and manufacture the product in production quantities either in-house or through third-party manufacturers. As a result, we may not be able to successfully develop new or enhanced products or we may experience delays in the development and introduction of new or enhanced products. Delays in product development and introduction could result in the loss of, or delays in generating, net sales and the loss of market share, as well as damage to our reputation. Even if we develop new or enhanced products, they may not meet our customers’ requirements or gain market acceptance.

 

Our customers require that our products undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process without any assurance of net sales.

 

Our prospective customers generally make a significant commitment of resources to test and evaluate our memory subsystems prior to purchasing our products and integrating them into their systems. This extensive qualification process involves rigorous reliability testing and evaluation of our products, which may continue for nine months or longer and is often subject to delays. In addition to qualification of specific products, some of our customers may also require us to undergo a technology qualification if our product designs incorporate innovative technologies that the customer has not previously encountered. Such technology qualifications often take substantially longer than product qualifications and can take over a year to complete. Qualification by a prospective customer does not ensure any sales to that prospective customer. Even after successful qualification and sales of our products to a customer, changes in our products, our manufacturing facilities, our production processes or our component suppliers may require a new qualification process, which may result in additional delays.

 

In addition, because the qualification process is both product specific and platform specific, our existing customers sometimes require us to re-qualify our products, or to qualify our new products, for use in new platforms or applications. For example, as our OEM customers transition from prior generation architectures to current generation

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architectures, we must design and qualify new products for use by those customers. In the past, the process of design and qualification has taken up to nine months to complete, during which time our net sales to those customers declined significantly. After our products are qualified, it can take several months before the customer begins production and we begin to generate net sales from such customer.

 

Likewise, when our memory and NAND flash component vendors discontinue production of components, it may be necessary for us to design and qualify new products for our customers. Such customers may require of us or we may decide to purchase an estimated quantity of discontinued memory components necessary to ensure a steady supply of existing products until products with new components can be qualified. Purchases of this nature may affect our liquidity. Additionally, our estimation of quantities required during the transition may be incorrect, which could adversely impact our results of operations through lost revenue opportunities or charges related to excess and obsolete inventory.

 

We must devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualify our products with prospective customers in anticipation of sales. Significant delays in the qualification process, such as those experienced with our HyperCloud ® product, could result in an inability to keep up with rapid technology change or new, competitive technologies. If we delay or do not succeed in qualifying a product with an existing or prospective customer, we will not be able to sell that product to that customer, which may result in our holding excess and obsolete inventory and harm our operating results and business.

 

Sales to a limited number of customers represent a significant portion of our net sales and the loss of, or a significant reduction in sales to, any one of these customers could materially harm our business.

 

Sales to certain of our OEM customers have historically represented a substantial majority of our net sales. Approximately 20%, 14% and 19% of our net sales in the fiscal year ended December 27, 2014 were to three of our customers. Approximately 45% and 15% of our nets sales in the fiscal year ended December 28, 2013 were to two of our customers. The composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net sales have varied and will likely continue to vary from period to period as our OEMs progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell. We do not have long-term agreements with our OEM customers, or with any other customer. Any one of these customers could decide at any time to discontinue, decrease or delay their purchase of our products. In addition, the prices that these customers pay for our products could change at any time. The loss of any of our OEM customers, or a significant reduction in sales to any of them, could significantly reduce our net sales and adversely affect our operating results.

 

Our ability to maintain or increase our net sales to our key customers depends on a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include our customers’ continued sales of servers and other computing systems that incorporate our memory subsystems and our customers’ continued incorporation of our products into their systems. Because of these and other factors, net sales to these customers may not continue and the amount of such net sales may not reach or exceed historical levels in any future period. Because these customers account for a substantial portion of our net sales, the failure of any one of these customers to pay on a timely basis would negatively impact our cash flow. In addition, while we may not be contractually obligated to accept returned products, we may determine that it is in our best interest to accept returns in order to maintain good relations with our customers. As we describe in more detail elsewhere in this Report, we have experienced a significant decline in sales of NVvault™ to our key customer, Dell, and we did not have any sales of NVvault™ to Dell during the fiscal year ended December 27, 2014. This loss of sales to Dell has had a significant impact on our revenues and gross profit.

 

A limited number of relatively large potential customers dominate the markets for our products.

 

Our target markets are characterized by a limited number of large companies. Consolidation in one or more of our target markets may further increase this industry concentration. As a result, we anticipate that sales of our products will continue to be concentrated among a limited number of large customers in the foreseeable future. We believe that our financial results will depend in significant part on our success in establishing and maintaining relationships with, and effecting substantial sales to, these potential customers. Even if we establish and successfully maintain these relationships, our financial results will be largely dependent on these customers’ sales and business results.

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If a standardized memory solution which addresses the demands of our customers is developed, our net sales and market share may decline.

 

Many of our memory subsystems are specifically designed for our OEM customers’ high performance systems. In a drive to reduce costs and assure supply of their memory module demand, our OEM customers may endeavor to design JEDEC standard DRAM modules into their new products. Although we also manufacture JEDEC modules, this trend could reduce the demand for our higher priced customized memory solutions which in turn would have a negative impact on our financial results. In addition, customers deploying custom memory solutions today may in the future choose to adopt a JEDEC standard, and the adoption of a JEDEC standard module instead of a previously custom module might allow new competitors to participate in a share of our customers’ memory module business that previously belonged to us.

 

If our OEM customers were to adopt JEDEC standard modules, our future business may be limited to identifying the next generation of high performance memory demands of OEM customers and developing solutions that addresses such demands. Until fully implemented, this next generation of products may constitute a much smaller market, which may reduce our net sales and market share.

 

We may not be able to maintain our competitive position because of the intense competition in our targeted markets.

 

We participate in a highly competitive market, and we expect competition to intensify. Many of our competitors have longer operating histories, significantly greater resources and name recognition, a larger base of customers and longer‑standing relationships with customers and suppliers than we have. As a result, some of these competitors are able to devote greater resources to the development, promotion and sale of products and are better positioned than we are to influence customer acceptance of their products over our products. These competitors also may be able to respond better to new or emerging technologies or standards and may be able to deliver products with comparable or superior performance at a lower price. For these reasons, we may not be able to compete successfully against these competitors. We also expect to face competition from new and emerging companies that may enter our existing or future markets. These potential competitors may have similar or alternative products which may be less costly or provide additional features.

 

In addition to the competition we face from DRAM and logic suppliers such as SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron, Inphi and IDT, some of our OEM customers have their own internal design groups that may develop solutions that compete with ours. These design groups have some advantages over us, including direct access to their respective companies’ technical information and technology roadmaps. Our OEM customers also have substantially greater resources, financial and otherwise, than we do, and may have lower cost structures than ours. As a result, they may be able to design and manufacture competitive products more efficiently or inexpensively. If any of these OEM customers are successful in competing against us, our sales could decline, our margins could be negatively impacted and we could lose market share, any or all of which could harm our business and results of operations. Further, some of our significant suppliers are also competitors, many of whom have the ability to manufacture competitive products at lower costs as a result of their higher levels of integration.

 

We also face competition from manufacturers of DIMMs operating on the memory channel that employ NAND flash either alone or in combination with DRAM. For example, manufacturers such as Micron, AgigA Tech, Smart Modular, Viking, and SK Hynix offer NVDIMM products that compete with our NVvault™ NVDIMM. The ULLtraDIMM product manufactured by SanDisk also uses NAND flash on the memory channel and competes with NVDIMMs from Netlist and other manufacturers. NVDIMMs and the ULLtraDIMM will also compete with our future products that combine DRAM and NAND flash on the memory channel, such as our HyperVault™ product.

 

We expect our competitors to continue to improve the performance of their current products, reduce their prices and introduce new or enhanced technologies that may offer greater performance and improved pricing. If we are unable to match or exceed the improvements made by our competitors, our market position would deteriorate and our net sales would decline. In addition, our competitors may develop future generations and enhancements of competitive products that may render our technologies obsolete or uncompetitive.

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If we fail to protect our proprietary rights, our customers or our competitors might gain access to our proprietary designs, processes and technologies, which could adversely affect our operating results.

 

We rely on a combination of patent protection, trade secret laws and restrictions on disclosure to protect our intellectual property rights. We have submitted a number of patent applications regarding our proprietary processes and technology. It is not certain when or if any of the claims in the remaining applications will be allowed. As of December 27, 2014, we had 54 U.S. and foreign patents issued and over 34 pending applications worldwide. We intend to continue filing patent applications with respect to most of the new processes and technologies that we develop. However, patent protection may not be available for some of these processes or technologies.

 

It is possible that our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights may not:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Others may attempt to reverse engineer, copy or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technologies without our consent. Monitoring the unauthorized use of our technologies is difficult. We cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent the unauthorized use of our technologies. This is particularly true in foreign countries, such as the PRC, where we have established a manufacturing facility and where the laws may not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as applicable U.S. laws.

 

If some or all of the claims in our patent applications are not allowed, or if any of our intellectual property protections are limited in scope by the USPTO or our foreign patents being subjected to invalidation proceedings with their respective authorities, or by a court or circumvented by others, we could face increased competition with regard to our products and be unable to execute on our strategy of monetizing our intellectual property. Increased competition or an inability to monetize our intellectual property could significantly harm our business, our operating results and prospects. Currently five of our patents are the subject of inter partes reexamination proceedings with the USPTO, or appeals therefrom, and we cannot assure you that any of these proceedings will result in an outcome favorable to us.

 

We are involved in and expect to continue to be involved in costly legal and administrative proceedings to defend against claims that we infringe the intellectual property rights of others or to enforce or protect our intellectual property rights.

 

As is common to the semiconductor industry, we have experienced substantial litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. Lawsuits claiming that we are infringing others’ intellectual property rights have been and may in the future be brought against us, and we are currently defending against claims of invalidity in the USPTO.

 

The process of obtaining and protecting patents is inherently uncertain. In addition to the patent issuance process established by law and the procedures of the USPTO, we must comply with JEDEC administrative procedures in protecting our intellectual property within its industry standard setting process. These procedures evolve over time, are subject to variability in their application, and may be inconsistent with each other. Failure to comply with JEDEC’s administrative procedures could jeopardize our ability to claim that our patents have been infringed.

 

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By making use of new technologies and entering new markets there is an increased likelihood that others might allege that our products infringe on their intellectual property rights. Litigation is inherently uncertain, and an adverse outcome in existing or any future litigation could subject us to significant liability for damages or invalidate our proprietary rights. An adverse outcome also could force us to take specific actions, including causing us to:

 

 

 

 

 

If any adverse ruling in any such matter occurs, any resulting limitations in our ability to market our products, or delays and costs associated with redesigning our products or payments of license fees to third parties, or any failure by us to develop or license a substitute technology on commercially reasonable terms could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

There is a limited pool of experienced technical personnel that we can draw upon to meet our hiring needs. As a result, a number of our existing employees have worked for our existing or potential competitors at some point during their careers, and we anticipate that a number of our future employees will have similar work histories. In the past, some of these competitors have claimed that our employees misappropriated their trade secrets or violated non‑competition or non‑solicitation agreements. Some of our competitors may threaten or bring legal action involving similar claims against us or our existing employees or make such claims in the future to prevent us from hiring qualified candidates. Lawsuits of this type may be brought, even if there is no merit to the claim, simply as a strategy to drain our financial resources and divert management’s attention away from our business.

 

Our business strategy also includes litigating claims against others, including our competitors, customers and former employees, to enforce our intellectual property, contractual and commercial rights including, in particular, our trade secrets, as well as to challenge the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. We could become subject to counterclaims or countersuits against us as a result of this litigation. Moreover, any legal disputes with customers could cause them to cease buying or using our products or delay their purchase of our products and could substantially damage our relationship with them.

 

Any litigation, regardless of its outcome, would be time consuming and costly to resolve, divert our management’s time and attention and negatively impact our results of operations. We cannot assure you that current or future infringement claims by or against third parties or claims for indemnification by customers or end users of our products resulting from infringement claims will not be asserted in the future or that such assertions or claims will not materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 

As a result of the unfavorable outcome in connection with the litigation against Diablo Technologies, Inc., for controller chips used by SanDisk Corporation in its high‑speed ULLtraDIMM SSD product line, we may expend significant resources to pursue an appeal in the case, which may not be resolved in a timely manner nor yield a more favorable outcome. Moreover, the expenses associated with the matter, including the bond that may now be subject to forfeiture, may materially adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

 

We may become involved in non-patent related litigation and administrative proceedings that may materially adversely affect us.

 

From time to time, we may become involved in various legal proceedings relating to matters incidental to the ordinary course of our business, including commercial, product liability, employment, class action, whistleblower and

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other litigation and claims, and governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources and cause us to incur significant expenses. Furthermore, because litigation is inherently unpredictable, the results of these actions could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

Our operating results may be adversely impacted by worldwide economic and political uncertainties and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the cyclical nature of and volatility in the memory market and semiconductor industry.

 

Adverse changes in domestic and global economic and political conditions have made it extremely difficult for our customers, our vendors and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and they have caused and could continue to cause U.S. and foreign businesses to slow spending on our products and services, which would further delay and lengthen sales cycles. In addition, sales of our products are dependent upon demand in the computing, networking, communications, printer, storage and industrial markets. These markets have been cyclical and are characterized by wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. These markets have experienced significant downturns, often connected with, or in anticipation of, maturing product cycles, reductions in technology spending and declines in general economic conditions. These downturns have been characterized by diminished product demand, production overcapacity, high inventory levels and the erosion of average selling prices and may result in reduced willingness of potential licensees to enter into license agreement with us.

 

We may experience substantial period-to-period fluctuations in future operating results due to factors affecting the computing, networking, communications, printers, storage and industrial markets. A decline or significant shortfall in demand in any one of these markets could have a material adverse effect on the demand for our products. As a result, our sales will likely decline during these periods. In addition, because many of our costs and operating expenses are relatively fixed, if we are unable to control our expenses adequately in response to reduced sales, our gross margins, operating income and cash flow would be negatively impacted.

 

During challenging economic times our customers may face issues gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impair their ability to make timely payments to us. If that were to occur, we may be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our days sales outstanding would be negatively impacted. Furthermore, our vendors may face similar issues gaining access to credit, which may limit their ability to supply components or provide trade credit to us. We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or subsequent economic recovery, worldwide, or in the memory market and related semiconductor industry. If the economy or markets in which we operate do not continue to improve or if conditions worsen, our business, financial condition and results of operations will likely be materially and adversely affected. Additionally, the combination of our lengthy sales cycle coupled with challenging macroeconomic conditions could compound the negative impact on the results of our operations.

 

Our lack of a significant backlog of unfilled orders, and the difficulty inherent in forecasting customer demand, makes it difficult to forecast our short-term production requirements to meet that demand, and any failure to optimally calibrate our production capacity and inventory levels to meet customer demand could adversely affect our revenues, gross margins and earnings.

 

We make significant decisions regarding the levels of business that we will seek and accept, production schedules, component procurement commitments, personnel needs and other resource requirements, based on our estimates of customer requirements. We do not have long-term purchase agreements with our customers. Instead, our customers often place purchase orders no more than two weeks in advance of their desired delivery date, and these purchase orders generally have no cancellation or rescheduling penalty provisions. The short-term nature of commitments by many of our customers, the fact that our customers may cancel or defer purchase orders for any reason, and the possibility of unexpected changes in demand for our customers’ products each reduce our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements for our products. This fact, combined with the quick turn-around times that apply to each order, makes it difficult to forecast our production needs and allocate production capacity efficiently. We attempt to forecast the demand for the DRAM ICs, NAND, and other components needed to manufacture our products. Lead times for components vary significantly and depend on various factors, such as the specific supplier and the demand and supply for a component at a given time.

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Our production expense and component purchase levels are based in part on our forecasts of our customers’ future product requirements and to a large extent are fixed in the short term. As a result, we likely will be unable to adjust spending on a timely basis to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in those orders. If we overestimate customer demand, we may have excess raw material inventory of DRAM ICs and NAND. If there is a subsequent decline in the prices of DRAM ICs or NAND, the value of our inventory will fall. As a result, we may need to write-down the value of our DRAM IC or NAND inventory, which may result in a significant decrease in our gross margin and financial condition. Also, to the extent that we manufacture products in anticipation of future demand that does not materialize, or in the event a customer cancels or reduces outstanding orders, we could experience an unanticipated increase in our finished goods inventory. In the past, we have had to write-down inventory due to obsolescence, excess quantities and declines in market value below our costs. Any significant shortfall of customer orders in relation to our expectations could hurt our operating results, cash flows and financial condition.

 

Also, any rapid increases in production required by our customers could strain our resources and reduce our margins. If we underestimate customer demand, we may not have sufficient inventory of DRAM ICs and NAND on hand to manufacture enough product to meet that demand. We also may not have sufficient manufacturing capacity at any given time to meet our customers’ demands for rapid increases in production. These shortages of inventory and capacity will lead to delays in the delivery of our products, and we could forego sales opportunities, lose market share and damage our customer relationships.

 

Declines in our average sales prices, driven by volatile prices for DRAM ICs and NAND, among other factors, may result in declines in our revenues and gross profit.

 

Our industry is competitive and historically has been characterized by declines in average sales price, based in part on the market price of DRAM ICs and NAND, which have historically constituted a substantial portion of the total cost of our memory subsystems. Our average sales prices may decline due to several factors, including overcapacity in the worldwide supply of DRAM and NAND memory components as a result of worldwide economic conditions, increased manufacturing efficiencies, implementation of new manufacturing processes and expansion of manufacturing capacity by component suppliers.

 

Once our prices with a customer are negotiated, we are generally unable to revise pricing with that customer until our next regularly scheduled price adjustment. Consequently, we are exposed to the risks associated with the volatility of the price of DRAM ICs and NAND during that period. If the market prices for DRAM ICs and NAND increase, we generally cannot pass the price increases on to our customers for products purchased under an existing purchase order. As a result, our cost of sales could increase and our gross margins could decrease. Alternatively, if there are declines in the price of DRAM ICs and NAND, we may need to reduce our selling prices for subsequent purchase orders, which may result in a decline in our expected net sales.

 

In addition, since a large percentage of our sales are to a small number of customers that are primarily distributors and large OEMs, these customers have exerted, and we expect they will continue to exert, pressure on us to make price concessions. If not offset by increases in volume of sales or the sales of newly-developed products with higher margins, decreases in average sales prices would likely have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.

 

Our production expense and component purchase levels are based in part on our forecasts of our customers’ future product requirements and to a large extent are fixed in the short term. As a result, we likely will be unable to adjust spending on a timely basis to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in those orders. If we overestimate customer demand, we may have excess raw material inventory of DRAM ICs and NAND. If there is a subsequent decline in the prices of DRAM ICs or NAND, the value of our inventory will fall. As a result, we may need to write-down the value of our DRAM IC or NAND inventory, which may result in a significant decrease in our gross margin and financial condition. Also, to the extent that we manufacture products in anticipation of future demand that does not materialize, or in the event a customer cancels or reduces outstanding orders, we could experience an unanticipated increase in our finished goods inventory. In the past, we have had to write-down inventory due to obsolescence, excess

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quantities and declines in market value below our costs. Any significant shortfall of customer orders in relation to our expectations could hurt our operating results, cash flows and financial condition.

 

Also, any rapid increases in production required by our customers could strain our resources and reduce our margins. If we underestimate customer demand, we may not have sufficient inventory of DRAM ICs and NAND on hand to manufacture enough product to meet that demand. We also may not have sufficient manufacturing capacity at any given time to meet our customers’ demands for rapid increases in production. These shortages of inventory and capacity will lead to delays in the delivery of our products, and we could forego sales opportunities, lose market share and damage our customer relationships.

 

If the supply of other component materials used to manufacture our products is interrupted, or if our inventory becomes obsolete, our results of operations and financial condition could be adversely affected.

 

We use consumables and other components, including PCBs, to manufacture our memory subsystems. We sometimes procure PCBs and other components from single or limited sources to take advantage of volume pricing discounts. Material shortages or transportation problems could interrupt the manufacture of our products from time to time in the future. These delays in manufacturing could adversely affect our results of operations.

 

Frequent technology changes and the introduction of next-generation products also may result in the obsolescence of other items of inventory, such as our custom-built PCBs, which could reduce our gross margin and adversely affect our operating performance and financial condition. We may not be able to sell some products developed for one customer to another customer because our products are often designed to address specific customer requirements, and even if we are able to sell these products to another customer, our margin on such products may be reduced.

 

A prolonged disruption of our manufacturing facility could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

We maintain a manufacturing facility in the PRC for producing most of our products, which allows us to utilize our materials and processes, protect our intellectual property and develop the technology for manufacturing. A prolonged disruption or material malfunction of, interruption in or the loss of operations at our manufacturing facility, or the failure to maintain a sufficient labor force at such facility, could require us to rely on third parties for our manufacturing needs, which generally increases our manufacturing costs and decreases our profit margins, and could limit our capacity to meet customer demand and delay new product development until a replacement facility and equipment, if necessary, were found. The replacement of the manufacturing facility could take an extended amount of time before manufacturing operations could restart. The potential delays and costs resulting from these steps could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.  In July 2014, our PRC facility suffered water damage as a result of heavy rain and floods, which forced us to temporarily halt manufacturing at our PRC facility while necessary repairs or replacements were made to our PRC facility and to certain of our manufacturing equipment.  This incident caused us to incur additional expenses as we shifted our manufacturing activities to a third-party manufacturing facility in the PRC to enable us to mitigate the disruption in shipments to our customers. While we believe we have contained the disruptions we expect that our relationships with our key customers could be materially harmed if we incur additional manufacturing disruptions in the future. We are currently processing this incident as a claim with our insurer but there can be no assurance that we will recover our losses from our insurer. We are unable to provide assurances that similar events will not occur in the future or that we will be able to secure alternative manufacturing capabilities if manufacturing at our PRC facility is disrupted.

 

If we are unable to manufacture our products efficiently, our operating results could suffer.

 

We must continuously review and improve our manufacturing processes in an effort to maintain satisfactory manufacturing yields and product performance, to lower our costs and to otherwise remain competitive. As we manufacture more complex products, the risk of encountering delays or difficulties increases. The start-up costs associated with implementing new manufacturing technologies, methods and processes, including the purchase of new equipment, and any resulting manufacturing delays and inefficiencies, could negatively impact our results of operations.

 

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If we need to add manufacturing capacity, an expansion of our existing manufacturing facility or establishment of a new facility could be subject to factory audits by our customers. Any delays or unexpected costs resulting from this audit process could adversely affect our net sales and results of operations. In addition, we cannot be certain that we will be able to increase our manufacturing capacity on a timely basis or meet the standards of any applicable factory audits.

 

We depend on third-parties to design and manufacture custom components for some of our products.

 

Significant customized components, such as ASICs, that are used in some of our products such as HyperCloud® are designed and manufactured by third parties. The ability and willingness of such third parties to perform in accordance with their agreements with us is largely outside of our control. If one or more of our design or manufacturing partners fails to perform its obligations in a timely manner or at satisfactory quality levels, our ability to bring products to market or deliver products to our customers, as well as our reputation, could suffer. In the event of any such failures, we may have no readily available alternative source of supply for such products, since, in our experience, the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new design and/or manufacturing partner is at least 12 months, and the estimated time for our OEM customers to re-qualify our product with components from a new vendor ranges from four to nine months. We cannot assure you that we can redesign, or cause to have redesigned, our customized components to be manufactured by a new manufacturer in a timely manner, nor can we assure you that we will not infringe on the intellectual property of our current design or manufacture partner when we redesign the custom components, or cause such components to be redesigned by a new manufacturer. A manufacturing disruption experienced by our manufacturing partners, the failure of our manufacturing partners to dedicate adequate resources to the production of our products, the financial instability of our manufacturing or design partners, or any other failure of our design or manufacturing partners to perform according to their agreements with us, would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

We have many other risks due to our dependence on third-party manufacturers, including: reduced control over delivery schedules, quality, manufacturing yields and cost; the potential lack of adequate capacity during periods of excess demand; limited warranties on products supplied to us; and potential misappropriation of our intellectual property. We are dependent on our manufacturing partners to manufacture products with acceptable quality and manufacturing yields, to deliver those products to us on a timely basis and to allocate a portion of their manufacturing capacity sufficient to meet our needs. Although our products are designed using the process design rules of the particular manufacturers, we cannot assure you that our manufacturing partners will be able to achieve or maintain acceptable yields or deliver sufficient quantities of components on a timely basis or at an acceptable cost. Additionally, we cannot assure you that our manufacturing partners will continue to devote adequate resources to produce our products or continue to advance the process design technologies on which the qualification and manufacturing of our products are based.

 

If our products do not meet the quality standards of our customers, we may be forced to stop shipments of products until the quality issues are resolved.

 

Our customers require our products to meet strict quality standards. Should our products not meet such standards, our customers may discontinue purchases from us until we are able to resolve the quality issues that are causing us to not meet the standards. Such “quality holds” could have a significant adverse impact on our revenues and operating results.

 

If our products are defective or are used in defective systems, we may be subject to warranty, product recalls or product liability claims.

 

If our products are defectively manufactured, contain defective components or are used in defective or malfunctioning systems, we could be subject to warranty and product liability claims and product recalls, safety alerts or advisory notices. While we have product liability insurance coverage, it may not be adequate to satisfy claims made against us. We also may be unable to obtain insurance in the future at satisfactory rates or in adequate amounts.

 

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Although we generally attempt to contractually limit our exposure to incidental and consequential damages, if these contract provisions are not enforced or are unenforceable or if liabilities arise that are not effectively limited, we could incur substantial costs in defending or settling product liability claims.

 

Warranty and product liability claims or product recalls, regardless of their ultimate outcome, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and reputation, and on our ability to attract and retain customers. In addition, we may determine that it is in our best interest to accept product returns in circumstances where we are not contractually obligated to do so in order to maintain good relations with our customers. Accepting product returns may negatively impact our operating results.

 

If we are required to obtain licenses to use third party intellectual property and we fail to do so, our business could be harmed.

 

Although some of the components used in our final products contain the intellectual property of third parties, we believe that our suppliers bear the sole responsibility to obtain any rights and licenses to such third party intellectual property. While we have no knowledge that any third party licensor disputes our belief, we cannot assure you that disputes will not arise in the future. The operation of our business and our ability to compete successfully depends significantly on our continued operation without claims of infringement or demands resulting from such claims, including demands for payments of money in the form of, for example, ongoing licensing fees.

 

We are also developing products to enter new markets. Similar to our current products, we may use components in these new products that contain the intellectual property of third parties. While we plan to exercise precautions to avoid infringing on the intellectual property rights of third parties, we cannot assure you that disputes will not arise.

 

If it is determined that we are required to obtain inbound licenses and we fail to obtain licenses, or if such licenses are not available on economically feasible terms, our business, operating results and financial condition could be significantly harmed.

 

The flash memory market is constantly evolving and competitive, and we may not have rights to manufacture and sell certain types of products utilizing emerging flash formats, or we may be required to pay a royalty to sell products utilizing these formats.

 

The flash-based storage market is constantly undergoing rapid technological change and evolving industry standards. Many consumer devices, such as digital cameras, PDAs and smartphones, are transitioning to emerging flash memory formats, such as the Memory Stick, and xD Picture Card formats, which we do not currently manufacture and do not have rights to manufacture. Although we do not currently serve the consumer flash market, it is possible that certain OEMs may choose to adopt these higher-volume, lower-cost formats. This could result in a decline in demand, on a relative basis, for other products that we manufacture such as CompactFlash, SD and embedded USB drives. If we decide to manufacture flash memory products utilizing emerging formats such as those mentioned, we will be required to secure licenses to give us the right to manufacture such products that may not be available at reasonable rates or at all. If we are not able to supply flash card formats at competitive prices or if we were to have product shortages, our net sales could be adversely impacted and our customers would likely cancel orders or seek other suppliers to replace us.

 

Our indemnification obligations for the infringement by our products of the intellectual property rights of others could require us to pay substantial damages.

 

As is common in the industry, we currently have in effect a number of agreements in which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our customers and suppliers from damages and costs which may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights. The scope of such indemnity varies, but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. Our insurance does not cover intellectual property infringement. The term of these indemnification agreements is generally perpetual any time after execution of the agreement. The maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification agreements is unlimited. We may periodically have to respond to claims and litigate these types of indemnification obligations. Although our suppliers may bear responsibility for the intellectual

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property inherent in the components they sell to us, they may lack the financial ability to stand behind such indemnities. Additionally, it may be costly to enforce any indemnifications that they have granted to us. Accordingly, any indemnification claims by customers could require us to incur significant legal fees and could potentially result in the payment of substantial damages, both of which could result in a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

 

We depend on a few key employees, and if we lose the services of any of those employees or are unable to hire additional personnel, our business could be harmed.

 

To date, we have been highly dependent on the experience, relationships and technical knowledge of certain key employees. We believe that our future success will be dependent on our ability to retain the services of these key employees, develop their successors, reduce our reliance on them, and properly manage the transition of their roles should departures occur. The loss of these key employees could delay the development and introduction of, and negatively impact our ability to sell, our products and otherwise harm our business. We do not have employment agreements with any of these key employees other than Chun K. Hong, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. We maintain “Key Man” life insurance on Chun K. Hong; however, we do not carry “Key Man” life insurance on any of our other key employees.

 

Our future success also depends on our ability to attract, retain and motivate highly skilled engineering, manufacturing, and other technical and sales personnel. Competition for experienced personnel is intense. We may not be successful in attracting new engineers or other technical personnel, or in retaining or motivating our existing personnel. If we are unable to hire and retain engineers with the skills necessary to keep pace with the evolving technologies in our markets, our ability to continue to provide our current products and to develop new or enhanced products will be negatively impacted, which would harm our business. In addition, the shortage of experienced engineers, and other factors, may lead to increased recruiting, relocation and compensation costs for such engineers, which may exceed our expectations and resources. These increased costs may make hiring new engineers difficult, or may increase our operating expenses.

 

Historically, a significant portion of our workforce has consisted of contract personnel. We invest considerable time and expense in training these contract employees. We may experience high turnover rates in our contract employee workforce, which may require us to expend additional resources in the future. If we convert any of these contract employees into permanent employees, we may have to pay finder’s fees to the contract agency.

 

We rely on third-party manufacturers’ representatives and the failure of these manufacturers’ representatives to perform as expected could reduce our future sales.

 

We sell some of our products to customers through manufacturers’ representatives. We are unable to predict the extent to which our manufacturers’ representatives will be successful in marketing and selling our products. Moreover, many of our manufacturers’ representatives also market and sell other, potentially competing products. Our representatives may terminate their relationships with us at any time. Our future performance will also depend, in part, on our ability to attract additional manufacturers’ representatives that will be able to market and support our products effectively, especially in markets in which we have not previously distributed our products. If we cannot retain our current manufacturers’ representatives or recruit additional or replacement manufacturers’ representatives, our sales and operating results will be harmed.

 

The operation of our manufacturing facility in the PRC could expose us to significant risks.

 

Since 2009, most of our world-wide manufacturing production has been performed at our manufacturing facility in the PRC. Language and cultural differences, as well as the geographic distance from our headquarters in Irvine, California, further compound the difficulties of running a manufacturing operation in the PRC.  Our management has limited experience in creating or overseeing foreign operations, and the ongoing management of our PRC facility may require our management team to divert substantial amounts of their time, particularly if we encounter operational difficulties or manufacturing disruptions at our PRC facility.  We may not be able to maintain control over product

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quality, delivery schedules, manufacturing yields and costs. Furthermore, the costs related to having excess capacity have in the past and may in the future continue to have an adverse impact on our gross margins and operating results.

 

We manage a local workforce that may subject us to regulatory uncertainties. Changes in the labor laws of the PRC could increase the cost of employing the local workforce. The increased industrialization of the PRC, as well as general economic and political conditions in the PRC, could also increase the price of local labor. Any or all combination of these factors could negatively impact the cost savings we currently enjoy from having our manufacturing facility in the PRC.

 

Economic, political and other risks associated with international sales and operations could adversely affect our net sales.

 

Part of our growth strategy involves making sales to foreign corporations and delivering our products to facilities located in foreign countries. To facilitate this process and to meet the long-term projected demand for our products, we have set up a manufacturing facility in the PRC. Selling and manufacturing in foreign countries subjects us to additional risks not present with our domestic operations. We are operating in business and regulatory environments in which we have limited previous experience. We will need to continue to overcome language and cultural barriers to effectively conduct our operations in these environments. In addition, the economies of the PRC and other countries have been highly volatile in the past, resulting in significant fluctuations in local currencies and other instabilities. These instabilities affect a number of our customers and suppliers in addition to our foreign operations and continue to exist or may occur again in the future.

 

In the future, some of our net sales may be denominated in Chinese Renminbi (“RMB”). The Chinese government controls the procedures by which RMB is converted into other currencies, and conversion of RMB generally requires government consent. As a result, RMB may not be freely convertible into other currencies at all times. If the Chinese government institutes changes in currency conversion procedures, or imposes restrictions on currency conversion, those actions may negatively impact our operations and could reduce our operating results. In addition, fluctuations in the exchange rate between RMB and U.S. dollars may adversely affect our expenses and results of operations as well as the value of our assets and liabilities. These fluctuations may also adversely affect the comparability of our period-to-period results. If we decide to declare dividends and repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, we will be required to comply with the procedures and regulations of applicable Chinese law. Any changes to these procedures and regulations, or our failure to comply with those procedures and regulations, could prevent us from making dividends and repatriating funds from our Chinese operations, which could adversely affect our financial condition. If we are able to make dividends and repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, these dividends would be subject to U.S. corporate income tax.

 

International turmoil and the threat of future terrorist attacks, both domestically and internationally, have contributed to an uncertain political and economic climate, both in the U.S. and globally, and have negatively impacted the worldwide economy. The occurrence of one or more of these instabilities could adversely affect our foreign operations and some of our customers or suppliers, each of which could adversely affect our net sales. In addition, our failure to meet applicable regulatory requirements or overcome cultural barriers could result in production delays and increased turn-around times, which would adversely affect our business.

 

Our international sales are subject to other risks, including regulatory risks, tariffs and other trade barriers, timing and availability of export licenses, political and economic instability, difficulties in accounts receivable collections, difficulties in managing distributors, lack of a significant local sales presence, difficulties in obtaining governmental approvals, compliance with a wide variety of complex foreign laws and treaties and potentially adverse tax consequences. In addition, the U.S. or foreign countries may implement quotas, duties, taxes or other charges or restrictions upon the importation or exportation of our products, leading to a reduction in sales and profitability in that country.

 

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Our operations could be disrupted by power outages, natural disasters or other factors.

 

Due to the geographic concentration of our manufacturing operations in our PRC facility, and the operations of certain of our suppliers, a disruption resulting from equipment failure, power failures, quality control issues, human error, government intervention or natural disasters, including earthquakes and floods like those that have struck Japan and Thailand, respectively, could interrupt or interfere with our manufacturing operations and consequently harm our business, financial condition and results of operations. Such disruptions would cause significant delays in shipments of our products and adversely affect our operating results.  In July 2014, our PRC facility suffered water damage as a result of heavy rain and floods, which forced us to temporarily halt manufacturing at our PRC facility while necessary repairs or replacements were made to our PRC facility and to certain of our manufacturing equipment.  This incident caused us to incur additional expenses as we shifted our manufacturing activities to a third-party manufacturing facility in the PRC to enable us to mitigate the disruption in shipments to our customers. While we believe we have contained the disruptions we expect that our relationships with our key customers could be materially harmed if we incur additional manufacturing disruptions in the future. We are currently processing this incident as a claim with our insurer. We are unable to provide assurances that similar events will not occur in the future or that we will be able to secure alternative manufacturing capabilities if manufacturing at our PRC facility is disrupted.

 

Difficulties with our global information technology systems, and/or unauthorized access to such systems, could harm our business.

 

Any failure or malfunctioning of our global information technology system, errors or misuse by system users, difficulties in migrating standalone systems to our centralized systems, or inadequacy of the system in addressing the needs of our operations, could disrupt our ability to timely and accurately manufacture and ship products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.   Any such failure, errors, misuse or inadequacy could also disrupt our ability to timely and accurately process, report and evaluate key operations metrics and key components of our results of operations, financial position and cash flows.  Any such disruptions would likely divert our management and key employees’ attention away from other business matters.  Any disruptions or difficulties that may occur in connection with our global information technology system could also adversely affect our ability to complete important business process, such as the evaluation of our internal control over financial reporting and attestation activities pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

 

In connection with our daily business transactions, we store data about our business, including certain customer data, on our global information technology systems.  While our systems are designed with security measures to prevent unauthorized access, third parties may gain unauthorized access to our systems.  This unauthorized access could take the form of intentional misconduct by computer hackers, employee error, employee malfeasance or otherwise.  Additionally, third parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees or customers into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords or other information, in order to gain access to our information technology system for the purpose of sabotage, or to access our data, including our and our customers’ intellectual property and other confidential business information.  Because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to information technology systems evolve frequently and generally are not recognized until successful, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures.  Any security breach could result in disruption to our business, misappropriation or loss of data, loss of confidence in us by our customers, damage to our reputation, legal liability and a negative impact on our sales.

 

Our failure to comply with environmental laws and regulations could subject us to significant fines and liabilities or cause us to incur significant costs.

 

We are subject to various and frequently changing U.S. federal, state and local and foreign governmental laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment, including those governing the discharge of pollutants into the air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, the cleanup of contaminated sites and the maintenance of a safe workplace. In particular, some of our manufacturing processes may require us to handle and dispose of hazardous materials from time to time. For example, in the past our manufacturing operations have used lead-based solder in the assembly of our products. Today, we use lead-free soldering technologies in our manufacturing processes, as this is required for products entering the European Union. We could incur substantial costs, including

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clean-up costs, civil or criminal fines or sanctions and third-party claims for property damage or personal injury, as a result of violations of, or noncompliance with, environmental laws and regulations. These laws and regulations also could require us to incur significant costs to remain in compliance.

 

Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may cause us to incur additional expenses and could limit the supply and increase the cost of certain metals used in manufacturing our products.

 

In August 2012, the SEC adopted a rule requiring disclosures of specified minerals, known as conflict materials, that are necessary to the functionality or production of products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured by public companies.  The rule requires companies to verify and disclose whether or not such minerals originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo or an adjoining country.  To comply with this rule, we are required to conduct a reasonable country of origin each year and, depending on the results of that inquiry, we may be required to exercise due diligence on the source and chain of custody of conflict minerals contained in our products.  Such due diligence must conform to a nationally or internationally recognized due diligence framework.  We are required to file a disclosure report with the SEC in May of each year relating to the preceding calendar year.  In addition, commencing with the disclosure report relating to the 2015 calendar year, to the extent that we are required to exercise due diligence on the source and chain of custody of conflict minerals, we will be required to obtain an independent private sector audit of our disclosure report and underlying due diligence measures.

 

The due diligence activities required to determine the source and chain of custody of minerals contained in our products are time consuming and may result in significant costs.  Due to the size and complexity of our supply chain, we face significant challenges in verifying the origins of the minerals used in our products.  Further, this rule could affect the availability in sufficient quantities and at competitive prices of certain minerals used in the manufacture of our products, including tantalum, tin, gold and tungsten.  There may be only limited number of sources of “conflict-free” minerals, which could result in increased material and component costs, as well as additional costs associated with potential changes to our products, processes or sources of supply.

 

If we are unable to sufficiently verify the origin of the minerals used in our products through the due diligence measures that we implement, or if we are unable to obtain an audit report each year that concludes that our due diligence measures are in conformity with the criteria set forth in the relevant due diligence framework.  Our reputation could be harmed.  In addition, we may not be able to satisfy customers who require that our products be certified as “conflict-free” which could place us at a competitive disadvantage.

 

Our internal controls over financial reporting may not be effective, which could have a significant and adverse effect on our business.

 

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the related rules and regulations of the SEC, which we collectively refer to as Section 404, require us to evaluate our internal controls over financial reporting to allow management to report on those internal controls as of the end of each year. Effective internal controls are necessary for us to produce reliable financial reports and are important in our effort to prevent financial fraud. In the course of our Section 404 evaluations, we may identify conditions that may result in significant deficiencies or material weaknesses and we may conclude that enhancements, modifications or changes to our internal controls are necessary or desirable. Implementing any such matters would divert the attention of our management, could involve significant costs, and may negatively impact our results of operations.

 

We note that there are inherent limitations on the effectiveness of internal controls, as they cannot prevent collusion, management override or failure of human judgment. If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls or if management or our independent registered public accounting firm were to discover material weaknesses in our internal controls, we may be unable to produce reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, and it could harm our financial condition and results of operations, result in a loss of investor confidence and negatively impact our stock price.

 

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If we do not effectively manage future growth, our resources, systems and controls may be strained and our results of operations may suffer.

 

Any future growth may strain our resources, management information and telecommunication systems, and operational and financial controls. To manage future growth effectively, including any expansion of volume in our manufacturing facility in the PRC, we must be able to improve and expand our systems and controls. We may not be able to do this in a timely or cost-effective manner, and our current systems and controls may not be adequate to support our future operations. In addition, our officers have relatively limited experience in managing a rapidly growing business. As a result, they may not be able to provide the guidance necessary to manage future growth or maintain future market position. Any failure to manage our growth or improve or expand our existing systems and controls, or unexpected difficulties in doing so, could harm our business.

 

We may be unsuccessful in establishing and operating an intellectual property based business.

 

We do not at this time have an intellectual property (IP)-based licensing business and may never succeed in developing such a business. As we are currently in a products-based business model, we may be unsuccessful in developing an IP-based licensing business.  The establishment of this new business may be more difficult or costly than expected and require additional personnel, investments and may be a significant distraction for management. In connection with our IP-based licensing business, our licenses and royalties revenue may be uncertain from period to period, and we may be unable to attract new licensing customers which would materially and adversely affect our results of operations. Our ability to increase our license revenue will depend on a variety of factors, including the performance, quality, breadth and depth of our current and future IP, as well as our sales and marketing capabilities. Once secured, license revenue may be negatively affected by factors within and outside our control, including reductions in our customers’ sales prices, sales volumes and the terms of such licenses.

 

If we acquire other businesses or technologies in the future, these acquisitions could disrupt our business and harm our operating results and financial condition.

 

We will evaluate opportunities to acquire businesses or technologies that might complement our current product offerings or enhance our technical capabilities. We have no experience in acquiring other businesses or technologies. Acquisitions entail a number of risks that could adversely affect our business and operating results, including, but not limited to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Future acquisitions also could cause us to incur debt or be subject to contingent liabilities. In addition, acquisitions could cause us to issue equity securities that could dilute the ownership percentages of our existing stockholders. Furthermore, acquisitions may result in material charges or adverse tax consequences, substantial depreciation, deferred compensation charges, in-process research and development charges, the amortization of amounts

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related to deferred stock-based compensation expense and identifiable purchased intangible assets or impairment of goodwill, any or all of which could negatively affect our results of operations.

 

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

 

As of February 28, 2015, approximately 12.6% of our outstanding common stock was held by affiliates, including 11.3% held by Chun K. Hong, our chief executive officer and chairman of our board of directors. As a result, Mr. Hong has the ability to exert substantial influence over all matters requiring approval by our stockholders, including the election and removal of directors and any proposed merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets and other corporate transactions. This concentration of control could be disadvantageous to other stockholders with interests different from those of Mr. Hong.

 

Anti-takeover provisions under our charter documents and Delaware law could delay or prevent a change of control and could also limit the market price of our stock.

 

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our board of directors that our stockholders might consider favorable. In addition, these provisions could limit the price that investors would be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock. The following are examples of provisions which are included in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, each as amended:

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may prohibit certain business combinations with stockholders owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock. These and other provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, and of Delaware law, could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by the then-current board of directors, including delaying or impeding a merger, tender offer, or proxy contest or other change of control transaction involving our company. Any delay or prevention of a change of control transaction or changes in our board of directors could prevent the consummation of a transaction in which our stockholders could receive a substantial premium over the then-current market price for their shares.

 

The price of and volume in trading of our common stock has and may continue to fluctuate significantly.

 

Our common stock has been publicly traded since November 2006. The price of our common stock and the trading volume of our shares are volatile and have in the past fluctuated significantly. There can be no assurance as to the prices at which our common stock will trade in the future or that an active trading market in our common stock will be sustained in the future. The market price at which our common stock trades may be influenced by many factors, including but not limited to, the following:

 

 

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In addition, shares of our common stock and the public stock markets in general have experienced, and may continue to experience, extreme price and trading volume volatility. These fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock and a stockholder's ability to sell their shares into the market at the desired time or at the desired price.

 

In 2007, following a drop in the market price of our common stock, securities litigation was initiated against us. Given the historic volatility of our industry, we may become engaged in this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation is expensive and time-consuming.

 

Item 2.  Properties

 

Our corporate headquarters is located in approximately 8,203 square feet of space in Irvine, California, under a lease that expires in October 2016. We also currently lease approximately 42,200 square feet of space for our manufacturing facility in the PRC. This lease expires in March 2017.

 

We believe that our current facilities are adequate for our current and expected operations for the next twelve months and that additional space can be obtained if needed.

 

Item 3.  Legal Proceedings

 

The information set forth in the section entitled Litigation and Patent Reexaminations under Note 7 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report is incorporated herein by reference.

 

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PART II

 

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

 

Our common stock began trading on The NASDAQ Global Market under the trading symbol “NLST” on November 30, 2006, and was not publicly traded prior to that date. The following table sets forth the high and low sale prices for our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market for the periods indicated:

 

 

 

As of February 28, 2015 there were approximately 10 holders of record of our shares of common stock.

 

We entered into a Loan and Security Agreement (“Loan Agreement”), on July 18, 2013, with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP (the “Lender”), an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC as successor to DBD Credit Funding LLC. In connection with the Loan Agreement, the Company issued to an affiliate of Lender, seven-year warrants (the “Warrants”) to purchase an aggregate of 1,648,351 shares of the Company’s common stock at a per share price of $1.00, of which 989,011 shares were exercisable immediately on a cash or cashless basis in whole or in part. Pursuant to the Warrants, (i) 329,670 shares subject to the Warrants would become exercisable upon the achievement of certain performance milestones relating to intellectual property matters (the “IP Monetization Milestones”) and (ii) the remaining 329,670 shares subject to the Warrants would become exercisable upon the Company’s receipt of proceeds from the second tranche of the Loan Agreement upon achievement of the IP Monetization Milestones (the “IP Milestone Term Loan”).

 

On February 17, 2015, we entered into that certain Second Amendment to the Loan Agreement (the “Loan Agreement Amendment”) with Lender. In connection with the Loan Agreement Amendment, we cancelled the Warrants and issued new warrants (the “New Warrants”) in substantially the same form as the Warrants (which were cancelled in connection with the issuance of the New Warrants) other than to remove the restrictions upon exercise contained in the Warrants with respect to an aggregate of 659,340 shares of the Company’s Common Stock thereunder relating to the achievement by the Company of the IP Monetization Milestones and the borrowing by the Company of amounts under the IP Milestone Term Loans.

 

The Warrants and New Warrants were issued in private placement transactions that were exempt from registration under Section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933.

 

 

Dividend Policy

 

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. Our current credit facility prohibits the payment of cash dividends. Accordingly, we do not anticipate declaring or paying cash dividends on our capital stock in the foreseeable future. Any payments of cash dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors, and will depend upon our results of operations, earnings, capital requirements, legal and contractual restrictions, and other factors deemed relevant by our board of directors.

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Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

 

Our board of directors and stockholders previously approved our Amended and Restated 2000 Equity Incentive Plan and our Amended and Restated 2006 Equity Incentive Plan. Except as listed in the table below, as of December 27, 2014, we do not have any equity based plans, including individual compensation arrangements that have not been approved by our stockholders. The following table provides information as of December 27, 2014 with respect to our equity compensation plans:

 

 

 

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See Note 8 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report, for additional information on equity compensation plans.

 

Departure of Director 

 

On March 23, 2015, Thomas Lagatta notified the Company that he would not stand for re-election to the Board of Directors at the 2015 Annual Meeting of Stockholders.  Mr. Lagatta will remain on the Board until the date of the Annual Meeting.  Mr. Lagatta’s decision reflects his desire to focus more of his time as CEO of Numecent, Inc. and was not the result of any disagreement regarding the Company’s operations, policies or practices.

 

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

 

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our audited consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

 

This report contains forward-looking statements regarding future events and our future performance.  These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or projected.  These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to risks associated with the launch and commercial success of our products, programs and technologies; the success of product partnerships; continuing development, qualification and volume production of HyperVault, EXPRESSvault™, NVvault™, HyperCloud® and VLP Planar-X RDIMM; the timing and magnitude of the continued decrease in sales to one of our key customers; our ability to leverage our NVvault™ and EXPRESSvault™ technology into a more diverse customer base; our need to raise additional capital and our ability to obtain financing when necessary; the rapidly-changing nature of technology; risks associated with intellectual property, including patent infringement litigation against us as well as the costs and unpredictability of litigation over infringement of our intellectual property and the possibility of our patents being reexamined or reviewed by the USPTO and PTAB; volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND; changes in and uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and demand for, our existing products and products under development, including uncertainty of and/or delays in product orders and product qualifications; delays in our and our customers’ product releases and development; introductions of new products by competitors; changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; our ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; our reliance on suppliers of critical components and vendors in the supply chain; fluctuations in the market price of critical components; evolving industry standards; and the political and regulatory environment in the PRC.  Other risks and uncertainties are described under the heading “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item IA of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.  Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to revise or update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason.

 

Overview

 

We design, manufacture and sell a wide variety of high performance, logic-based memory subsystems for the global datacenter, storage and high-performance computing markets. Our memory subsystems consist of combinations of dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”), NAND flash memory (“NAND”), application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”) and other components assembled on printed circuit boards (“PCBs”). We primarily market and sell our products to leading original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) customers, hyperscale datacenter operators and storage vendors.  Our solutions are targeted at applications where memory plays a key role in meeting system performance requirements. We leverage a portfolio of proprietary technologies and design techniques, including combining discrete semiconductor technologies from third parties such as DRAM and NAND flash to function as one, efficient planar design, and alternative packaging techniques to deliver memory subsystems with persistence, high density, small form factor, high signal integrity, attractive thermal characteristics, reduced power consumption and low cost per bit. Our NVvault™ product is the first to offer both DRAM and NAND in a standard form factor memory subsystem as a persistent dual-in line memory module (“DIMM”) in mission critical applications.  Our HyperCloud® technology incorporates our patented rank multiplication and load reduction technologies. We also have pending and issued patents covering fundamental aspects of hybrid memory DIMM designs that incorporate combinations of DRAM and/or NAND flash, such as our NVvault™ product.  We are focused on monetizing our patent portfolio through our products business and, where appropriate, through licensing arrangements with third parties that wish to incorporate our patented technologies in their products.

 

Our high performance memory subsystems are developed in part using our proprietary technologies, and we believe that the strength of our intellectual property rights will be important to the success of our business. We utilize patent and trade secret protection, confidentiality agreements with customers and partners, disclosure and invention assignment agreements with employees and consultants and other contractual provisions to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary information. We intend to vigorously defend and monetize our intellectual property through licensing arrangements and, where necessary, enforcement actions against those entities using our patented solutions in their products.  We may seek injunctive relief in the course of enforcing our intellectual property rights in certain instances, and in other instances we may enter into settlement or license agreements, which can be structured in a

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variety of ways, including one-time paid up licenses or on-going royalty arrangements.  However, our efforts may not result in significant revenues from these monetization efforts.

 

Consistent with the concentrated nature of the OEM customer base in our target markets, a small number of large customers have historically accounted for a significant portion of our net sales. Three customers represented approximately 20%, 14%  and 19% of our net sales in 2014 and two customers represented approximately 45% and 15% of our net sales in 2013. 

 

Key Business Metrics

 

The following describes certain line items in our consolidated statements of operations that are important to management’s assessment of our financial performance:

 

Net Sales.  Net sales consist primarily of sales of our high performance memory subsystems, net of a provision for estimated returns under our right of return policies, which generally range up to 30 days. We generally do not have long-term sales agreements with our customers. Although OEM customers typically provide us with non-binding forecasts of future product demand over specific periods of time, they generally place orders with us approximately two weeks in advance of scheduled delivery. Selling prices are typically negotiated monthly, based on competitive market conditions and the current price of DRAM ICs and NAND. Purchase orders generally have no cancellation or rescheduling penalty provisions. We often ship our products to our customers’ international manufacturing sites. All of our sales to date, however, are denominated in U.S. dollars. We also sell excess component inventory of DRAM ICs and NAND to distributors and other users of memory ICs. Component inventory sales are a relatively small percentage of net sales as a result of our efforts to diversify both our customer and product line bases. This diversification effort has also allowed us to use components in a wider range of memory subsystems. We expect that component inventory sales will continue to represent a minimal portion of our net sales in future periods.

 

Cost of Sales.    Our cost of sales includes the cost of materials, labor and other manufacturing costs, depreciation and amortization of equipment, inventory valuation provisions, stock-based compensation, and occupancy costs and other allocated fixed costs. The DRAM ICs and NAND incorporated into our products constitute a significant portion of our cost of sales, and thus our cost of sales will fluctuate based on the current price of DRAM ICs and NAND. We attempt to pass through such DRAM IC and NAND flash memory cost fluctuations to our customers by frequently renegotiating pricing prior to the placement of their purchase orders. However, the sales prices of our memory subsystems can also fluctuate due to competitive situations unrelated to the pricing of DRAM ICs and NAND, which affects gross margins. In addition, we have experienced shortages of DRAM and flash required for our HyperCloud® and NVvault products from time to time, which can cause disruptions in our revenues and gross profits. In addition, the gross margin on our sales of any excess component DRAM IC and NAND inventory is much lower than the gross margin on our sales of our memory subsystems. As a result, fluctuations in DRAM IC and NAND inventory sales as a percentage of our overall sales could impact our overall gross margin. We assess the valuation of our inventories on a quarterly basis and record a provision to cost of sales as necessary to reduce inventories to the lower of cost or net realizable value.

 

Research and Development.  Research and development expense consists primarily of employee and independent contractor compensation and related costs, stock‑based compensation, non-recurring engineering fees, computer‑aided design software licenses, reference design development costs,  depreciation or rental of evaluation equipment, and occupancy and other allocated overhead costs. Also included in research and development expense are the costs of material and overhead related to the production of engineering samples of new products under development or products used solely in the research and development process. Our customers typically do not separately compensate us for design and engineering work involved in developing application‑specific products for them. All research and development costs are expensed as incurred.  We anticipate that research and development expenditures will increase in future periods as we seek to expand new product opportunities, increase our activities related to new and emerging markets and continue to develop additional proprietary technologies.

 

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Intellectual Property Legal Fees. Intellectual Property Legal Fees consists of legal fees incurred for patent filings and protection. We anticipate that intellectual property legal fees will increase in future periods as we seek to protect our patent portfolio.

 

Selling, General and Administrative.  Selling, general and administrative expenses consist primarily of employee salaries and related costs, stock-based compensation, independent sales representative commissions, professional services, promotional and other selling and marketing expenses, and occupancy and other allocated overhead costs. A significant portion of our selling effort is directed at building relationships with OEMs and other customers and working through the product approval and qualification process with them. Therefore, the cost of material and overhead related to products manufactured for qualification is included in selling expenses. In order to conserve capital resources in light of the year over year revenue decline, we have reduced our selling, general and administrative expenditures by eliminating headcount and other related expenses.

 

Provision for Income Taxes. The federal statutory rate was 35% for fiscal year 2014 and 2013.  Our effective tax rate differs from the statutory rate due to the company providing a full valuation allowance against net deferred tax assets, and accordingly did not recognize an income tax benefit related to losses incurred.

 

Recent Developments

 

Public Offering of Common Stock

 

On February 24, 2015, we completed a registered firm commitment underwritten public offering (“2015 Offering”) of shares of our common stock. In the 2015 Offering, we issued and sold to Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC (the “Underwriter”) 8,846,154 shares of common stock pursuant to an underwriting agreement, dated as of February 19, 2015, by and between us and the Underwriter, at a price of $1.209 per share, including 1,153,846 shares resulting from the Underwriter’s exercise in full of its option to purchase additional shares of common stock to cover over-allotments. The price per share to the public in the 2015 Offering was $1.30 per share. The net proceeds from the 2015 Offering were approximately $10.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

 

Amendments to Loan Agreement and Monetization Letter Agreement

 

On February 17, 2015, we entered into that certain Second Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP (the “Lender”), an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC and successor to DBD Credit Funding LLC (the “Loan Agreement Amendment”). The Loan Agreement Amendment amended certain terms of that certain Loan and Security Agreement, dated as of July 18, 2013, by and between us and the Lender (as amended, the “Loan Agreement”), which provides for certain tranched term loans and revolving loans from the Lender to us. Among other things, the Loan Agreement Amendment (1) removes conditions to the availability of the second tranche of term loans under the Loan Agreement (the “IP Milestone Term Loans”) which previously required us to achieve certain performance milestones relating to intellectual property matters (the “IP Monetization Milestones”) and (2) required the Lender to lend us all amounts under the IP Milestone Term Loans on February 17, 2015. In connection with the Loan Agreement Amendment, we paid a facility fee of $60,000 to the Lender and an amendment and restructuring fee equal to $20,000. We are obligated to annually pay to the Lender a fully earned, non-refundable management and monitoring fee of $20,000.

 

Concurrent with the execution of the Loan Agreement Amendment, (1) we and Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP, a Delaware limited partnership and an affiliate of the Lender (“Drawbridge”), entered into that certain First Amendment to Monetization Letter Agreement (the “Letter Agreement Amendment”) and (2) we issued to Drawbridge a new warrant certificate (the “New Warrant Certificate”) in replacement of the original warrant certificate (the “Original Warrant Certificate”) we previously issued to Drawbridge on July 18, 2013 in connection with the execution of the Loan Agreement. The Letter Agreement Amendment amends certain terms of that certain Monetization Letter Agreement, dated as of July 18, 2013, with Drawbridge (the “Letter Agreement”), which provides, subject to certain limitations and restrictions, that Drawbridge may be entitled to share in certain of our monetization revenues related to our patent portfolio (“Patent Monetization Revenues”). The Letter Agreement Amendment (1) adds certain

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patents relating to our NVvaultTM    product line to the patent portfolio from which Patent Monetization Revenues can be derived, (2) subject to certain limitations and restrictions, allows Drawbridge to share in Patent Monetization Revenues arising in connection with certain litigation and (3) modifies the percentages and maximum amounts that Drawbridge may be entitled to under the Letter Agreement with respect to Patent Monetization Revenues. The New Warrant Certificate is in substantially the same form as the Original Warrant Certificate (which was cancelled in connection with the issuance of the New Warrant Certificate) other than to remove the restrictions upon exercise contained in the Original Warrant Certificate with respect to an aggregate of 659,340 shares of our Common Stock under the Original Warrant Certificate relating to our achieving the IP Monetization Milestones and our borrowing of amounts under the IP Milestone Term Loans.

 

Critical Accounting Policies

 

The preparation of our consolidated financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of net sales and expenses during the reporting period. By their nature, these estimates and assumptions are subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty. We base our estimates on our historical experience, knowledge of current conditions and our beliefs of what could occur in the future considering available information. We review our estimates on an on-going basis. Actual results may differ from these estimates, which may result in material adverse effects on our operating results and financial position. We believe the following critical accounting policies involve our more significant assumptions and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements:

 

Revenue Recognition.  We recognize revenues in accordance with the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 605. Accordingly, we recognize revenues when there is persuasive evidence that an arrangement exists, product delivery and acceptance have occurred, the sales price is fixed or determinable, and collectability of the resulting receivable is reasonably assured.

 

We generally use customer purchase orders and/or contracts as evidence of an arrangement. Delivery occurs when goods are shipped for customers with FOB Shipping Point terms and upon receipt for customers with FOB Destination terms, at which time title and risk of loss transfer to the customer. Shipping documents are used to verify delivery and customer acceptance. We assess whether the sales price is fixed or determinable based on the payment terms associated with the transaction and whether the sales price is subject to refund. Customers are generally allowed limited rights of return for up to 30 days, except for sales of excess component inventories, which contain no right-of-return privileges. Estimated returns are provided for at the time of sale based on historical experience or specific identification of an event necessitating a reserve. We offer a standard product warranty to our customers and have no other post-shipment obligations. We assess collectability based on the creditworthiness of the customer as determined by credit checks and evaluations, as well as the customer’s payment history.

 

All amounts billed to customers related to shipping and handling are classified as net sales, while all costs incurred by us for shipping and handling are classified as cost of sales.

 

Fair Value of Financial Instruments.    Our financial instruments consist principally of cash and cash equivalents, accounts receivable, accounts payable, accrued expenses and debt instruments.  The fair value of our cash equivalents is determined based on quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or Level 1 inputs. We recognize transfers between Levels 1 through 3 of the fair value hierarchy at the beginning of the reporting period.  We believe that the carrying values of all other financial instruments approximate their current fair values due to their nature and respective durations.

 

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts.    We perform credit evaluations of our customers’ financial condition and limit the amount of credit extended to our customers as deemed necessary, but generally require no collateral. We evaluate the collectability of accounts receivable based on a combination of factors. In cases where we are aware of circumstances that may impair a specific customer’s ability to meet its financial obligations subsequent to the original sale, we will record an allowance against amounts due, and thereby reduce the net recognized receivable to the amount that we reasonably believe will be collected. For all other customers, we record allowances for doubtful accounts based

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primarily on the length of time the receivables are past due based on the terms of the originating transaction, the current business environment and our historical experience. Uncollectible accounts are charged against the allowance for doubtful accounts when all cost effective commercial means of collection have been exhausted.  Generally, our credit losses have been within our expectations and the provisions established. However, we cannot guarantee that we will continue to experience credit loss rates similar to those we have experienced in the past.

 

Our accounts receivable are highly concentrated among a small number of customers, and a significant change in the liquidity or financial position of one of these customers could have a material adverse effect on the collectability of our accounts receivable, our liquidity and our future operating results.

 

Inventories.  We value our inventories at the lower of the actual cost to purchase or manufacture the inventory or the net realizable value of the inventory. Cost is determined on an average cost basis which approximates actual cost on a first-in, first-out basis and includes raw materials, labor and manufacturing overhead. At each balance sheet date, we evaluate ending inventory quantities on hand and record a provision for excess quantities and obsolescence. Among other factors, we consider historical demand and forecasted demand in relation to the inventory on hand, competitiveness of product offerings, market conditions and product life cycles when determining obsolescence and net realizable value. In addition, we consider changes in the market value of DRAM ICs and NAND in determining the net realizable value of our raw material inventory. Once established, any write downs are considered permanent adjustments to the cost basis of our excess or obsolete inventories.

 

A significant decrease in demand for our products could result in an increase in the amount of excess inventory quantities on hand. In addition, our estimates of future product demand may prove to be inaccurate, in which case we may have understated or overstated the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. In the future, if our inventories are determined to be overvalued, we would be required to recognize additional expense in our cost of sales at the time of such determination. Likewise, if our inventories are determined to be undervalued, we may have over-reported our costs of sales in previous periods and would be required to recognize additional gross profit at the time such inventories are sold. In addition, should the market value of DRAM ICs or NAND decrease significantly, we may be required to lower our selling prices to reflect the lower current cost of our raw materials. If such price decreases reduce the net realizable value of our inventories to less than our cost, we would be required to recognize additional expense in our cost of sales in the same period. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy of our forecasts of future product demand, any significant unanticipated changes in demand, technological developments or the market value of DRAM ICs or NAND could have a material effect on the value of our inventories and our reported operating results.

 

Deferred Financing Costs, Debt Discount and Detachable Debt-Related Warrants.  Costs incurred to issue debt are deferred and included in debt issuance costs in the accompanying consolidated balance sheet. We amortize debt issuance costs over the expected term of the related debt using the effective interest method. Debt discounts related to the relative fair value of any warrants issued in conjunction with the debt are recorded as a reduction to the debt balance and accreted over the expected term of the debt to interest expense using the effective interest method.

 

Impairment of Long-Lived Assets.  We evaluate the recoverability of the carrying value of long-lived assets held and used in our operations for impairment on at least an annual basis or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that their carrying value may not be recoverable. When such factors and circumstances exist, we compare the projected undiscounted future net cash flows associated with the related asset or group of assets over their estimated useful lives against their respective carrying amount. These projected future cash flows may vary significantly over time as a result of increased competition, changes in technology, fluctuations in demand, consolidation of our customers and reductions in average selling prices. If the carrying value is determined not to be recoverable from future operating cash flows, the asset is deemed impaired and an impairment loss is recognized to the extent the carrying value exceeds the estimated fair value of the asset. The fair value of the asset or asset group is based on market value when available, or when unavailable, on discounted expected cash flows.

 

Warranty Reserve.  We offer product warranties generally ranging from one to three years, depending on the product and negotiated terms of purchase agreements with our customers. Such warranties require us to repair or replace defective product returned to us during the warranty period at no cost to the customer. Warranties are not offered on

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sales of excess inventory. Our estimates for warranty‑related costs are recorded at the time of sale based on historical and estimated future product return rates and expected repair or replacement costs. While such costs have historically been consistent between periods and within our expectations and the provisions established, unexpected changes in failure rates could have a material adverse impact on us, requiring additional warranty reserves, and adversely affecting our gross profit and gross margins.

 

Stock-Based Compensation.  We account for equity issuances to non-employees in accordance with ASC Topic 505.  All transactions in which goods or services are the consideration received for the issuance of equity instruments are accounted for based on the fair value of the consideration received or the fair value of the equity instrument issued, whichever is more reliably measurable. The measurement date used to determine the fair value of the equity instrument issued is the earlier of the date on which the third-party performance is complete or the date on which it is probable that performance will occur.

 

In accordance with ASC Topic 718, employee and director stock-based compensation expense recognized during the period is based on the value of the portion of stock-based payment awards that is ultimately expected to vest during the period.  Given that stock-based compensation expense recognized in the consolidated statements of operations is based on awards ultimately expected to vest, it has been reduced for estimated forfeitures. ASC Topic 718 requires forfeitures to be estimated at the time of grant and revised, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from those estimates. Our estimated average forfeiture rates are based on historical forfeiture experience and estimated future forfeitures.

 

The fair value of common stock option awards to employees and directors is calculated using the Black-Scholes option pricing model.  The Black-Scholes model requires subjective assumptions regarding future stock price volatility and expected time to exercise, along with assumptions about the risk-free interest rate and expected dividends, all of which affect the estimated fair values of our common stock option awards. The expected term of options granted is calculated as the average of the weighted vesting period and the contractual expiration date of the option.  This calculation is based on the safe harbor method permitted by the SEC in instances where the vesting and exercise terms of options granted meet certain conditions and where limited historical exercise data is available.  The expected volatility is based on the historical volatility of our common stock.  The risk-free rate selected to value any particular grant is based on the U.S. Treasury rate that corresponds to the expected term of the grant effective as of the date of the grant. The expected dividends assumption is based on our history and our expectations regarding dividend payouts. We evaluate the assumptions used to value our common stock option awards on a quarterly basis. If factors change and we employ different assumptions, stock- based compensation expense may differ significantly from what we have recorded in prior periods.  Compensation expense for common stock option awards with graded vesting schedules is recognized on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period for the last separately vesting portion of the award, provided that the accumulated cost recognized as of any date at least equals the value of the vested portion of the award.

 

We recognize the fair value of restricted stock awards issued to employees and outside directors as stock-based compensation expense on a straight-line basis over the vesting period for the last separately vesting portion of the awards.  Fair value is determined as the difference between the closing price of our common stock on the grant date and the purchase price of the restricted stock award, if any, reduced by expected forfeitures.

 

If there are any modifications or cancellations of the underlying vested or unvested stock-based awards, we may be required to accelerate, increase or cancel any remaining unearned stock-based compensation expense, or record additional expense for vested stock-based awards.  Future stock-based compensation expense and unearned stock- based compensation may increase to the extent that we grant additional common stock options or other stock-based awards.

 

Income Taxes.  Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized to reflect the estimated future tax effects of future deductible or taxable amounts attributable to events that have been recognized on a cumulative basis in the condensed consolidated financial statements, calculated at enacted tax rates for expected periods of realization. We regularly review our deferred tax assets for recoverability and establish a valuation allowance, when determined necessary, based on historical taxable income, projected future taxable income, and the expected timing of the reversals of existing temporary differences. Because we have operated at a loss for an extended period of time, we did not recognize deferred tax assets related to losses incurred in 2014 or 2013.  In the future, if we realize a deferred tax asset

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that currently carries a valuation allowance, we may record an income tax benefit or a reduction to income tax expense in the period of such realization.

 

ASC Topic 740 prescribes a recognition threshold and measurement requirement for the financial statement recognition of a tax position that has been taken or is expected to be taken on a tax return and also provides guidance on de-recognition, classification, interest and penalties, accounting in interim periods, disclosure, and transition. Under ASC Topic 740 we may only recognize or continue to recognize tax positions that meet a “more likely than not” threshold.

 

The application of tax laws and regulations is subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. Tax laws and regulations themselves are subject to change as a result of changes in fiscal policy, changes in legislation, the evolution of regulations and court rulings. Therefore, the actual liability for U.S. or foreign taxes may be materially different from our estimates, which could result in the need to record additional tax liabilities or potentially reverse previously recorded tax liabilities.

 

Interest expense. Interest expense consists primarily of interest associated with our loan agreement with Fortress, an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group LLC and successor DBD Credit Funding, LLC, including fees related to the term loans, accretion of debt discount and amortization of debt issuance costs.  We recognize accretion of debt discount and amortization of interest costs using the effective interest method.

 

Results of Operations

 

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations as a percentage of net sales for the years indicated:

 

 

 

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Year Ended December 27, 2014 Compared to the Year Ended December 28, 2013 Net Sales, Cost of Sales and Gross Profit.

 

The following table presents net sales, cost of sales and gross profit for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

Net Sales.  The decrease in net sales for 2014 as compared with 2013 resulted primarily from decreases of approximately (i) $3.2 million in sales of NVvault™ non-volatile cache systems to Dell, (ii) $2.2 million of PERC sales to Dell, (iii) $2.0 million of VLP sales (iv) $0.8 million in sales of Planar X and (v) $0.7  million of flash sales. These decreases were partially offset by an increase of $4.9 million in sales of NVvault™ and EXPRESSvault™ sales to customers other than Dell.

 

Approximately 61% of our NVvault™ sales were made to Dell in 2013. Since Intel’s launch of its Romley platform in the first quarter of 2012, we experienced a rapid decline in DDR2 NVvault™ sales to Dell. We expect that future sales of NVvault™ products for incorporation into PERC 7 servers will be minimal.  This reduction in sales has had a significant impact on our revenue and gross profit.  We expect an increasing percentage of our revenue to come from sales of DDR3 NVvault, EXPRESSvault™ and flash to a more diverse customer base.

 

Gross Profit and Gross Margin.    The increase in gross profits for 2014 as compared to 2013 is primarily the result of a change in our product mix, as we experienced increased sales of NVvault™ (a relatively higher margin product) to customers other than Dell in the fiscal year ended December 27, 2014.

 

Research and Development.

 

The following table presents research and development expenses for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

The increase in research and development expense for 2014 as compared to 2013 resulted primarily from increases of $0.4 million in professional and outside services partially offset by a decrease of approximately $0.1 million in headcount costs and related overhead and travel expenses.

 

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Intellectual Property Legal Fees.

 

The following table presents intellectual property legal fees for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

The increase in intellectual property legal fees for 2014 as compared to 2013 resulted from increase in legal fees incurred to protect our intellectual property.

 

Selling, General and Administrative.

 

The following table presents selling, general and administrative expenses for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

Selling, general and administrative expenses increased by approximately $0.5 million in 2014 as compared to 2013.  These increases were primarily due to an increase of $0.7 million in headcount costs, commissions and related overhead and travel expenses offset by decreases of (i) $0.1 million in advertising and product evaluation expenses and (ii) $0.1 million primarily related to outside consultants and sales representatives.

 

Other Expense, Net.

 

The following table presents other expense, net for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

The increases in interest expense for 2014 as compared to 2013 is primarily due to twelve months of interest expense on the outstanding principal balances in 2014 versus six months in 2013 along with the amortization of debt discount and debt issuance costs associated with our term debt pursuant to our loan agreement with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP (“Fortress”) as successor to DBD Credit Funding, LLC, which we received on July 18, 2013.

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Income Tax Provision.

 

The following table presents the provision for income taxes for the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 (in thousands, except percentages):

 

 

 

The federal statutory rate was 35% for 2014 and 2013.  In both 2014 and 2013, we continued to provide a full valuation allowance against our net deferred tax assets, which consist primarily of net operating loss carry-forwards.  In 2014 and 2013, our effective tax rate differed from the 35% statutory rate primarily due to the valuation allowance on newly generated loss carry-forwards.  For further discussion see Note 6 to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report.

 

Liquidity and Capital Resources

 

We have historically financed our operations primarily through issuances of equity and debt securities and cash generated from operations. We have also funded our operations with a revolving line of credit and term loans under our bank credit facility and capitalized lease obligations.

 

Working Capital and Cash and Cash Equivalents.

 

The following table presents working capital and cash and cash equivalents (in thousands):

 

 

 

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Our working capital decreased in 2014 primarily as a result of reductions of (i) accounts receivable of approximately $3.8 million and (ii) inventory levels by approximately $0.7 million offset by (i) the increase in the current portion of long term debt of $2.2 million and (ii) an increase of cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash of $4.0 million.

 

As a result of the completion of the 2015 Offering described above, and the receipt of net proceeds of approximately $10.4 million, our working capital as of the date of this Annual Report is materially higher than it was as of December 27, 2014.

 

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Cash Provided and Used in the Years Ended December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013.

 

The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods indicated (in thousands):

 

 

 

Operating Activities.  Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 27, 2014 was primarily the result of a net loss of approximately $15.4 million offset by  (i) approximately $5.0 million in net cash provided by changes in operating assets and liabilities, primarily accounts receivable, restricted cash, accounts payable, accrued payroll and related liabilities and inventory and (ii) approximately $4.0 million in net non-cash operating expenses, mainly comprised of depreciation and amortization, amortization of debt discount and debt issuance costs and stock-based compensation.    

 

Net cash used in operating activities for the year ended December 28, 2013 was primarily the result of a net loss of approximately $10.8 million offset by (i) approximately $3.1 million in net cash provided by changes in operating assets and liabilities, primarily accounts receivable, restricted cash, accounts payable, accrued payroll and related liabilities and inventory and (ii) approximately $3.7 million in net non-cash operating expenses, mainly comprised of depreciation and amortization, amortization of debt discount and debt issuance costs, capitalized payment in kind interest and stock-based compensation.    

 

Accounts receivable decreased by approximately $3.8 million at December 27, 2014, compared with December 28, 2013, primarily as a result of a  decrease in our net sales of $5.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2014 as compared with the fourth quarter of 2013. 

 

Inventories decreased by approximately $0.7 million, primarily because we utilized inventory on hand to support our sales.

 

Investing Activities.    Net cash used in investing activities for the year ended December 27, 2014 was primarily the result of the purchase of $0.1 million of property and equipment. Net cash provided by investing activities for the year ended December 28, 2013 was primarily the result of our sale of an auction rate security resulting in proceeds of $0.4 million.

 

Financing Activities.    

 

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 27, 2014 was primarily the result of our February 2014 Public Offering, which raised net proceeds of approximately $10.3 million and our receipt of an aggregate of approximately $0.8 million in proceeds from the partial exercise of an outstanding warrant for the purchase of our common stock and the exercise of employee stock options in February 2014.    

 

Net cash provided by financing activities for the year ended December 28, 2013 was primarily the result of (i) net proceeds from a term loan with Fortress of $2.5 million, described below under the caption Capital Resources and (ii) $1.2 million in net proceeds from the sale of 1,098,902 shares of our common stock through a registered public offering, described below under the caption Capital Resources, offset by repayment of bank debt, capital leases and other notes payable of $1.0 million. 

 

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Capital Resources.

 

On October 31, 2009, we entered into a credit agreement with Silicon Valley Bank, which was most recently amended on July 18, 2013 (as amended, the “SVB Credit Agreement”). Currently, the SVB Credit Agreement provides that we can borrow up to the lesser of (i) 80% of eligible accounts receivable, or (ii) $5.0 million.

 

In May 2012, Silicon Valley Bank consolidated our outstanding term loans and extended additional credit, resulting in a combined balance of $3.5 million (the “Consolidated Term Loan”). The Consolidated Term Loan was payable in 36 installments of $97,222, beginning December 2012, with interest at a rate of prime plus 2.50%. Interest was payable monthly from the date of funding through final payoff of the loan.  On July 18, 2013, as part of our amendment of the SVB Credit Agreement and following our receipt of additional loan financing obtained through Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP as successor to DBD Credit Funding, LLC, as further described below, the term loan and outstanding interest was paid in full.    

 

Prior to the May 2012 amendment, the SVB Credit Agreement contained an overall sublimit of $10.0 million to collateralize our contingent obligations under letters of credit and other financial services. Amounts outstanding under the overall sublimit reduced the amount available pursuant to the SVB Credit Agreement. As a result of the May  2012 amendment, letters of credit and other financial services were no longer subject to borrowing base sublimits and did not reduce the amount that could be borrowed under the revolving line of credit. The July 18, 2013 amendment requires letters of credit to be secured by cash. At December 27, 2014, letters of credit in the amount of $0.7 million were outstanding.

 

Following its amendment on July 18, 2013, the SVB Credit Agreement permits the debt financing and security interests contemplated under our Loan Agreement with Fortress (described below) and releases certain patents and related assets from the collateral subject to SVB’s security interest under the SVB Credit Agreement. Additionally, pursuant to the SVB Credit Agreement, advances under the revolving line now accrue interest at a rate equal to SVB’s most recently announced “prime rate” plus 2.75%. The SVB Credit Agreement also relaxed our tangible net worth covenant and waived certain events of default in connection therewith. Certain reporting requirements under the SVB Credit Agreement were modified while certain reserves with respect to the borrowing base and the availability of revolving loans were removed.  On September 30, 2014, the SVB Credit Agreement was amended again to further modify our tangible net worth covenant and to extend the maturity date of our revolving line under the SVB Credit Agreement to September 29, 2015.

 

We made no borrowings under the Silicon Valley Bank line of credit in the years ended December 27, 2014 and December 27, 2013.  At December 27, 2014 and December 28, 2013 we had borrowing availability of approximately $0.9 million and $4.0 million, respectively.    

 

Loan Agreement with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP

 

Concurrent with our amendment of the SVB Credit Agreement, on July 18, 2013, we entered into a loan and security agreement (as amended, the “Loan Agreement”), with Fortress Credit Opportunities I LP, a Delaware limited liability company (“Fortress”), as successor to DBD Credit Funding  LLC, providing for up to $10 million in term loans and up to $5 million in revolving loans.  The term loans are available in an initial $6 million tranche (the “Initial Term Loan”) with a second tranche in the amount of $4 million becoming available upon achievement of certain performance milestones relating to intellectual property matters (the “IP Monetization Milestones” and such second tranche loan, “IP Milestone Term Loan”). The $5 million in revolving loans are available at Fortress’s discretion and subject to customary conditions precedent.  The $6 million Initial Term Loan was fully drawn at closing on July 18, 2013. Proceeds from the Initial Term Loan were used in part to repay our existing consolidated term loan with Silicon Valley Bank. The remainder of such funds are available to fund our ongoing working capital needs. On February 17, 2015, we amended the Loan Agreement to accelerate the availability of the term loan and we borrowed the remaining $4 million in term loans. 

 

The loans bear interest at a stated fixed rate of 11.0% per annum.  Until the last business day of February 2015, the payments on the term loans are interest-only at a cash rate of 7.0% per annum and a payment-in-kind deferred cash

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interest rate of 4.0%, which payment-in-kind interest is capitalized semi-annually, beginning with December 31, 2013.  Beginning with the last business day of February 2015, the term loans are amortized with 65% of the principal amount due in equal monthly installments over the following seventeen (17) months with a balloon payment equal to 35% of the remaining principal amount of the term loans, plus accrued interest, being payable on July 18, 2016 (the "Maturity Date").  Term loan payments, including the $4 million borrowed on February 17, 2015, of approximately $370,000 are due monthly through June 18, 2016, with the remaining amount of approximately $4.3 million due on July 18, 2016.

 

Monetization Letter Agreement

 

Concurrently with the execution of the Loan Agreement, the Company and Drawbridge Special Opportunities Fund LP (“Drawbridge”) entered into a Monetization Letter Agreement (as amended, the “Letter Agreement”).  In connection with the amendment to the Loan Agreement, we also amended the Letter Agreement on February 17, 2015.  The Letter Agreement provides, among other things, that DBD may be entitled to share in certain monetization revenues that we may derive in the future related to our patent portfolio (the “Patent Portfolio”).  The Patent Portfolio does not include certain patents relating to the NVvault™ product line.  Monetization revenues subject to this arrangement include revenues recognized during the seven year term of the Letter Agreement from amounts (whether characterized as settlement payments, license fees, royalties, damages, or otherwise) actually paid to us or our subsidiaries in connection with any assertion of, agreement not to assert, or license of, the Patent Portfolio (in whole or in part) either (A) in consideration of the grant of a license or covenant not sue, or other immunity with respect to the Patent Portfolio, or (B) as a damages award with respect to such assertion of the Patent Portfolio, less certain legal fees and expenses (subject to a cap on such fees and expenses).  Monetization revenues also include the value attributable to the Patent Portfolio in any sale of the Company during the seven year term, subject to a maximum amount payable to Drawbridge.  The Letter Agreement also requires that the we use commercially reasonable efforts to pursue opportunities to monetize the Patent Portfolio during the term of the Letter Agreement, provided that we are under no obligation to pursue any such opportunities that we do not deem to be in our best interest.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, there can be no assurance that we will be successful in these efforts, and we may expend resources in pursuit of monetization revenues that may not result in any benefit to us.

 

Sales Agreement with Ascendiant Capital

 

On November 21, 2011, we entered into a sales agreement with Ascendiant as sales agent. The sales agreement with Ascendiant expired on November 21, 2013.  Prior to its expiration, we were able to issue and sell shares of our common stock having an aggregate offering price of up to $10.0 million. During the term of the agreement, we received net proceeds of approximately $6.2 million, including approximately $3.9 million raised through the sale of approximately 1,312,669 shares during the year ended December 29, 2012 and approximately $0.2 million through the sale of 240,373 shares during the year ended December 28, 2013.

 

July 2013 Equity Financing

 

On July 17, 2013, we entered into a definitive securities purchase agreement for the sale of common stock and warrant for gross proceeds of $1.0 million in a registered public offering securities.  The offering closed on July 19, 2013, and we received net proceeds of approximately $960,000 after deducting commissions and offering costs.  The offering resulted in the issuance of 1,098,902 shares of our common stock and a warrant to purchase up to an aggregate of 1,098,902 shares of our common stock. The warrant is exercisable as of the date of its issuance, has a term of seven years, and an exercise price of $1.00 per share.  The exercise price and the number of warrant shares issuable upon exercise of warrant is subject to adjustment in the event of, among other things, certain transactions our common stock (including without limitation stock splits and stock dividends), and certain fundamental transactions (including without limitation a merger or other sale-of-company transaction).

 

February 2014 Public Offering of Common Stock

 

On February 11, 2014, we completed a registered firm commitment underwritten public offering (the “2014 Offering”) of shares of our common stock.  In the 2014 Offering, we issued and sold to Craig-Hallum Capital Group

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LLC (the “Underwriter”) 8,680,775 shares of common stock pursuant to an underwriting agreement, dated as of February 6, 2014, by and between the Company and the Underwriter, at a price of $1.2115 per share, including 1,132,275 shares resulting from the Underwriter’s exercise in full of its option to purchase additional shares of common stock to cover over-allotments.  The price per share to the public in the 2014 Offering was $1.30 per share.  The net proceeds from the 2014 Offering were approximately $10.3 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

 

February 2015 Public Offering of Common Stock

 

On February 24, 2015, we completed a registered firm commitment underwritten public offering of shares of our common stock (the “2015 Offering”). In the 2015 Offering, we issued and sold to the Underwriter 8,846,154 shares of common stock pursuant to an underwriting agreement, dated as of February 19, 2015, by and between the Company and the Underwriter, at a price of $1.209 per share, including 1,153,846 shares resulting from the Underwriter’s exercise in full of its option to purchase additional shares of common stock to cover over-allotments. The price per share to the public in the 2015 Offering was $1.30 per share. The net proceeds from the 2015 Offering were approximately $10.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

 

We have in the past utilized equipment leasing arrangements to finance certain capital expenditures. Equipment leases continue to be a financing alternative that we expect to pursue in the future.

 

We believe our existing cash balances (including proceeds from the 2015 Offering), borrowing availability under our new bank credit facility, borrowing availability under the SVB Credit Agreement, net of cash expected to be used in operations, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. Should we need additional capital, we may seek to raise capital through, among other things, public and private equity offerings and debt financings. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including our levels of net sales, the timing and extent of expenditures to support research and development activities, the expansion of manufacturing capacity both domestically and internationally and the continued market acceptance of our products. Additional funds may not be available on terms acceptable to us, or at all. If adequate working capital is not available when needed, we may be required to significantly modify our business model and operations to reduce spending to a sustainable level. It could cause us to be unable to execute our business plan, take advantage of future opportunities, or respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. It may also cause us to delay, scale back or eliminate some or all of our research and development programs, or to reduce or cease operations.

 

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements.

 

We do not have any relationships with unconsolidated entities or financial partnerships, such as entities often referred to as structured finance or special purpose entities, which would have been established for the purpose of facilitating off-balance sheet arrangements or other contractually narrow or limited purposes. In addition, we do not have any undisclosed borrowings or debt, and we have not entered into any synthetic leases. We are, therefore, not materially exposed to any financing, liquidity, market or credit risk that could arise if we had engaged in such relationships.

 

Item 8.  Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

 

The financial statements and supplementary data required by this item are included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Annual Report.

 

Item 9.  Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure

 

None.

 

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Item 9A.  Controls and Procedures

 

Disclosure Controls and Procedures

 

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures, as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(e) under the Exchange Act, as of the end of the period covered by this report. Based on this evaluation, our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.

 

Management’s Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

 

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(f). Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 27, 2014 based on the criteria set forth in the 1992 Internal Control—Integrated Framework issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this evaluation, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 27, 2014.

 

This Annual Report does not include an attestation report of our independent registered public accounting firm regarding internal control over financial reporting. Management’s report was not subject to attestation by our independent registered public accounting firm pursuant to the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission that permit us to provide only management’s report in this Annual Report.

 

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

 

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the fourth quarter of 2014 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

 

Inherent Limitations on Internal Control

 

A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of simple errors. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the control. The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

 

In addition, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to risks that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

 

Item 9B.  Other Information

 

None.

 

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PART III

 

Certain information required by this Part III is omitted from this Annual Report as we expect to file our definitive Proxy Statement for our Annual Meeting of Stockholders pursuant to Regulation 14A of the Exchange Act not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report, and certain information included in the Proxy Statement is incorporated herein by reference.

 

Item 10.  Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance

 

We incorporate by reference herein the sections entitled “Election Of Directors,” “Board Of Directors; Audit Committee Financial Expert,” “Other Information—Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” and “Information Concerning our Executive Officers” in our Proxy Statement.

 

We have adopted a “Code of Business Conduct and Ethics” that applies to all employees, including our executive officers. A copy of the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics is posted on our Internet site at www.netlist.com. In the event that we make any amendment to, or grant any waivers of, a provision of the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics that applies to the principal executive officer, principal financial officer, or principal accounting officer that requires disclosure under applicable rules promulgated under the Securities Act or Exchange Act, we intend to disclose such amendment or waiver and the reasons there for on our Internet site.

 

Item 11.  Executive Compensation

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to the section entitled “Executive Compensation” and “Directors’ Compensation” in our Proxy Statement.

 

Item 12.  Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to the section entitled “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” and “Equity Compensation Plan Information” in our Proxy Statement.  The information set forth in the section entitled “Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans” included in Part II, Item 5 of this Report is incorporated herein by reference.

 

Item 13.  Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to the section entitled “Transactions with Related Persons” in our Proxy Statement.

 

Item 14.  Principal Accounting Fees and Services

 

The information required by this Item is incorporated herein by reference to the section entitled “Auditors, Audit Fees and Auditor Independence” and “Director Independence” in our Proxy Statement.

 

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PART IV 

 

Item 15.  Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedules

 

(a)(1)  All financial statements filed as part of this report.

 

 

(a)(2)  Exhibits

 

 

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(b)  Exhibits

 

See subsection (a)(2) above.

 

See subsection (a)(2) above.

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SIGNATURES

 

Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.

 

Date:  March 27, 2015

 

 

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated: