NETLIST INC - Annual Report: 2019 (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

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

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

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

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☒  No ☐

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

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

 

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

 

The aggregate market value of voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates as of June 29, 2019, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $42.1 million.(A) 

 

(A)Excludes 10.5 million shares of common stock held by directors, executive officers and persons whose beneficial ownership exceeds ten percent of the shares outstanding at June 29, 2019. Exclusion of shares held by any person should not be construed to indicate that such person possesses the power, directly or indirectly, to direct or cause the direction of the management or policies of the registrant, or that such person is controlled by or under common control with the registrant.

 

As of March 3, 2020, there were 169,500,899 outstanding shares of the registrant’s common stock.

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

None.

 

 

 

 

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

 

Form 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 28, 2019

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This report includes “forward‑looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements other than historical facts and often address future events or our future performance. Words such as "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "intend," "may," “will,” “might,” "plan," "predict," "believe," "should," “could” and similar words or expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words.

 

Forward-looking statements contained in this report include statements about, among other things:

 

 

All forward-looking statements reflect management’s present assumptions, expectations and beliefs regarding future events and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by any forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include those described in Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Form 10-K. In addition, we operate in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry in which new risks emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of the risks we may face, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor or combination of factors could cause actual results to differ from our expectations. In light of these risks, uncertainties and other factors, our forward-looking statements should not be relied on as predictions of future events. All forward-looking statements reflect our assumptions, expectations and beliefs only as of the date they are made, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason.

 

We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by this cautionary note.

* * * * *

Unless the context indicates otherwise, all references to "Netlist," our "Company," "we," "us," or "our" in this report refer to Netlist, Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries, and all cross-references to notes in this Form 10-K refer to the identified note contained in our consolidated financial statements included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K. We own registered or unregistered trademark rights to NVvault®, HyperCloud®, HybriDIMM™,  EXPRESSvault™, PreSight™, “memory at storage capacities, storage at memory speeds”™, Netlist® and our company logo.   Although we do not use the “®” or “™” symbol in each instance in which one of our registered or common law trademarks appears in this report, this should not be construed as any indication that we will not assert our rights thereto to the fullest extent under applicable law. Any other service marks, trademarks or trade names appearing in this report are the property of their respective owners.

 

PART I

 

Item 1.Business

 

Overview

 

We provide high-performance modular memory subsystems to customers in diverse industries that require enterprise and storage class memory solutions to empower critical business decisions. We have a history of introducing disruptive new products, such as one of the first load reduced dual in-line memory modules ("LRDIMM") based on our distributed buffer architecture, which has been adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM. We were also one of the first to bring NAND flash memory ("NAND flash") to the memory channel with our NVvault non-volatile dual in-line memory modules ("NVDIMM") using software-intensive controllers and merging dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or "DRAM") and NAND flash to solve data bottleneck and data retention challenges encountered in high-performance computing environments. We also offer storage class memory products called HybriDIMM to address the growing need for real-time analytics in Big Data applications, in-memory databases, high performance computing and advanced data storage solutions.

 

Due to the ground-breaking product development of our engineering teams, we have built a robust portfolio of over 130 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since our inception, we have dedicated substantial resources to the development, protection and enforcement of technology innovations we believe are essential to our business. Our early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard registered dual in-line memory modules (“RDIMM”), LRDIMM and NVDIMM. Our objective is to continue to innovate in our field and invest further in our intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing our intellectual property through a combination of product sales and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of our patents through enforcement actions against parties we believe are infringing them.

 

We also resell solid state drive (“SSD”), NAND flash, DRAM products and other component products to end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers.

 

Our Industry

 

The global high-performance memory module market is driven by increasing demand from data center and enterprise storage applications for improved input/output performance, lower latency and data retention capabilities in the event of unexpected system failure. The proliferation of mobile devices, social media platforms, cognitive/artificial intelligence systems and cloud-based software applications is resulting in the creation of unprecedented amounts of unstructured data. In order to manage and analyze this data, we believe new computing and memory architectures need to be developed to satisfy the needs in the industry.

 

In high-performance computing environments, such as cloud-based computing and Big Data applications, a system's overall processing speed is limited to the ability of the central processing unit ("CPU") to access data cached in memory. Memory speeds have failed to keep pace with improvements in CPU processing speeds, resulting in buffering delays encountered in highly intensive computing environments. To mitigate challenges arising from differences in CPU and memory clock speeds, data center operators have increased the number of servers in their facilities as well as the memory content in each server. Memory capacity is expanded through the use of DIMMs, generally incorporating up to 16 GB of DRAM per module with today’s technology and moving up to 64/128 GB of DRAM per module and beyond. Our technology enables an intelligent controller to be integrated onto the DIMM, in order to manage the rapid flow of data between the CPU and memory. The number of DIMMs incorporated into a server increases in correlation with the number of processing cores in the CPU. DDR4 DIMMs incorporate our load-reduction technology to mitigate the trade-off between operating speed and memory capacity inherent in prior generations of server DIMM. These load-reduced DIMMs, or LRDIMMs, are now the predominant memory technology used in high-capacity servers and high-performance computing clusters.

 

Technical challenges arising from the production of DRAM using leading edge semiconductor manufacturing processes is limiting the material's long-term viability as the high-speed memory of choice in demanding computing environments. Conversely, NAND flash, while characterized by lower access speeds, is scaling down in cost and scaling up in density at a significantly better rate than DRAM. This has led the industry to explore alternative computer architectures and new memory materials capable of bridging DRAM's superior access speed with NAND flash's lower cost and higher densities. We expect memory subsystems relying on intelligent controller technology to leverage NAND flash will most effectively address the industry's growing need for high-speed data management and analytics.

 

Technology

 

Our portfolio of proprietary technologies and design techniques includes:

 

HybriDIMM Technology

 

HybriDIMM technology is, we believe, a breakthrough that allows for data that lives on a slower media, such as NAND flash, to coexist on the memory channel without breaking the deterministic nature of the memory channel. A proprietary software protocol controls the movement of data between DRAM and NAND flash on the DIMM while maintaining the integrity of the memory channel. HybriDIMM technology is material and protocol agnostic, allowing for leverage of future storage and memory technologies on the DIMM.

 

In developing this technology,  we partnered with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) in November 2015 through a joint development and license agreement (“JDLA”) to jointly develop new storage class memory technologies, including a standardized product interface for NVDIMM-P memory modules, in order to facilitate broad industry adoption of this new technology.

 

Distributed Buffer Architecture

 

We invented the distributed buffer architecture that enables the buffering of data signals along the bottom edge of the memory module using multiple data buffer devices distributed between the edge connector and the DRAM. The result is shorter data paths, improved signal integrity, and reduced latency compared to the industry-standard design for DDR3 LRDIMM. The memory industry has widely adopted our distributed architecture for DDR4 LRDIMM. Our HyperCloud product was our first LRDIMM product built on this distributed buffer architecture.

 

Design Expertise

 

We have designed special algorithms that can be implemented in stand-alone integrated circuits or integrated into other functional blocks in application-specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”). We utilize these algorithms in our HybriDIMM product to incorporate load reduction functionality. We also incorporate these algorithms in our NVvault product line, which is also known in the industry as NVDIMM-N.

 

Proprietary PCB Designs

 

We utilize advanced techniques to optimize electronic signal strength and integrity within a printed circuit board (“PCB”). These techniques include the use of 10-layer or 12-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 original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) to develop products with smaller footprints for their customers.

 

Very Low Profile Designs

 

We believe we were the first company to create memory subsystems in a form factor of less than one inch in height. Our innovative very low profile (“VLP”) DIMMs provide developers of server blades, storage bridge bay applications, telecommunications servers, switches and routers with a wide range of high performance memory options

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 simulation and data 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.

 

Products

 

Our commercially available memory subsystem products and other products that we sell include:

 

Component and Other Product Resales

 

Due to our relationships with memory channel customers, in addition to our own products, we resell certain component products that we purchase for the purpose of resale. We have purchased certain of these products, including SSDs, NAND flash and DRAM products, from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA. We have also sourced these products from other suppliers to the extent sufficient product is not available from Samsung to meet customer demand or in the event of other Samsung supply issues. In 2019 and 2018, resales of these products represented approximately 77% and 75% of our net product sales, respectively. Additionally, we sell excess component inventory to distributors and other users of memory integrated circuits.

 

Storage Class Memory

 

Using an industry standard DDR4 LRDIMM interface, we believe HybriDIMM is the industry’s first storage class memory product capable of operating in existing Intel x86 servers without BIOS and hardware changes. HybriDIMM unifies DRAM and NAND flash in a plug-and-play module, delivering terabyte storage capacities operating at DRAM-like nanosecond memory speeds. HybriDIMM’s architecture combines an on-DIMM co-processor with our software-defined data management algorithm. HybriDIMM’s feature set encompasses the NVDIMM functionalities adopted by the industry. HybriDIMM dramatically improves application performance by reducing data access latency by up to 1,000 times versus the fastest existing storage solution known to us.

 

We are now working with certain customers to transition to volume production. In July 2019, we entered into a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (the “MOU”) with Xi’an UniIC Semiconductors Co., Ltd. (“UniIC”) to grant a non-exclusive license to UniIC to develop, market and sell a Media Controller ASIC (the “MCA”) and a Hybrid DIMM Memory Module (the “HDIMM”) based on HybriDIMM technology for a per unit royalty and our right to purchase MCAs from UniIC. Pursuant to the MOU, we would also obtain the right to build and sell HDIMMs based on the MCA and the right to develop and sell derivative MCA and HDIMM products based on the HybriDIMM Technology for a royalty amount to be negotiated.

 

Nonvolatile Memory

 

Our Vault product line enables customers to accelerate data running through their servers and storage and reliably protect enterprise-level cache, metadata and log data by providing near instantaneous recovery in the event of a system failure or power outage. Our nonvolatile memory offering includes:

 

NVvault DDR4 NVDIMM (“NV4”). NV4 is an NVDIMM-N that provides data acceleration and protection in a JEDEC standard DDR4 interface. It is designed to be integrated into industry standard server or storage solutions.

 

Specialty DIMMs and Embedded Flash

 

A small portion of our net product sales is 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 OEM system launch, we engage with our OEM customers from the earliest stages of new product development definition, providing us valuable 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 persistence, high density, small form factor, high signal integrity, attractive thermal characteristics, reduced power consumption and low cost per bit.

 

Intellectual Property

 

We believe 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 technologies and other proprietary information. As of December 28, 2019, we had 103 U.S. and foreign issued patents and 29 pending U.S and foreign patent applications. Assuming they are properly maintained and are not invalidated by reexamination proceedings, our patents will expire at various dates between 2022 and 2035. Our issued patents cover various aspects of our innovations and include various claim scopes and, as a result, we believe our business is not materially dependent on any one claim in any of our existing patents or pending patent applications.

 

We have devoted significant resources to develop and enforce our intellectual property portfolio. For instance, we have taken action to protect and defend our innovations by filing legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix and two of its subsidiaries in the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC"), U.S. district court and the courts of Germany and the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”). In our two separate ITC actions, we have requested exclusion orders that direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States. Although our first ITC action has been resolved with a final determination of no infringement of the patents asserted in this action, our second ITC action, which relates to different patents, remains ongoing. In our U.S. district court and international court proceedings, we are primarily seeking damages. All of our patents involved in these proceedings cover key features of RDIMM and LRDIMM products.

   

Customers

 

We resell certain component products that we purchase for the purpose of resale to certain end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. We also market and sell our memory subsystem products, primarily to OEMs in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets.

 

Our target markets are characterized by a limited number of large companies, and consolidation in one or more of our target markets may further increase this concentration. As a result, sales to small numbers of customers have historically represented a substantial portion of our net product sales. Additionally, the composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net product sales have fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate from period to period as our existing and prospective customers progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell and experience resulting fluctuations in their product demand. For further information about our customer concentrations, see Note 12 “Major Customers, Suppliers and Products” to our consolidated financial statements in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K.

 

We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers. Instead, our product sales are made primarily pursuant to stand-alone purchase orders that we often receive no more than two weeks in advance of the desired delivery date and that may be rescheduled or cancelled on relatively short notice, which reduces our backlog of firm orders. 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.

 

Additionally, we offer warranties on our memory subsystems generally ranging from one to three years, depending on the product and negotiated terms of purchase orders from our customers. These warranties require us to repair or replace defective products returned to us during such warranty period at no cost to the customer.

 

Sales and Marketing

 

We primarily market and sell our products and the component products we resell 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 existing and prospective customers in our target markets.

 

We utilize well-trained, highly technical program management teams to 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 customer’s issues that may arise during the sales process. Additionally, they help us 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.

 

Manufacturing and Supply

 

Manufacturing

 

We manufacture memory subsystem products at our facility in the PRC, which is certified in International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems and ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management Standards. Our in-house manufacturing function, combined with our engineering and design capabilities, allows us to assemble our memory subsystems quickly and in high volume. Our manufacturing facility is capable of surface mount assembly, subsystem testing, system‑level burn-in testing, programming, marking, labeling and packaging. Manufacturing cycle times for our memory subsystem products, from receipt of order, are typically one week or less and in some cases as short as two days.

 

We schedule production based on purchase order commitments and anticipated orders. We release raw materials to the manufacturing floor by means of an online shop floor control system, which allows for internal quality analysis, direct access to inventory information and production floor material tracking. We have a flexible manufacturing workforce, which allows us to manage unforecasted demand.

 

We perform ongoing reliability testing on our memory subsystems and share the results of that testing with our customers. In addition, we have implemented procedures that require all of our memory subsystems to undergo functional and system burn-in testing prior to delivery to a customer. We also supplement our test capabilities with advanced imaging technology to inspect the quality of our assemblies.

 

Supply

 

We acquire components and materials, such as field-programmable gate arrays (“FPGAs”), ASICs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash, directly from integrated circuit manufacturers and assemble them into our finished subsystem products. We also purchase some of these component products from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA, and from alternative suppliers, for the purpose of resale to customers directly.

 

We have developed supplier relationships with several manufacturers of these component products, and we typically qualify our memory subsystem products with our customers using multiple component manufacturers. However, our actual purchases of component products, both for integration into our products and for resale, are concentrated in a small number of suppliers, including an affiliate of Samsung, from which we obtained 37% and 13% of our total inventory purchases in 2019 and 2018, respectively, Techtronics (Singapore) Pte, Ltd from which we obtained 17% of our total inventory purchases in 2019, and Memorysolution GmbH and EG Electronics from which we obtained 17% and 15% of our total inventory purchases in 2018, respectively. For further information about our supplier

concentrations, see Note 12 “Major Customers, Suppliers and Products” to our consolidated financial statements in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K.

 

We order component products based primarily on forecasts of customer demand, which subjects us to certain inventory risks in the event our forecasts are not accurate. In order to mitigate these inventory risks, we seek to resell to distributors and other users of memory integrated circuits excess quantities of the component inventories we have purchased for integration in our memory subsystem products.

 

Our quality assurance engineers work with our suppliers to ensure that the raw materials we receive meet our quality standards. These engineers also perform on-site 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 manufacturing and sale processes.

 

Competition

 

Our products are primarily targeted to OEMs in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets. In addition, we resell certain component products to storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. These markets are intensely competitive, as numerous companies vie for business opportunities at a limited number of large OEMs and other customers. We face competition from DRAM suppliers, memory module providers and logic suppliers for many of our products, including NVvault and HybriDIMM. Additionally, if and to the extent we enter new markets or pursue licensing arrangements to monetize our technologies and intellectual property portfolio, we may face competition from a large number of competitors that produce solutions utilizing similar or competing technologies.

 

Some of our customers and suppliers may have proprietary products or technologies that are competitive with our products or the components we resell to them, or could develop internal solutions or enter into strategic relationships with, or acquire, other high-density memory module or component providers. Any of these actions could reduce our customers’ demand for our products or the component products we resell. Additionally, some of our significant suppliers could choose to sell component products to customers directly, which would adversely affect our ability to resell these products, or may be choose to manufacture competitive memory subsystem products themselves or reduce our supply of essential components of our products, which could adversely affect our ability to manufacture and sell our memory subsystems.

 

We believe the principal competitive factors in the selection of memory subsystems or the component products we resell by existing and potential future customers are:

 

 

We believe we compete favorably with respect to these factors. However, our target markets could disagree, or circumstances could change with respect to one or more of these competitive factors. Further, we believe our ability to compete in our current target markets and potential future markets will depend in part on our ability to successfully and timely develop, introduce and sell at attractive prices new and enhanced products or technologies and otherwise respond to changing market requirements, which we may not be able to do faster and better than our competitors. Moreover, many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution and other resources, broader product lines, lower cost structures, greater brand recognition, more influence on industry standards, more extensive or established patent portfolios and longer standing relationships with customers and suppliers. We may not be

able to compete effectively against any of these organizations. If we are unable to compete effectively, then our market position and prospects could deteriorate and our revenues could decline.

 

Research and Development

 

Our industry is characterized by rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and rapid product obsolescence. As a result, continuous development of new technology, processes and product innovation is necessary in order to be successful. We believe the continued and timely development of new products and improvement of existing products are critical to our business and prospects for growth.

 

To this end, we have assembled a team of engineers with expertise in computer architectures, system memory, subsystem design and memory software, as well as PCB design, VLP design and thermal management. Our engineers also focus on developing and incorporating new techniques, methodologies and processes for testing and manufacturing our products, and also collaborate with our customers to provide us with insights into and expertise in systems architecture, power budget, performance requirements, operating environment (such as air flow and operating temperature) and any mechanical constraints.

 

We have invested significant resources in our product research and development efforts. Our customers typically do not separately compensate us for design and engineering work involved in developing application-specific products for them.

 

Employees

 

As of December 28, 2019, we had 80 employees (including 63 full-time employees and 17 temporary employees). In addition to our employees, a significant portion of our workforce consists of contract personnel. 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.

 

Compliance with Environmental and Other Laws

 

We are subject to various and frequently changing U.S. federal, state and local and foreign laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment, including laws governing the discharge of pollutants into the air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the clean-up of contaminated sites. 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 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 these and other environmental laws and regulations. Although we have not incurred significant costs to date to comply with these laws and regulations, new laws or changes to current laws and regulations to make them more stringent could require us to incur significant costs to remain in compliance.

 

We also may be subject to a variety of laws and regulations relating to other matters, including workplace health and safety, labor and employment, foreign business practices (including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and applicable foreign anti-bribery laws), data protection, public reporting and taxation, among others. It is difficult and costly to manage the requirements of every authority having jurisdiction over our various activities and to comply with their varying standards. Any changes to existing regulations or adoption of new regulations may result in significant additional expense to us or our customers. Further, our failure to comply with any applicable laws and regulations may result in a variety of administrative, civil and criminal enforcement measures, including monetary penalties or imposition of sanctions or other corrective requirements.

 

General Information

 

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 corporate website address is www.netlist.com.

 

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 these 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. All SEC filings are also available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Our website also contains copies of our corporate governance guidelines, 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

 

Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making any investment decision with respect to our securities, you should carefully consider each of the following risk factors and the other information in this report. Each of these risk factors, either alone or together, could adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition, ability to access capital resources and future growth prospects, as well as the value of an investment in our securities. As a result, you could lose some or all of any investment you have made or may make in our securities. In assessing these risks, you should also review the other information contained in this report, including our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes, and the other filings we make with the SEC. The risks described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks of which we are not presently aware or that we currently believe are immaterial may also impair our business operations and financial position.

 

Risks Related to Our Common Stock

 

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

 

Our common stock has been publicly traded since November 2006. The price and trading volume of our common stock are volatile and have in the past fluctuated significantly. This volatility could continue, in which case an active trading market in our common stock may not be sustained and stockholders may not be able to sell their shares at a desired time or a desired price.

 

The market price at which our common stock trades may be influenced by many factors, including, among others, the following:

 

 

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, at times irrespective of the state of the business of any particular company. These fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock. Further, following periods of volatility in the overall market and the market price of a particular company’s securities, securities litigation can sometimes be instituted against the company. Securities litigation, like other types of litigation, is expensive and time-consuming, and if such litigation is instituted against us in the future, we may incur substantial costs, management’s attention and resources may be diverted, and we could be subject to damages in the event of unfavorable results.

 

There is a limited market for our common shares, and the trading price of our common shares is subject to volatility. 

 

Netlist common shares began trading on the OTCQX in October 2018, following the decision to move trading of our common stock from The Nasdaq Capital Market. Because our stock is no longer listed on a registered national securities exchange, we are subject to certain “blue sky” laws of the various states which impose restrictions on our ability to offer and sell our securities. These “blue sky” laws may make it more difficult for us to raise capital or to issue our common stock for equity compensation or other strategic purposes, which could adversely affect our ability to fund our operations or to attract and retain employees. In addition, our stock may be defined as a “penny stock” under Rule 3a51-1 under the Exchange Act. “Penny stocks” are subject to Rule 15g-9, which imposes additional sales practice requirements on broker-dealers that sell low-priced securities to persons other than established customers and institutional accredited investors. For transactions covered by this rule, a broker-dealer must make a special suitability determination for the purchaser and have received the purchaser’s written consent to the transaction prior to sale. Consequently, the rule may affect the ability of broker-dealers to sell our common stock and affect the ability of holders to sell their shares of our common stock in the secondary market. To the extent our common stock is subject to the penny stock regulations, the market liquidity for the shares will be adversely affected.

 

Future issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase our common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, could result in additional dilution to the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

 

We have historically funded our operations in large part with proceeds from equity and convertible debt financings, and we expect to continue to do so in the future. Future issuances of common stock may include sales of up to $20 million worth of shares of our common stock pursuant to our Purchase Agreement with Lincoln Park Capital Fund, LLC (“Lincoln Park”), entered into March 2020. In addition to capital-raising purposes, we may also issue securities from time to time at prices and on other terms as we determine for acquiring other businesses or assets in exchange for shares of our common stock or other securities, issuing securities to collaborators in connection with strategic partnerships, attracting and retaining employees with equity compensation, or other purposes. If we sell common stock or other equity or convertible debt securities in the future, our then-existing stockholders could be materially diluted by such issuances and new investors could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to the holders of our common stock, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

 

Sales of our common stock, or the perception that such sales could occur, could cause the market price of our stock to drop significantly, regardless of the state of our business.

 

As of December 28, 2019, there were 169,538,399 shares of our common stock outstanding, of which 7,356,758 shares of our common stock are subject to outstanding stock options, 2,803,179 shares of our common stock are subject to outstanding unvested restricted stock units, 15,010,012 shares of our common stock are subject to  outstanding warrants, and 12,986,302 shares of our common stock subject to an outstanding convertible note. All outstanding shares of our common stock are eligible for sale in the public market under applicable federal securities laws, subject in certain cases to the requirements of Rule 144 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and shares issued upon the exercise or conversion of outstanding stock options, warrants or convertible notes may also be eligible for sale in the public market, to the extent permitted by Rule 144 or other applicable securities laws and the provisions of the applicable stock option, warrant and convertible note agreements. If

these shares are sold, or if it is perceived that they may be sold, in the public market, the trading price of our common stock could fall.

 

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 March 3, 2020, 5.9% of our outstanding common stock was held by our directors and officers, including 5.5% held by Chun K. Hong, our President, 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, any proposed merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets and other significant 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, as well as our rights agreement, could delay or prevent a change of control and could also limit the market price of our common 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, including:

 

 

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. Further, in April 2017, we adopted a rights agreement that would, under certain specified circumstances and for so long as the rights issued under the rights agreement are outstanding, give the holders of our common stock the right to acquire additional shares of our capital stock, which would make it more difficult for a third party to acquire a significant percentage of our outstanding capital stock or attempt a hostile takeover of our Company.

 

These and other provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and of Delaware law, as well as the existence of our rights agreement, 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 our board of directors, including a merger, tender offer, 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 our common stock. In addition, these anti-takeover provisions could reduce the price that investors are willing to pay for shares of our common stock.

 

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

 

We intend to use all available funds to finance our operations. Accordingly, while all decisions about dividends are at the discretion of our board of directors, we have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock in the past, and we have no intention of declaring or paying any such dividends in the foreseeable future. As a result, any return to investors is expected to result, if at all, only from potential increases in the price of our common stock.

 

Risks Related to Our Business

 

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, we must 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, such expense reductions alone will not make us profitable or allow us to sustain profitability if it is achieved, and eliminating or reducing strategic initiatives could limit our opportunities and prospects. Our ability to achieve profitability will depend on increased revenue growth from, among other things, increased demand for our memory subsystems and other product offerings and our ability to monetize our intellectual property. We may not be successful in any of these pursuits, and we may never achieve profitability or sustain profitability if achieved.

 

Our results of operations fluctuate significantly and are difficult to predict.

 

Our operating results have fluctuated significantly in the past, and we expect they will continue to fluctuate from period to period due to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these fluctuations include, among others, the amount and timing of sales of products, the prices we charge for products, changes in product mix, customer mix or other similar factors, the rate and timing of our billing and collections cycles and the timing and amount of our commitments and other payments, as well as the other risk factors described in this report. In addition, our results may be impacted by events that do not recur regularly, in the same amounts or at all in other periods, including events that may result in our incurrence of cash or non-cash charges or gains in certain periods.

 

These fluctuations in our operating results may render period-to-period comparisons less meaningful, and investors should not rely on the results of any one period as an indicator of future performance. Moreover, these fluctuations in our operating results could cause our performance in any particular period to fall below the expectations of investors or securities analysts or any guidance we have provided to the public, which could negatively affect the trading price of our common stock.

 

We may not have sufficient working capital to fund our planned operations, and, as a result, we may need to raise additional capital in the future, which may not be available when needed, on acceptable terms or at all.

 

To support our activities in the near term, we expect to rely on cash generated from our business and proceeds from issuances of debt and equity securities, including our equity line with Lincoln Park, and borrowing availability under our credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”). Taking into account our planned activities and sources of capital, we believe we have sufficient cash resources to satisfy our capital needs for at least the next 12 months. However, our estimates of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we anticipate. Further, some or all of our ongoing or planned investments may not be successful and could further deplete our capital without immediate, or any, cash returns.

 

Our capital requirements will depend on many factors, including, among others:

 

 

Until we can generate sufficient revenues to finance our cash requirements from our operations, which we may never do, we may need to increase our liquidity and capital resources by one or more measures, which may include, among others, reducing operating expenses, restructuring our balance sheet by negotiating with creditors and vendors, entering into strategic partnerships or alliances, raising additional financing through the issuance of debt, equity or convertible securities or pursuing alternative sources of capital, such as through asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements. Further, even if our near-term liquidity expectations prove correct, we may still seek to raise capital through one or more of these financing alternatives. However, we may not be able to obtain capital when needed or desired, on terms acceptable to us or at all.

 

Inadequate working capital would have a material adverse effect on our business and operations and could cause us to fail to execute our business plan, fail to take advantage of future opportunities or fail to respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. A lack of sufficient funding may also require us to significantly modify our business model and/or reduce or cease our operations, which could include implementing cost-cutting measures or delaying, scaling back or eliminating some or all of our ongoing and planned investments in corporate infrastructure, research and development projects, legal proceedings, business development initiatives and sales and marketing activities, among other activities. Modification of our business model and operations could result in an impairment of assets, the effects of which cannot be determined. Furthermore, if we continue to issue equity or convertible debt securities to raise additional funds, our existing stockholders may experience significant dilution, and the new equity or debt securities may have rights, preferences and privileges that are superior to those of our existing stockholders. Additionally, because our common stock is no longer listed on The Nasdaq Capital Market, the challenges and risks of equity financings may significantly increase, including potentially increasing the dilution of any such financing or decreasing our ability to effect such a financing at all. If we incur additional debt, it may increase our leverage relative to our earnings or to our equity capitalization or have other material consequences. If we pursue asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements to obtain additional capital, our operational capacity may be limited and any revenue streams or business plans that are dependent on the sold or licensed assets may be reduced or eliminated. Moreover, we may incur substantial costs in pursuing any future capital-raising transactions, including investment banking, legal and accounting fees, printing and distribution expenses and other similar costs, which would reduce the benefit of the capital received from the transaction.

 

We may be unsuccessful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio.

 

We dedicate substantial resources to developing technology innovations we believe are essential to our business. We intend to pursue monetization avenues for our intellectual property portfolio, potentially including licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements. However, we have not generated any such revenue stream from our intellectual property to date, and we may never be successful in achieving this objective.

 

Although we may pursue agreements with third parties to commercially license certain of our products or technologies, we may never successfully enter into any such agreement. Further, the terms of any such agreements we may reach with third-party licensees are uncertain and may not provide sufficient royalty or other licensing revenues to us to justify our costs of developing and maintaining the licensed intellectual property or may otherwise include terms that are not favorable to us. Additionally, the pursuit of licensing arrangements would require by its nature that we relinquish certain of our rights to our technologies and intellectual property that we license to third parties, which could limit our ability to base our own products on such technologies or could reduce the economic value we receive from such technologies and intellectual property. Additionally, the establishment of arrangements to monetize our intellectual property may be more difficult or costly than expected, may require additional personnel and investments and may be a significant distraction for management.

 

Our ability to establish licensing, royalty or similar revenues, and maintain or increase any such revenues we are able to establish, depends on a variety of factors, including, among others, the novelty, utility, performance, quality, breadth, depth and overall perceived value of our intellectual property portfolio, all as compared to that of our competitors, as well as our sales and marketing capabilities. Even if we are able to secure these revenues, they may be negatively affected by factors that are entirely or partially outside our control, including reductions in our customers’ sales prices, sales volumes and the general state of their business, as well as the terms of the license arrangements.

 

If we are not successful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio, we may never recoup our investments of time, capital and other resources in the development, maintenance, defense and enforcement of this portfolio, which could materially harm our financial condition and prospects.

 

We have incurred a material amount of indebtedness to fund our operations, the terms of which have required us to pledge substantially all of our assets as security. Our level of indebtedness and the terms of such indebtedness could adversely affect our operations and liquidity. 

 

We have incurred debt under our convertible note issued to Samsung Venture Investment Co. (“SVIC”), our credit facility with SVB, and our funding arrangement with TR Global Funding V, LLC, an affiliate of TRGP Capital Management (“TRGP”). In connection with these debt and other arrangements, we have granted security interests to SVIC, SVB and TRGP in our various assets, such that all of our tangible and intangible assets, including our complete patent portfolio, are subject to one or more outstanding liens held by one or more of these parties.

 

The SVIC and SVB debt instruments and the TRGP investment agreement contain customary representations, warranties and indemnification provisions, as well as affirmative and negative covenants that, among other things, restrict our ability to:

 

 

The SVIC and SVB debt instruments and the TRGP investment agreement also include events of default, including, among other things, payment defaults, any breach by us of representations, warranties or covenants, certain bankruptcy events and certain material adverse changes. If an event of default were to occur under any of these instruments or agreements and we were unable to obtain a waiver for the default, the counterparties could, among other remedies, accelerate our obligations under the debt instrument or other agreement and exercise their rights to foreclose on their security interests, which would cause substantial harm to our business and prospects.

 

Additionally, incurrence and maintenance of this or other debt could have material adverse consequences on our business and financial condition, such as:

 

 

We are and expect to continue to be involved in legal proceedings at the ITC to try to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States, as well as legal proceedings in U.S. and international courts to seek damages for the alleged patent infringement. Our involvement in these proceedings, as well as steps we have taken to implement certain of our strategies in connection with these proceedings, subject us to a number of risks.

 

We have taken action to protect and defend our innovations by filing legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix, Inc., a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”) and two of its subsidiaries in the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”), U.S. district court and the courts of Germany and the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC”). In our two separate ITC actions, we have requested exclusion orders that direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix registered dual in-line memory modules (“RDIMM”) and load reduced dual in-line memory modules (“LRDIMM”) products from entering the United States. In our U.S. district court and international court proceedings, we are primarily seeking damages.

 

Our first ITC action was resolved in January 2018 with a final determination of no infringement of the patents asserted in this action. The Company appealed this final determination to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit where on December 12, 2019, the CAFC dismissed our appeal as moot. In our second ITC action, the ITC terminated the investigation in April 2018, but then restarted the investigation in May 2018 following a Remand order from the ITC Commission and it remains ongoing. Although our U.S. and international court proceedings remain ongoing, the loss of the first ITC action could negatively impact our prospects for positive results in these other proceedings. Moreover, if we do not achieve a positive result in the second ITC action, then we will have invested significant time and funds in the first and second ITC actions that will not be recovered with any cash returns.

 

On January 31, 2019, the Munich District Court (the “Court”) dismissed an action brought by us against SK hynix Inc. and Hewlett-Packard GmbH regarding the infringement of our German utility model. In its judgment the Court followed a different claim construction than advocated by us whereby it did not find our utility model to be infringed.

 

Our remaining proceedings against SK hynix, as with any intellectual property litigation, are expensive and time-consuming, regardless of the merits of the claims, and could divert management’s attention from our other activities. Even if we are successful at the ITC, we would then need to enforce the order, which could also be expensive, time-consuming and a diversion to management. In addition, lawsuits in the ITC and in courts are subject to inherent uncertainties due to the complexity of the technical issues involved and various other factors, and we may not be successful in any of our actions. For example, if we are countersued by SK hynix and lose the suit, we could be required to pay substantial damages or lose some of our intellectual property protections. Furthermore, we may not be able to reach a settlement with SK hynix to license our patent portfolio, and even if we are able to reach a settlement, the terms of the arrangement may not be as favorable as we anticipated. Any of the foregoing could cause us to incur significant costs, decrease the perceived value of our intellectual property and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

 

We have taken steps intended to solidify our position and strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix. In May 2017, we established a funding arrangement with TRGP, which generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with certain of our SK hynix proceedings (including our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings, but excluding our second ITC action and our proceedings in international courts), and in exchange for such funding, we agreed to pay to TRGP the amount of its funding plus an escalating premium if and when we recover any proceeds from the funded proceedings, and we have granted to TRGP a first-priority lien on the claims underlying the funded proceedings and any proceeds received from the funded proceedings and a second-priority lien on our patents that are the subject of the funded proceedings. We established this funding arrangement in order to provide us with increased security that we will be able to vigorously pursue our claims against SK hynix through their final resolution, but the arrangement also involves certain risks, including, among others,

our obligation to use a portion of any proceeds we may receive from these proceedings to repay the funded amounts at a premium. On January 29, 2020, Netlist, Inc. TRGP entered into a First Amendment to the funding arrangement with TRGP. Under the First Amendment, the parties agreed to modify the recovery sharing formula related to claims against SK hynix. Our arrangement with TRGP only covers fees incurred in connection with certain of our outstanding proceedings against SK hynix, and we are responsible for funding costs related to our other outstanding proceedings and any future actions we may file. As a result, our ability to fund all of our proceedings against SK hynix may be limited to our own cash resources, in which case we may be forced to severely limit our pursuit of these claims and/or our other operations.

 

In addition, in April 2017, we adopted a rights agreement to implement a standard “poison pill.” In general terms, for so long as the rights issued under the rights agreement are outstanding, the rights agreement prevents any person or group from acquiring a significant percentage of our outstanding capital stock or attempting a hostile takeover of our Company by significantly diluting the ownership percentage of such person or group. The rights agreement expires on the earlier of the complete resolution of all our proceedings against SK hynix or April 17, 2021. As a result, the rights agreement has a significant anti-takeover effect. Our board of directors approved the rights agreement as part of our strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix, with the intent of disconnecting our market capitalization from the damages calculations and any settlement negotiations that may develop in connection with these proceedings. However, the rights agreement may not have the intended, or any, impact on these proceedings or any related settlement negotiations, but would have the anti-takeover effect of any standard “poison pill” and thus would involve the risks associated with these anti-takeover effects, which are described elsewhere in these risk factors.

 

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

 

As is common in the semiconductor industry, we have experienced substantial litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. We are currently involved in litigation and proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) based on alleged third-party infringement of our patents, and lawsuits claiming we are infringing others’ intellectual property rights also have been and may in the future be brought against us.

 

Our business strategy includes litigating claims against others, such as our competitors and customers, to enforce our intellectual property, contractual and commercial rights, including, in particular, our patent portfolio and our trade secrets, as well as to challenge the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. This or other similar proceedings could also subject us to counterclaims or countersuits against us, or the parties we sue could seek to invalidate our patents or other intellectual property rights through reexamination or similar processes at the USPTO or similar bodies. Further, any legal disputes with customers could cause them to cease buying or using our products or the component products we resell or delay their purchase of these products and could substantially damage our relationship with them.

 

Moreover, our ability to continue to pursue this strategy depends on our ability to obtain and protect patents, which is governed by an uncertain process. In addition to the patent issuance process established by law and the procedures of the USPTO, we must also comply with administrative procedures of the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (“JEDEC”) to protect 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. Any failure to comply with the USPTO’s or JEDEC’s administrative procedures could jeopardize our ability to claim that our patents have been infringed.

 

Making use of new technologies and entering new markets increases the likelihood that others might allege that our products or the component products we resell infringe their intellectual property rights. The likelihood of this type of lawsuit may also be increased due to the limited pool of experienced technical personnel that we can draw on 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 a number of our future employees will have similar work histories. Moreover, lawsuits of this type may be brought, even if there is no merit to the claim, as a strategy to prevent us from hiring qualified candidates, drain our financial resources and divert management’s attention away from our business.

 

Litigation is inherently uncertain. An adverse outcome in existing or any future litigation could force us to, among other things:

 

 

Moreover, any litigation, regardless of its outcome, involves a significant dedication of resources, including time and capital, and diverts management’s attention from our other activities. As a result, any current or future infringement claims or patent challenges by or against third parties, whether or not eventually decided in our favor or settled, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, the outcome of pending or future litigation and related patent reviews and reexaminations, as well as any delay in their resolution, could affect our ability to continue to sell our products, protect against competition in the current and expected markets for our products or license or otherwise monetize our intellectual property rights in the future.

 

The vast majority of our revenues in recent periods have been generated from resales of component products, including products sourced from Samsung, and any decline in these product resales could significantly harm our performance.

 

The vast majority of our revenues in recent periods have been generated from resales of component products, including SSDs, NAND flash and DRAM products. We resell these component products to end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers.

 

These component product resales are subject to a number of risks. For example, demand for these products could decline at any time for a number of reasons, including, among others, changing customer requirements or preferences, product obsolescence, introduction of more advanced or otherwise superior competing products by our competitors, the ability of our customers to obtain these products or substitute products from alternate sources (including from the manufacturer directly), customers reducing their need for these products generally, or the other risk factors described in this report. We have no long-term agreements or other commitments with respect to sales of these or any of the other products we sell. As a result, any decrease in demand for these products from us would reduce our sale levels and could materially adversely impact our revenues. Additionally, opportunistic purchases of products for resale, when coupled a decrease in demand, may cause us to write off excess inventory which would adversely affect our operating performance.

 

We may experience supply shortages at any time and for a variety of reasons, including, among others, spikes in customer demand that cannot be satisfied, any problems that arise with Samsung’s manufacturing operations or facilities that cause disruptions or delays, or any failure to comply with the terms of the JDLA regarding the supply of these products. If we choose, or if we are forced, to seek to supply the component products we resell from other suppliers, we may not be able to identify other suppliers that are available and able to produce the particular components

with the specific product specifications and in the quantities our customers require, or we may not be able to make arrangements with any other suppliers in a timely manner to avoid delays in satisfying customer orders. Further, even if we are able to make arrangements with other suppliers for sufficient component products to replace any undersupply from Samsung, we may not be able to make these arrangements on financial and other terms comparable to those we have negotiated with Samsung under the JDLA. As a result, any inability to obtain sufficient component products from Samsung could increase our cost of sales for component product resales if we are forced to pay higher prices to obtain the products from other suppliers. Moreover, all of our supply arrangements for these component products, including the terms of the JDLA and any arrangements we may establish with other suppliers, are subject to the other supply and manufacturing risks discussed elsewhere in these risk factors.

 

Increased reliance on product resales also has a substantial impact on our results of operations. Because the cost of the component products we purchase for resale is added to our cost of sales for these products, our gross margin on resales of component products is significantly lower than our gross margin on sales of our own memory subsystem products. As a result, increased resales of component products as a percentage of our total product sales have a significant negative impact on our gross margin and gross profit. This gross margin and gross profit differential between memory product sales and component product resales would be amplified if our costs to purchase component products were to increase.

 

The occurrence of any one or more of these risks could cause our performance to materially suffer.

 

We are subject to risks relating to our focus on developing our HybriDIMM and NVvault products for our target customer markets.

 

We have historically derived revenues from sales of our high‑performance modular memory subsystems to original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets. Although we expect these memory subsystems to continue to account for a portion of our revenues, we have experienced declines in sales of these products in recent periods, and these declines could continue or intensify in the future. We believe market acceptance of these products or derivative products that incorporate our core memory subsystem technology is critical to our success, and any continued decline in sales of these products could have a material adverse impact on our performance and long-term prospects.

 

We have invested significant research and development time and capital in the design of ASIC and hybrid devices, including our NVvault family of products and our next-generation HybriDIMM memory subsystem. These products are subject to significant risks, including:

 

 

These and other risks associated with our memory subsystem products could impair our ability to obtain customer or market acceptance of these products or obtain such acceptance in a timely manner, which would reduce our achievable revenues from these products and limit our ability to recoup our investments in developing these technologies.

 

Additionally, if the demand for servers deteriorates, if the demand for our products to be incorporated in servers continues to decline, or if demand for our products deteriorates because customers in our other target markets change their requirements or preferences or otherwise reduce their need for these types of products generally, our operating results would be adversely affected, and we would be forced to diversify our product portfolio and our target customer markets in order to try to replace revenues lost from the further decreases in product sales. We may not be able to achieve this diversification, and any inability to do so may adversely affect our business, operating performance and prospects.

 

Sales to a small number of customers have historically represented a significant portion of our net product sales, and the loss of, or a significant reduction in sales to, any one of these customers could materially harm our business.

 

Our target markets are characterized by a limited number of large companies, and consolidation in one or more of these markets may further increase this concentration. As a result, sales to small numbers of customers have historically represented a substantial portion of our net product sales, and we expect this concentration to continue. Additionally, the composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net product sales have fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate from period to period as our existing and prospective customers progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell and experience resulting fluctuations in their product demand. We believe our performance depends in significant part on our ability to establish and maintain relationships with and effect substantial sales to our large customers.

 

We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers and, as result, any or all of them could decide at any time to decrease, delay or discontinue their purchase of our products or the component products we resell. In addition, the prices customers pay for products are subject to fluctuations, and large or key customers may exert pressure on us to make concessions in the prices at which we sell products to them. Further, we may not be able to sell some of our products developed for one customer to a different customer because our products are often customized to address specific customer requirements, and even if we are able to sell these products to another customer, our margin on these products may be reduced. Additionally, although customers are generally allowed only limited rights of return after purchasing our products or the component products we resell, we may determine that it is in our best interest to accept returns from certain large or key customers even if we are not contractually obligated to accept them in order to maintain good relations with these customers. Any returns beyond our expectations could negatively impact our operating results. Moreover, because a few customers often account for a substantial portion of our net product sales, the failure of any one of these customers to pay on a timely basis would negatively impact our cash flows. As a result, our net product sales and operating results could be materially adversely affected by the loss of any of our customers, particularly our large or key customers, a decrease in product sales to any of our customers, including as a result of normal fluctuations in demand or other factors, reductions in the prices at which we sell products to any of our customers, including as a result of price concessions or general declines in average sale prices, or difficulties collecting payments from any of our customers.

 

Our ability to maintain or increase our product 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, our customers’ continued incorporation of our products or the component products we resell into their systems, and our customers’ sales activity and business results. Because of these and other factors, sales to these customers may not continue and the amount of such sales may not reach or exceed historical levels in any future period.

 

We are subject to risks of disruption in the supply of component products.

 

Our ability to fulfill customer orders for or produce qualification samples of our memory subsystem products, as well as orders for the component products we resell, is dependent on a sufficient supply of SSDs, FPGAs, ASICs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash, which are essential components of our memory subsystems. We have no long‑term supply contracts for any of these component products. Further, there are a relatively small number of suppliers of these components, and we typically purchase from only a subset of these suppliers. As a result, our inventory purchases have historically been concentrated in a small number of suppliers, including an affiliate of Samsung, from which we obtained

a large portion of our component products purchased for resale and our total inventory purchases in 2017. We also use consumables and other components, including PCBs, to manufacture our memory subsystems, which we sometimes procure from single or limited sources to take advantage of volume pricing discounts.

 

From time to time, shortages in SSDs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash have required some suppliers to limit the supply of these components. In the past, we have experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of SSDs, DRAM and NAND flash required to create certain of our memory subsystem products, and we have been forced to procure the component products we resell from other suppliers to the extent sufficient product is not available from Samsung to meet customer demand or in the event of other Samsung supply issues. We are continually working to secure adequate supplies of the components necessary to fill customers’ orders in a timely manner. If we are unable to obtain a sufficient supply of SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash or other essential components to avoid interruptions or failures in the delivery of our products as required by our customers or the delivery of these components to customers to whom we resell them directly, these customers may reduce future orders for these products or not purchase these products from us at all, which could cause our net product sales to decline and harm our operating results. In addition, our reputation could be harmed due to failures to meet our customers’ demands and, even assuming we are successful in resolving supply chain disruptions, we may not be able to replace any lost business and we may lose market share to our competitors. Further, if our suppliers are unable to produce qualification samples of our products on a timely basis or at all, we could experience delays in the qualification process with existing or prospective customers, which could have a significant impact on our ability to sell our products. Moreover, if we are not able to obtain these components in the amounts needed on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, we may not be able to develop or introduce new products, we may experience significant increases in our cost of sales if we are forced to procure components from alternative suppliers and are not able to negotiate favorable terms with these suppliers, or we may be forced to cease our sales of products dependent on the components or resales of the components we sell to customers directly.

 

Our dependence on a small number of suppliers and the lack of any guaranteed sources for the essential components of our products and the components we resell expose us to several risks, including the inability to obtain an adequate supply of these components, increases in their costs, delivery delays and poor quality. Additionally, our customers qualify certain of the components provided by our suppliers for use in their systems. If one of our suppliers experiences quality control or other problems, it may be disqualified by one or more of our customers. This would disrupt our supplies of these components, and would also reduce the number of suppliers available to us and may require that we qualify a new supplier, which we may not be able to do.

 

Declines in customer demand for our products in recent periods have caused us to reduce our purchases of SSDs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash for use as components in our products. Such declines or other fluctuations could continue in the future. If we fail to maintain sufficient purchase levels with some suppliers, our ability to obtain supplies of these raw materials may be impaired due to the practice of some suppliers of allocating their products to customers with the highest regular demand.

 

Frequent technology changes and the introduction of next-generation versions of component products may also result in the obsolescence of our inventory on-hand, which could involve significant time and costs to replace, reduce our net product sales and gross margin and adversely affect our operating performance and financial condition.

 

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

 

Our prospective customers generally test and evaluate our memory subsystems before 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. Even after our products are qualified with existing or new customers, the customer may take several months to begin purchasing the product or may decide not to purchase the product at all, as qualification does not ensure product sales. As a result, we

could receive no or limited revenues from a customer even after our investment of time and resources in the qualification process with this customer, which could adversely affect our operating results.

 

Even after successful qualification and sales of our products to a customer, 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 architectures, we must design and qualify new products for use by these customers. Our net product sales to these customers can decline significantly during this re-qualification process.

 

Likewise, changes in our products, our manufacturing facilities, our production processes or our component suppliers may require a new qualification process. For example, if our memory, SSDs, NAND flash and DRAM component suppliers discontinue production of these components, it may be necessary for us to design and qualify new products for our customers. As a result, some customers may require 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 forecasts 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 or other difficulties in the qualification process could result in an inability to keep pace with rapid technology change or new competitive products. If we experience delays or do not succeed in qualifying a product with an existing or prospective customer, we would not be able to sell that product to that customer, which may result in excess and obsolete inventory that we may not be able to sell to another customer and could reduce our net product sales and customer base, any of which could materially harm our operating results and business.

 

If we are unable to timely and cost-effectively develop new or enhanced products that achieve customer and market acceptance or technologies we can monetize, our revenues and prospects could be materially harmed.

 

Our industry is characterized by rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and rapid product obsolescence. As a result, continuous development of new technology, processes and product innovations is necessary in order to be successful. We believe the continued and timely development of new products and technologies and improvement of existing products and technologies are critical to our business and prospects for growth.

 

In order to develop and introduce new or enhanced products and technologies, we need to:

 

 

We may not be successful at any of these activities. As a result, we may not be able to successfully develop new or enhanced products or technology or we may experience delays in this process. Failures or delays in product development and introduction could result in the loss of, or delays in generating, net products sales or other revenues and the loss of key customer relationships. Even if we develop new or enhanced products or technologies, they may not meet our customers’ requirements, gain market acceptance or attract monetization opportunities, as our product and technology development efforts are inherently risky due to the challenges of foreseeing changes or developments in technology, predicting changes in customer requirements or preferences or anticipating the adoption of new industry standards. Moreover, we have invested significant resources in our product and technology development efforts, which would be lost if we fail to generate revenues from these efforts. If any if these risks occur, our revenues, prospects and reputation could be materially adversely affected.

 

We face intense competition in our industry, and we may not be able to compete successfully in our target markets.

 

Our products are primarily targeted to OEMs in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets. In addition, we resell certain component products to storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. These markets are intensely competitive, as numerous companies vie for business opportunities at a limited number of large OEMs and other customers. We face competition from DRAM suppliers, memory module providers and logic suppliers for many of our products, including NVvault and HybriDIMM. We also face competition from the manufacturers and distributors of the component products we resell to customers, as these manufacturers and distributors could decide at any time to sell these component products to these customers directly. Additionally, if and to the extent we enter new markets or pursue licensing arrangements to monetize our technologies and intellectual property portfolio, we may face competition from a large number of competitors that produce solutions utilizing similar or competing technologies.

 

Some of our customers and suppliers may have proprietary products or technologies that are competitive with our products or the components we resell to them or could develop internal solutions or enter into strategic relationships with, or acquire, other high-density memory module or component providers. Any of these actions could reduce our customers’ demand for our products or the component products we resell. Additionally, some of our significant suppliers could choose to sell component products to customers directly, which would adversely affect our ability to resell these products, or may choose to manufacture competitive memory subsystem products themselves or reduce our supply of essential components of our products, which could adversely affect our ability to manufacture and sell our memory subsystems.

 

We believe our ability to compete in our current target markets and potential future markets will depend in part on our ability to successfully and timely develop, introduce and sell at attractive prices new and enhanced products or technologies and otherwise respond to changing market requirements, which we may not be able to do faster and better than our competitors. Moreover, many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution and other resources, broader product lines, lower cost structures, greater brand recognition, more influence on industry standards, more extensive or established patent portfolios and longer standing relationships with customers and suppliers. We may not be able to compete effectively against any of these organizations. If we are unable to compete effectively, then our market position and prospects could deteriorate and our revenues could decline.

 

If our proprietary rights are not protected, 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 and other proprietary rights. We have submitted a number of patent applications regarding our proprietary processes and technology, many of which have resulted in issued patents. For our pending patent applications, it is uncertain when or if any of the claims in these applications will be allowed or result in issued patents, in which case the technologies or processes sought to be patented would remain unprotected from use by third parties. In addition, although we intend to continue filing patent applications with respect to new processes and technologies we develop, patent protection may not be available for some of these processes or technologies. Further, even if we are successful in obtaining patent protection, these protections could be limited in scope by the USPTO, a court or applicable foreign authorities or challenged by third parties by way of review or reexamination proceedings and

subsequently invalidated, which would reduce the protections these patents are able to provide. Moreover, patent protection is limited as to duration and all of our issued patents will eventually expire, at which time the previously protected technologies would become widely available for use by third parties, including our competitors.

 

Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights, these efforts may not:

 

 

Moreover, monitoring for any unauthorized use of our technologies is costly, time-consuming and difficult. 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, if any of our issued patents or other intellectual property protections are limited, invalidated or circumvented by third parties, or if we are not able to obtain extensions of existing patents upon their expiration or issuance of new patents to maintain protections provided by expiring patents, we could face increased competition for our products and technologies and be unable to execute on our strategy of monetizing our intellectual property. Any of these outcomes could significantly harm our business, operating results and prospects.

 

Our operating results may be adversely impacted by worldwide economic and political uncertainties and specific conditions in the markets we address and in which we or our strategic partners or competitors do business, including the cyclical nature of and volatility in the memory market and semiconductor industry.

 

Changes in domestic and global economic and political conditions make it difficult for our customers, our vendors and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and these conditions have caused and could continue to cause U.S. and foreign businesses to slow or decrease spending on our products and the products we resell.

 

In addition, sales of our products and the products we resell are dependent on demand by customers in our target markets. These markets are characterized by wide fluctuations in product supply and demand and have been cyclical in the past, which may result in substantial period-to-period fluctuations in our operating results. In addition, these markets have in the past experienced significant downturns, often connected with or in anticipation of maturing product cycles, reductions in technology spending and declines in general economic conditions. During these downturns, product demand diminishes, production capacity exceeds demand, inventory levels increase and average sale prices decline, all of which would materially adversely impact our business and operating results. 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 product demand and sales, our gross margins and cash flows would be negatively impacted. Further, such a downturn could decrease the perceived value of our intellectual property portfolio and reduce our ability to pursue our intellectual property monetization objectives.

 

During challenging economic times, our customers may face challenges gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impair their ability to make timely payments to us. This may negatively affect our liquidity and cash flows and require us to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts. 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, either generally or in our customer markets. If the economy or markets in which we operate experience such a

slowdown, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. The combination of our lengthy sales cycle coupled with any challenging macroeconomic conditions could compound the negative impact of any such downturn on the results of our operations.

 

Our lack of a significant backlog of unfilled orders and the difficulty inherent in estimating customer demand makes it difficult to forecast our short-term requirements, 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 we will seek and accept, production schedules, component procurement, personnel needs and other resource requirements based on our estimates of customer demand. We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers. Instead, our product sales are made primarily pursuant to stand-alone purchase orders that we often receive no more than two weeks in advance of the desired delivery date and that may be rescheduled or cancelled on relatively short notice. The short-term nature of the commitments by many of our customers and our customers’ ability to cancel or defer purchase orders for any reason reduces our backlog of firm orders and our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements for our products or the component products we resell. These facts, combined with the short turnaround times that apply to most orders, makes it difficult to predict our production and inventory needs and allocate production capacity and capital for inventory purchases effectively. As a result, we attempt to forecast the demand for the components needed to manufacture our products and to resell to customers directly, but any such forecasts could turn out to be wrong. Further, 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 any given time.

 

Our production expense and component purchase levels are to a large extent fixed in the short term. As a result, we may be unable to adjust spending on a timely basis to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in customer orders. If we overestimate customer demand, we may have excess component or finished goods inventory, which may not be able to be used in other products or resold and may become obsolete before any such use or resale. If there is a subsequent decline in the prices of components, the value of our inventory would fall and we may be required to write-down the value of our component inventory, which may result in a significant increase in our cost of sales and decrease in our gross margin. In the past, we have had to write-down inventory due to obsolescence, excess quantities and declines in market value below our costs. As a result, any significant shortfall of customer orders in relation to our expectations could hurt our operating results, cash flows and financial condition.

 

Conversely, any rapid increases in demand by our customers could strain our resources. If we underestimate customer demand, we may not have sufficient inventory of necessary components on hand to meet that demand and we may need to try to procure additional quantities, which may not be available or may only be available at high prices or on otherwise unfavorable terms. We also may not have sufficient manufacturing capacity at any given time to meet any demands for rapid increases in production of our memory subsystem products. Any shortages of inventory or manufacturing capacity could lead to delays in the delivery of products, which may force us to forego sales opportunities, reduce our net product sales and damage our customer relationships.

 

In addition, if our product demand forecasts are wrong, we may understate or overstate the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. 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 the determination. Conversely, 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 the inventories are sold.

 

Declines in our average sale prices, driven by volatile prices for components and other factors, may result in declines in our revenues and gross profit.

 

Our industry has historically been characterized by declines in average sale prices. If sale price declines are not offset by corresponding decreases in costs or increases in sales volume or sales of products with higher margins, these sale price declines could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

 

The prices customers pay for the products we sell can fluctuate due to many factors, including, among others, competitive conditions in our key customer markets, changes in customer requirements or preferences, volatility in the market prices for SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash and other component products, and changes in manufacturing efficiencies or capacities. Market prices for component products have historically constituted a substantial portion of the total cost of our memory subsystems and in recent periods have constituted the vast majority of the cost of resales of these products to customers directly. As a result, fluctuations in the prices for these component products, due to overcapacity in worldwide supply or increased manufacturing efficiencies, implementation of new manufacturing processes or expansion of manufacturing capacity by component suppliers, among other factors, significantly impact our costs to sell our products or component products.

 

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. As a result, if market prices for essential components increase, we generally cannot pass the price increases through to our customers for products purchased under an existing purchase order. Consequently, we are exposed to the risks associated with the volatility of prices for these components and our cost of sales could increase and our gross margins could decrease in the event of sudden price increases. Alternatively, if there are declines in the prices of these components, we may be required to reduce our selling prices for subsequent purchase orders, which may result in a decline in our net product sales.

 

Our manufacturing operations involve significant risks.

 

We maintain a manufacturing facility in the PRC at which we produce most of our products. These manufacturing activities require significant resources to maintain. For instance, we must continuously review and improve our manufacturing processes in order to maintain satisfactory manufacturing yields and product performance, try to lower our costs and otherwise remain competitive. As we manufacture new and more complex products, the risk of encountering delays, difficulties or higher costs increases. In addition, 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.

 

Additionally, we could experience a prolonged disruption, material malfunction, interruption or other loss of operations at our manufacturing facility for any number of reasons, including the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as the novel coronavirus, or catastrophic weather events, or we may need to add manufacturing capacity to satisfy any increased demand for our products. Under these circumstances, we may be forced to rely on third parties for our manufacturing needs, which could increase our manufacturing costs, decrease our gross margin, decrease our control over manufacturing processes, limit our ability to satisfy customer requirements and demand and delay new product development until we could secure a relationship with a third-party manufacturer, which we may not be able to do in a timely manner, on acceptable terms or at all. If any of these risks occur, our operations, performance and customer relationships could be severely harmed.

 

We also may need to expand our existing manufacturing facility or establish a new facility in the future. Any need to expand or replace our manufacturing facility would be expensive and time-consuming and could also subject us to factory audits by our customers that could themselves result in delays, unexpected costs or customer losses if we cannot meet the standards of any such audits. Further, we may not be able to replace or increase our manufacturing capacity at all. The occurrence of any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

 

We depend on third parties to design and manufacture components for our products and the component products we resell, which exposes us to risks.

 

Components that are used in our products, as well as all of the component products we resell, are designed and manufactured by third parties. In addition, some of our memory subsystem products rely on significantly customized components. The ability and willingness of third parties to enter into these engagements with us and perform in accordance with these engagements is largely outside our control. If one or more of our design or manufacturing partners experiences a manufacturing disruption for any number of factors including labor disruptions, catastrophic weather events and the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as the novel coronavirus, fails to dedicate adequate

resources to the production of the components we use in our products or the components we resell, experiences financial instability or otherwise fails to perform its obligations to us 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 and our business and prospects could be materially harmed. In the event of any failure by our component manufacturers, we may have no readily available alternative source of supply for these components, since, in our experience, the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new design or manufacturing partner is substantial, and the time for our OEM customers to re-qualify our products with components from a new vendor is also significant. Additionally, even if an alternative manufacturer is available, we may not be able to engage the manufacturer on acceptable terms, which could result in increased costs, timing requirements or other adverse changes. Further, we may not be able to redesign the customized components used in our products to be manufactured by a new manufacturer, in which case we could infringe on the intellectual property of our current design or manufacturing partner when we manufacture the products with a new design or manufacturing partner. Such an occurrence could force us to stop selling certain of our products or could expose us to lawsuits, license payments or other liabilities.

 

Our dependence on third-party manufacturers exposes us to many other risks, including, among others: reduced control over delivery schedules, quality, manufacturing yields and costs; the potential lack of adequate capacity during periods of excess demand; limited warranties on products supplied to us; and potential infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property or the intellectual property of others. We are dependent on our manufacturing partners to manufacture components with acceptable quality and manufacturing yields, to deliver these components to us on a timely basis and at an acceptable cost and to allocate a portion of their manufacturing capacity sufficient to meet our needs. However, these component manufacturers may not be able to achieve these tasks. Additionally, our manufacturing partners may not continue to devote adequate resources to produce our products or the component products we resell, or continue to advance the process design technologies on which the customer qualifications of our products are based. Any of these risks could limit our ability to meet customer demand and materially adversely affect our business and operating results.

 

If our products or the component products we resell do not meet quality standards or are defective or used in defective systems, we may be subject to quality holds, warranty claims, recalls or liability claims.

 

Our customers require our products and the component products we resell to meet strict quality standards. If the products fail to meet these standards, our customers may discontinue purchases from us until we are able to resolve the quality issues that are causing these failures, which we may not be able to do. These “quality holds” can be costly and time-consuming to resolve. In addition, if the products we sell are defectively manufactured, contain defective components or are used in defective or malfunctioning systems, we could be subject to warranty and product liability claims, product recalls, safety alerts or advisory notices.

 

Although we generally attempt to contractually limit our exposure to incidental and consequential damages, if these contract provisions are not enforced or if liabilities arise that are not effectively limited, we could incur substantial costs in defending or settling product liability claims. While we currently have product liability insurance, it may not provide coverage under certain circumstances and it may not be adequate to satisfy claims made against us. We also may be unable to maintain insurance in the future at satisfactory rates or in adequate amounts.

 

Warranty and product liability claims, product “quality holds,” product recalls, safety alerts or advisory notices, regardless of their coverage by insurance or their ultimate outcome, could have a material adverse effect on our business, performance and financial condition, as well as our ability to attract and retain customers.

 

If a standardized memory solution that addresses the demands of our customers is developed, our net product 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 would have a negative impact on our operating results. In addition, 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 address these demands. Until fully implemented, any next generation of products may constitute a significantly smaller market, which could reduce our revenues and harm our competitive position.

 

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, employment, class action, whistleblower and other litigation and claims, as well as 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 subject us to monetary damages or other liabilities and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

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

 

As is common in our industry, we have a number of agreements in which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our customers and suppliers from damages and costs that may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights. The scope of these indemnities varies, the duration of these indemnities is generally perpetual after execution of an agreement, and the maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnities is often unlimited. Any indemnification claims by customers could require us to incur significant legal fees and could potentially result in our payment of substantial damages, and our insurance generally would not cover these fees or damages. As a result, the occurrence of any of these risks could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

 

We depend on certain key employees, and our business could be harmed if we lose the services of any of these employees or are unable to attract and retain other qualified personnel.

 

To date, we have been highly dependent on the experience, relationships and technical knowledge of certain key employees. We believe our future success will be dependent on our ability to retain the services of these key employees, develop their successors and properly manage the transition of their roles should departures occur. The loss of these key employees or their inability to continue to provide their services could delay the development and introduction of new or enhanced products or technologies, negatively impact our ability to sell our existing products, limit our ability to pursue our other business goals and strategies and otherwise harm our business. We do not have employment agreements with any of our employees other than Chun K. Hong, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our board of directors, and as a result most of our employees may terminate their employment with us at any time. We maintain “Key Man” life insurance on Mr. Hong, but we do not carry “Key Man” life insurance on any of our other 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 these 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 personnel with the skills necessary to keep pace with the evolving technologies in our markets, our ability to continue to provide our existing products and to develop new or enhanced products and technologies would be negatively impacted, which could harm our business. In addition, a general shortage of experienced engineers or other technical personnel could lead to increased recruiting, relocation and compensation costs to attract new recruits, which may increase our operating expenses or make these hires more difficult or impossible if increased recruiting costs exceed our resources.

 

A significant portion of our workforce consists of contract personnel. We invest considerable time and expense to train these contract personnel; however, they typically may terminate their relationships with us at any time. As a result, we may experience high turnover rates in this contract personnel workforce, which may require us to expend additional resources to attract, train and retain replacements. Additionally, if we convert any of these contract personnel to permanent employees, we may have to pay finder’s fees to the contract agency. These risks associated with our contract personnel workforce may involve increased costs or delays or failures in meeting customer requirements or developing new or enhanced products or technologies, any of which could materially adversely affect our business and operating performance.

 

We are also subject to employment laws and regulations, including the changing regulatory landscape.  For example, in California, State Assembly Bill 5 (“AB5”), which went into effect in January 2020, codifies a test to determine whether a worker is an employee under California law. AB5 provides a mechanism for determining whether workers of a hiring entity are employees or independent contractors, but AB5 does not result in any immediate change in how workers are classified.  If the State of California, cities or municipalities, or workers disagree with how a hiring entity classifies workers, AB5 sets forth the test for evaluating their classification. The legal and other costs associated with any misclassification of our personnel can be substantial and could materially adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

 

We rely on our internal and third-party sales representatives to market and sell our products and the component products we resell, and any failure by these representatives to perform as expected could reduce our sales.

 

We primarily market and sell our products and the component products we resell through a direct sales force and a network of independent sales representatives. We have expended significant resources to build our internal sales and marketing function, but compared to many of our competitors, we have relatively little experience creating a sales and marketing platform and developing a team to implement it. We may be unsuccessful in these efforts.

 

Our sales representatives generally may terminate their relationships with us at any time. As a result, our performance depends in part on our ability to retain existing and attract additional sales representatives that will be able to effectively market and support our products or the component products we resell, especially in markets in which we have not previously distributed these products. Our efforts to attract, train and retain these sales representatives to be knowledgeable about our industry, products and technologies are costly and time-consuming. If these efforts fail, our investments in these sales representatives may not produce the expected or any benefits and our ability to market and sell our products or the component products we resell may be limited, which could materially harm our financial condition and operating results. Further, our reliance on independent sales representatives subjects us to risks, as we have very little control over their activities and they are generally free to market and sell other, potentially competing, products. As a result, these independent sales representatives could devote insufficient time or resources to marketing our products or the component products we resell, could market them in an ineffective manner or could otherwise be unsuccessful in selling adequate quantities of these products.

 

We are exposed to additional business, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks related to our international sales and operations.

 

We sell products to foreign corporations and deliver products to facilities located in foreign countries. To facilitate this process and to meet the long-term projected demand for our products, we have established a manufacturing facility in the PRC that performs most of the manufacturing activities for our memory subsystem products.

 

Selling and manufacturing in foreign countries subjects us to additional risks not present with our domestic operations, as we are operating in business and regulatory environments in which we have limited experience and that may impose materially different requirements. Further, the geographic distance from our headquarters in Irvine, California, compounds the difficulties of maintaining a manufacturing operation in the PRC. For instance, we may not be able to maintain the desired amount of control over production capacity and timing, inventory levels, product quality, delivery schedules, manufacturing yields or costs. Moreover, we will need to continue to overcome language and cultural barriers to effectively conduct these international operations. Failures in any of these areas could result in legal consequences or production delays and increased turnaround times, which could adversely affect our business. In

addition, changes to the labor or other laws of the PRC or the economic and political conditions in the PRC, including increased industrialization in recent years, natural disasters, public health crises, including the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as the novel coronavirus, and other catastrophic events, could increase the costs of employing a local workforce or conducting our manufacturing operations in the PRC. Any of these factors could negatively impact any cost savings we experience from locating our manufacturing facility in the PRC. Additionally, our management has limited experience creating or overseeing foreign operations generally, and the ongoing administration and operation of our PRC facility may require substantial amounts of time and attention by our management team, particularly if we encounter operational, legal or cultural difficulties or disruptions at our PRC facility.

 

To date, all of our net product sales have been denominated in U.S. dollars. In the future, however, some of our net product sales may be denominated in Chinese Renminbi (“RMB”). The Chinese government controls the procedures by which RMB is converted into other currencies, which 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 additional restrictions on currency conversion, our operations and our operating results could be negatively impacted. In addition, Chinese law imposes restrictions on the movement of funds outside of the PRC. If we need or decide to repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, we would be required to comply with the procedures and regulations of applicable Chinese law, and any failure to so comply could adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition. Further, if we are able to repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, these funds would be subject to U.S. taxes. In addition, fluctuations in the exchange rate between RMB and U.S. dollars may adversely affect our expenses, the value of our assets and liabilities and the comparability of our period-to-period results.

 

Our international operations and sales are subject to a number of additional risks, including, among others, timing and availability of export licenses; difficulties in accounts receivable collections; difficulties managing distributors; lack of a significant local sales presence in a number of markets; difficulties obtaining government approvals; compliance with anti-bribery, data protection and other applicable U.S. and foreign laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar anti-bribery laws in the non-U.S. jurisdictions in which we operate, as well as a wide variety of other complex foreign laws, regulations and treaties; and potentially adverse tax consequences. In addition, the United States or foreign countries may implement quotas, duties, tariffs, taxes or other charges or restrictions on the importation or exportation of our products or the component products we resell, which could lead to a reduction in sales and profitability in that country. This risk of increased trade barriers or charges has become more pronounced because the trade policies of the current U.S. presidential administration, including withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods and services and recent revisions to the North American Free Trade Agreement, could threaten or otherwise have a significant negative effect on our ability to continue to conduct our international operations in the same manner and at the same costs as we have in the past. The recent implementation of tariffs by the United States on goods manufactured in other countries, including PRC, could cause the costs of our products to increase, which could significantly impair the gross profit we receive and thereby harm our operating results significantly.

 

In addition, international turmoil and the threat of future terrorist attacks have contributed to an uncertain political and economic climate, both in the United States and globally, and have negatively impacted the worldwide economy. The economies of the PRC and other countries in which we make sales have been volatile in recent years, resulting in significant fluctuations in local currencies and other instabilities. These conditions could continue or worsen, which could adversely affect our foreign operations and our performance.

 

The occurrence of any of these risks related to our international operations, including our manufacturing facility in the PRC and our international sales, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and prospects for growth.

 

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 our small number of component suppliers, including Samsung for many of the component products we resell, a disruption resulting from equipment or power failures, quality control issues, human errors, government intervention or natural disasters, including earthquakes and floods, could require significant costs to repair and could interrupt or interfere with product

manufacture and sale and cause significant delays in product shipments, which could harm our customer relationships, financial condition and results of operations. In the past, our PRC facility has suffered water damage as a result of heavy rains and floods, which forced us to temporarily halt manufacturing at the facility while necessary repairs or equipment replacements were made. This incident caused us to incur additional expenses because we were forced to shift our manufacturing activities to a third-party facility in the PRC to mitigate the disruption in product shipments to our customers. If manufacturing at the PRC facility is disrupted for similar or other reasons in the future, we may again be subject to increased expenses in order to engage a third-party manufacturer, or, if we are not able to secure alternative manufacturing capabilities, our ability to sell products and our relationships with our customers could be materially harmed. Additionally, we may be forced to bear significant costs in order to repair any damage to our manufacturing equipment and facility. Any of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

 

Difficulties with our global information technology systems, including any unauthorized access, could harm our business.

 

We store key data about our business, including certain customer data, information about our and our customer’s intellectual property and other proprietary information, on our global information technology systems. Any failure or malfunctioning of our global information technology systems, errors or misuse by system users, difficulties migrating stand-alone systems to our centralized systems or inadequacy of the systems in addressing the needs of our operations could disrupt our ability to timely and accurately manufacture and ship products, divert management’s and key employees’ attention from other business matters and involve significant costs and other resources to repair or otherwise resolve, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Any such event could also disrupt our ability to timely and accurately process, report and evaluate key operating metrics and key components of our results of operations, financial position and cash flows and could adversely affect our ability to complete other important business processes, such as maintenance of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.

 

While our information technology systems include security measures designed to prevent unauthorized access, employee error, employee malfeasance or other causes, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers, could circumvent these measures and result in unauthorized access to these systems. Because the techniques used to gain unauthorized access to information technology systems evolve frequently and often are not recognized until successful, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures in a timely manner. Any security breach could require significant resources to correct, if correction is possible, and could result in disruption to our business, misappropriation or loss of data, loss of confidence in us by our customers, damage to our reputation and legal liability. Further, any failure to implement appropriate security measures to protect our information or any breach or other failure of our systems that results in unauthorized access, manipulation, disclosure or loss of this information could result in our violation of any U.S. or foreign data protection laws that are applicable to us, including the California Consumer Privacy Act which went into effect in January 2020. These laws and their interpretation and application are constantly evolving, and they could be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our current practices or they could become more stringent over time. Efforts to comply with applicable data protection laws or any new interpretations of their application could involve significant time and substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures, and any failures to so comply could subject us to substantial civil or criminal fines or sanctions. Any of these outcomes could have a material negative impact on our business, performance and prospects.

 

Our failure to comply with environmental and other applicable 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 laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment, including laws governing the discharge of pollutants into the air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the clean-up of contaminated sites. 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 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 these and other environmental laws and regulations. Although we have not incurred significant costs to date to comply with these laws and regulations, new laws or changes to current laws and regulations to make them more stringent could require us to incur significant costs to remain in compliance.

 

We also may be subject to a variety of laws and regulations relating to other matters, including workplace health and safety, labor and employment, foreign business practices (including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and applicable foreign anti-bribery laws), data protection, public reporting and taxation, among others. It is difficult and costly to manage the requirements of every authority having jurisdiction over our various activities and to comply with their varying standards. Additionally, any changes to existing regulations or adoption of new regulations may result in significant additional expense to us or our customers. Further, our failure to comply with any applicable laws and regulations may result in a variety of administrative, civil and criminal enforcement measures, including monetary penalties or imposition of sanctions or other corrective requirements, any of which could materially adversely affect our reputation and our business.

 

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.

 

The U.S. Congress has enacted laws, and the SEC has adopted rules, requiring disclosure of specified minerals, known as conflict minerals, that are necessary to the functionality or production of products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured by public companies. These laws and rules require companies to verify and disclose whether or not such minerals, as used in a company’s products or their manufacture, originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo or an adjoining country. Because our products contain certain conflict minerals and we or our manufacturers use these conflict minerals in the manufacture of our products, we are required to comply with these laws and disclosure rules. To comply, we are required to conduct a reasonable country of origin inquiry 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 or used to manufacture our products. Such due diligence must conform to a nationally or internationally recognized due diligence framework. We are also required to file a disclosure report with the SEC each year relating to our conflict mineral use.

 

The due diligence activities required to determine the source and chain of custody of minerals contained in our products or used in their manufacture are time-consuming and may result in significant costs. Due to the size and complexity of our supply chain, we face significant challenges verifying the origins of the minerals used in our products or their manufacture. Further, these rules could affect the availability in sufficient quantities and at competitive prices of certain minerals used in our products and their manufacture, which could result in increased material and component costs and additional costs associated with potential changes to our products, processes or sources of supply. Additionally, if we are unable to sufficiently verify the origin of the minerals used in our products through the due diligence measures we implement, we may not be able to satisfy customer preferences or requirements regarding the use of conflict minerals in the products they purchase, which could place us at a competitive disadvantage.

 

Our internal control 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 control over financial reporting and require management to report on the effectiveness of this internal control as of the end of each fiscal year. In addition, if and when we are no longer a “smaller reporting company” under applicable SEC rules, Section 404 will require us to obtain an attestation report from our independent registered public accounting firm as to our internal control over financial reporting.

 

Effective internal control is necessary for us to produce accurate and reliable financial reports and is important in our efforts to prevent financial fraud. In the course of our Section 404 evaluations, we or our independent registered public accounting firm may identify significant deficiencies or material weaknesses in our internal control over financial

reporting. If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting or if management or our independent registered public accounting firm discover significant deficiencies or material weaknesses, we may be unable to produce accurate and reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, which could result in a loss of customer or investor confidence in us or our public disclosures and negatively impact our stock price. Any of these outcomes could harm our financial condition and results of operations.

 

Further, our Section 404 evaluations may lead us to conclude that enhancements, modifications or changes to our internal control over financial reporting are necessary or desirable. Implementing any such changes would divert the attention of management, involve significant time and costs and negatively impact our financial reporting functions during the transition, any of which could have a material negative effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

 

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

 

Any future growth we may experience could strain our resources, management, information and telecommunication systems and operating 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, which we may not be able to do in a timely or cost-effective manner. In addition, our management team has relatively limited experience managing a rapidly growing business. As a result, they may not be able to manage any future growth we may experience. A failure to manage any growth we may experience or improve or expand our existing systems and controls, or unexpected difficulties in doing so, could harm our business and results of operations.

 

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

 

From time to time, we evaluate opportunities to acquire businesses or technologies or pursue other strategic transactions or relationships, including collaboration or joint development arrangements, that might complement our current product offerings or enhance our intellectual property portfolio or technical capabilities. We have no experience acquiring other businesses or technologies.

 

Acquisitions and other strategic transactions or relationships entail a number of risks that could adversely affect our business and operating results, including, among others:

 

 

If any of these risks occur, we may not be able to realize the intended benefits of an acquisition or strategic transaction or relationship, and our operating results, financial condition and business prospects could be materially negatively affected. 

 

Item 1B.Unresolved Staff Comments.

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 2.Properties

 

Our corporate headquarters is located in approximately 8,200 square feet of space in Irvine, California, under a lease that expires in July 2020. We also lease approximately 42,200 square feet of space for our manufacturing facility in the PRC under a lease that expires in June 2020. We believe our current facilities are adequate for our current and expected operations for the next 12 months and that additional space could be obtained if needed.

 

Item 3.Legal Proceedings

 

Certain legal proceedings in which we are involved are discussed in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Note 8 “Commitments and Contingencies” under the heading “Litigation and Patent Reexaminations,” and are incorporated herein by reference.

 

Item 4.Mine Safety Disclosures

 

Not applicable.

 

 

PART II

 

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

 

Market Information

 

Our common stock began trading on The Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol “NLST” on November 30, 2006 and was transferred to The Nasdaq Capital Market effective on January 14, 2016. On September 27, 2018, our common stock was transferred to the OTCQX® Best Market.

 

Holders

 

As of March 3, 2020, there were approximately 16 holders of record of our shares of common stock, plus an indeterminate number of additional stockholders whose shares of our common stock are held on their behalf by brokerage firms or other agents.

 

Dividend Policy

 

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock in the past, and we have no intention of declaring or paying any such dividends in the foreseeable future. Additionally, our credit facility with SVB prohibits the payment of cash dividends without obtaining SVB’s prior consent. Any declaration or payment of dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our board of directors, and will depend on our results of operations, capital requirements, legal and contractual restrictions and other factors deemed relevant by our board of directors.

 

 

 

Item 6.Selected Financial Data

 

Not applicable.

 

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

 

This section contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates and beliefs and involve numerous risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those described in the “Risk Factors” section of this Form 10-K. Actual results may differ significantly from those contained in any forward-looking statements. You should carefully read the “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” and “Risk Factors” sections of this Form 10-K. The following discussion should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K. Unless otherwise stated, all information presented herein is based on our fiscal calendar, and references to particular years, quarters, months or periods refer to our fiscal years ended in December and the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years.

 

Fiscal Year

 

Our fiscal year is the 52- or 53-week period that ends on the Saturday closest to December 31. The 2019 and 2018 fiscal years ended on December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018, respectively, and consisted of 52 weeks.

 

Overview

 

We provide high-performance modular memory subsystems to customers in diverse industries that require enterprise and storage class memory solutions to empower critical business decisions. We have a history of introducing disruptive new products, such as one of the first load reduced dual in-line memory modules ("LRDIMM") based on our distributed buffer architecture, which has been adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM. We were also one of the first to bring NAND flash memory ("NAND flash") to the memory channel with our NVvault non-volatile dual in-line memory modules ("NVDIMM") using software-intensive controllers and merging dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or "DRAM") and NAND flash to solve data bottleneck and data retention challenges

encountered in high-performance computing environments. We also offer storage class memory products called HybriDIMM to address the growing need for real-time analytics in Big Data applications, in-memory databases, high performance computing and advanced data storage solutions. We publicly demonstrated a HybriDIMM prototype in August 2016 and sampled HybriDIMM to select customers in the second half of 2017. We are continuously developing and improving upon the HybriDIMM product while exploring opportunities with strategic partners.

 

Due to the ground-breaking product development of our engineering teams, we have built a robust portfolio of over 130 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since our inception, we have dedicated substantial resources to the development, protection and enforcement of technology innovations we believe are essential to our business. Our early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard registered dual in-line memory modules (“RDIMM”), LRDIMM and in NVDIMM. Our objective is to continue to innovate in our field and invest further in our intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing our intellectual property through a combination of product sales and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of our patents through enforcement actions against parties we believe are infringing them.

 

We also resell solid state drive (“SSD”), NAND flash, DRAM products and other component products to end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers.

 

In 2019 and 2018, we recorded total net sales of $26.1 million and $33.5 million, gross profit of $2.6 million and $2.3 million, and net loss of $12.5 million and $17.1 million, respectively. We have historically financed our operations primarily with proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities and cash receipts from revenues, including from product sales and a non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) fee from our November 2015 joint development and license agreement (“JDLA”) with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd (“Samsung”). We have also funded our operations with a revolving line of credit and term loans under a bank credit facility, and a funding arrangement for costs associated with certain of our legal proceedings against SK hynix, Inc. a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”). See “Liquidity and Capital Resources” below for more information.

 

Fiscal 2019-2020 Developments

 

Developments relating to SK hynix Proceedings

 

We have taken action to protect and defend our innovations by filing legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix and two of its subsidiaries in the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”), U.S. district court and the courts of Germany. On January 31, 2019, the court in Germany found there was no infringement of the Utility Model asserted and dismissed the case. We do not intend to appeal this ruling. In our two separate ITC actions against SK hynix, we have requested exclusion orders that direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States. In our U.S. district court proceedings (which are currently stayed), we are primarily seeking damages. All of our patents involved in these proceedings allegedly cover key features of RDIMM and LRDIMM products.

 

On January 16, 2018, the ITC issued a final determination regarding our first ITC action against SK hynix filed in September 2016, in which it concluded there was no infringement of the patents in this action and terminated the ITC’s investigation related to these proceedings. We appealed this final determination to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and oral arguments for this appeal were scheduled for December 5, 2019 at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. On December 12, 2019, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the invalidity ruling by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) involving the patents in litigation at the first ITC Action and dismissed the appeal of the final determination of the first ITC Action as moot.

 

In our second ITC action against SK hynix, on April 12, 2018, the ITC granted SK hynix’s motion for summary determination of non-infringement and terminated the investigation in its entirety. On April 23, 2018, the Company filed a petition seeking ITC review of this decision. On May 29, 2018, the ITC Commission remanded the Second ITC Action back to the ALJ to resolve the parties’ claim construction disputes and continue the investigation. On June 14, 2018, the

ITC extended the target date for the final determination to August 5, 2019, with a final initial determination due by April 5, 2019. Based on this extended target date, the ITC scheduled a hearing on the merits to begin on December 14, 2018 and conclude on December 21, 2018. On September 13, 2018, the ITC rescheduled the hearing on the merits to begin on January 14, 2019 and conclude on January 18, 2019. On January 29, 2019, due to the government shutdown, the ITC again rescheduled the hearing on the merits to begin on March 11, 2019 and conclude on March 15, 2019. On March 12, 2019 the ALJ postponed the trial due to reasons unrelated to the dispute between the parties. The trial recommenced on July 15, 2019 and ended on July 19, 2019. An initial determination regarding our second ITC action against SK hynix was issued on October 21, 2019. In the initial determination, the Chief Administrative Law Judge found in Netlist’s favor held there was a violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 as amended with respect to U.S. Patent No. 9,606,907 and alternatively found there was no violation with respect to U.S. Patent No. 9,535,623. A final determination regarding our second ITC action against SK Hynix is expected to be issued on April 7, 2020.

 

First Amendment to TRGP Agreement

 

On January 23, 2020, we entered into the first amendment to the investment agreement dated May 3, 2017 with TR Global Funding V, LLC (“TRGP”) (“TRGP Agreement”) to amend the recovery sharing formula related to claims against SK hynix for alleged infringement of our patents. TRGP Agreement generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings against SK hynix. 

 

Amendment to SVB Credit Agreement

 

On February 27, 2020,  we entered into an amendment to a credit agreement dated October 31, 2009 with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) (the “SVB Credit Agreement”) to extend the maturity date of the borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement from March 30, 2020 to April 30, 2021.

 

2019 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

 

On June 24, 2019, we entered into a purchase agreement (the “2019 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park Capital Fund, LLC (“Lincoln Park”), pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $10 million in shares of our common stock over the 36-month term of the 2019 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2019 Purchase Agreement. As consideration for entering into the 2019 Purchase Agreement, we issued to Lincoln Park 818,420 shares of our common stock as initial commitment shares in a noncash transaction on June 24, 2019 and will issue up to 818,420 additional shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares on a pro rata basis in connection with any additional purchases. We will not receive any cash proceeds from the issuance of these additional commitment shares.

 

During 2019, Lincoln Park purchased an aggregate of 19,044,762 shares of our common stock for a net purchase price of $6.4 million. In connection with the purchases, the Company issued to Lincoln Park an aggregate of 523,633 shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares in noncash transactions.

 

2020 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

 

On March 5, 2020, we entered into a purchase agreement (the “2020 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $20 million in shares of our common stock over the 36-month term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2020 Purchase Agreement. As consideration for entering into the 2020 Purchase Agreement, we issued to Lincoln Park 1,529,052 shares of our common stock as initial commitment shares in a noncash transaction on March 6, 2020 and will issue up to 917,431 additional shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares on a pro rata basis in connection with any additional purchases. We will not receive any cash proceeds from the issuance of these additional commitment shares.

 

Based on the number of shares of our common stock authorized as of the date of the 2020 Purchase Agreement, unless the trading price of our common stock increases substantially, we will not be able to utilize all of the capacity of

the equity line financing unless we increase the total number of our authorized shares, which would require the approval of a majority of our outstanding shares voting at a duly convened stockholder meeting.

 

Completion of Iliad Note Conversion

 

During 2019, Iliad Research and Trading, L.P. (“Iliad”) fully-converted the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to shares of our common stock as follows: (1) $1.9 million of the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the unsecured convertible promissory note we issued to Iliad on August 27, 2018 (“Iliad Note”) to 7,778,270 shares of our common stock at the Redemption Conversion Price, as defined in a Securities Purchase Agreement dated August 27, 2018 (“Iliad Purchase Agreement”) and (2) $0.5 million of the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to 1,388,890 shares of our common stock at the Lender Conversion Price, as defined in the Iliad Purchase Agreement. As a result of these conversions, as of December 28, 2019, there were no outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note.  

 

Factors Affecting Our Performance

 

Trends in Net Sales

 

We have been substantially dependent on sales of single products or product categories. For instance, we have historically been dependent on sales of our memory subsystem products, and in recent periods, we have been dependent on our resales of component products. Demand for any of these products could increase or decrease at any time for a number of reasons, including new customer qualifications, changing customer requirements or preferences, product obsolescence, introduction of more advanced or otherwise superior products by us or our competitors, the ability of our customers to obtain these products or substitute products from alternate sources, customers increasing or reducing their need for these products generally, or a variety of other factors. We have no long-term agreements or other commitments with respect to sales of any of these products. As a result, any fluctuations in demand for these products from us would impact our sale levels and net sales.

 

In past years, we have experienced declines in demand for and sales of our memory subsystem products, and these declines could continue or intensify in the future. Contrastingly, we have recently experienced marked increases in component product resales. Because the cost of the component products we purchase for resale is added to our cost of sales for these products, our gross margin on resales of component products is generally significantly lower than our gross margin on sales of our memory subsystem products. As a result, increases or decreases in component product resales as a percentage of our total sales have a significant impact on our gross margins.

 

Next-generation HybriDIMM and some of our other next-generation products may require additional time and capital investments in order to commercialize, and our development and commercialization strategies for these products, including, for instance, our work with JEDEC to facilitate broad industry adoption of this new technology, may not be successful. Our ability to obtain customer or market acceptance of these next-generation products will materially impact our net product sales and gross profits, as well as our ability to recoup our investments in developing these products.

 

Customer Composition and Concentrations

 

Our target markets are characterized by a limited number of large companies, and consolidation in one or more of these target markets may further increase this concentration. As a result, sales to small numbers of customers have historically represented a substantial portion of our net sales, and we expect this concentration to continue. Additionally, the composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net sales have fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate from period to period as our existing and prospective customers progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell and experience resulting fluctuations in their product demand. We believe our performance depends in significant part on our ability to establish and maintain relationships with and effect substantial sales to our large customers. We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers and, as result, any or all of them could decide at any time to increase, accelerate, decrease, delay or discontinue their purchase of our products or the component products we resell. These fluctuations in customer demand and concentrations could significantly impact our net sales.

 

Product Sale Prices

 

The prices customers pay for the products we sell can fluctuate due to many factors, including, among others, competitive conditions in our key customer markets, changes in customer requirements or preferences, volatility in the market prices for SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash and other component products, and changes in manufacturing efficiencies or capacities. Our industry has historically been characterized by declines in average sale prices. If sale price declines are not offset by corresponding decreases in costs or increases in sales volume or sales of products with higher margins, these sale price declines could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.

 

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. As a result, if market prices for essential components increase, we generally cannot pass the price increases through to our customers for products purchased under an existing purchase order. Consequently, we are exposed to the risks associated with the volatility of prices for these components and our cost of sales could increase and our gross margins could decrease in the event of sudden price increases. Alternatively, if there are declines in the prices of these components, we may be required to reduce our selling prices for subsequent purchase orders, which may result in a decline in our net sales.

 

In addition, because a large percentage of our sales are often from sales to a small number of customers, these customers may exert pressure on us to make concessions in the prices at which we sell products to them. These sale price concessions could have a material effect our net sales.

 

Component Product Supply

 

Our ability to fulfill customer orders for our memory subsystem products or the component products we resell is dependent on a sufficient supply of SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash and other component products. We have no long-term supply contracts for any of these component products. There are a relatively small number of suppliers of these components, and we typically purchase from only a subset of these suppliers.

 

From time to time, shortages in SSDs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash have required some suppliers to limit the supply of these components. In the past, we have experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of DRAM and NAND flash required to create certain of our memory subsystem products, and we have been forced to procure the component products we resell from other suppliers to the extent sufficient product is not available from Samsung to meet customer demand or in the event of other Samsung supply issues. Supply shortages can occur at any time and for a variety of reasons, including, among others, spikes in customer demand that cannot be satisfied by our suppliers, any problems that arise with the supplier’s manufacturing operations or facilities that cause disruptions or delays, or any failure by the supplier to comply with the terms of its supply arrangements with us. If we are not able to obtain components in the amounts needed, on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, we may lose customers due to order delivery interruptions or failures, which could impact our net sales, and we may experience increases in our cost of sales if we are forced to procure components from alternative suppliers and are not able to negotiate favorable terms with these suppliers. For example, with respect to Samsung, any inability to obtain sufficient component products from Samsung could increase our cost of sales for component product resales because we may not be able to make arrangements with other suppliers on financial and other terms comparable to those we have negotiated with Samsung under the JDLA. As described above, we may or may not be able to pass any such cost increases through to our customers, in which case they could materially adversely impact our results by increasing our cost of sales without a corresponding increase in our net sales.

 

Product Demand Forecasting

 

Because of the short-term nature of the commitments by many of our customers and the short turnaround times that apply to most orders, as well as our customers’ ability to cancel or defer purchase orders for any reason, we are required to make component procurement decisions based on forecasts of customer demand for the products we sell.

 

Our production expense and component purchase levels are to a large extent fixed in the short term. As a result, we may be unable to adjust spending on a timely basis to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in customer orders. If we overestimate customer demand, we may have excess component or finished goods inventory, which may not be able to be used in other products or resold and may become obsolete before any such use or resale. If there is a subsequent decline in the prices of components, the value of our inventory would fall and we may be required to write-down the value of our component inventory, which may result in a significant increase in our cost of sales and decrease in our gross margins. In the past, we have had to write-down inventory due to obsolescence, excess quantities and declines in market value below our costs. As a result, any significant shortfall of customer orders in relation to our expectations could hurt our operating results, cash flows and financial condition.

 

Conversely, any rapid increases in demand by our customers could strain our resources. If we underestimate customer demand, we may not have sufficient inventory of necessary components on hand to meet that demand and we may need to try to procure additional quantities, which may not be available or may only be available at high prices or on otherwise unfavorable terms. We also may not have sufficient manufacturing capacity at any given time to meet any demands for rapid increases in production of our memory subsystem products. Any shortages of inventory or manufacturing capacity could lead to delays in the delivery of products, which may reduce our net sales.

 

In addition, if our product demand forecasts are inaccurate, we may understate or overstate the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. 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 the determination. Conversely, 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 the inventories are sold.

 

Intellectual Property Protection, Enforcement and Monetization

 

We dedicate substantial resources to developing technology innovations we believe are essential to our business. We intend to pursue monetization avenues for our intellectual property portfolio, potentially including licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements. However, we have not generated any such revenue stream from our intellectual property to date. If we are not successful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio, we may never recoup our investments of time, capital and other resources in the development, maintenance, defense and enforcement of this portfolio, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations.

 

We also dedicate substantial resources to protecting and enforcing our intellectual property rights, including with patent infringement proceedings we file against third parties and defense of our patents against challenges made by way of reexamination and review proceedings at relevant government agencies. We expect these activities to continue for the foreseeable future, with no guarantee that any ongoing or future patent protection or litigation activities will be successful. We are also subject to litigation based on claims that we have infringed the intellectual property rights of others. Any litigation, regardless of its outcome, is inherently uncertain, involves a significant dedication of resources, including time and capital, and diverts management’s attention from our other activities. As a result, any current or future infringement claims or patent challenges by or against third parties, whether or not eventually decided in our favor or settled, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, the outcome of pending or future litigation and related patent reviews and reexaminations, as well as any delay in their resolution, could affect our ability to continue to sell our products, protect against competition in the current and expected markets for our products or license or otherwise monetize our intellectual property rights in the future. 

 

Business Risks and Uncertainties

 

Our business, financial condition and prospects are exposed to a number of risks and uncertainties. See the discussion in Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors of this Form 10-K for more information.

 

Results of Operations

 

The table below presents selected items of our consolidated statements of operations as a percentage of net sales for 2019 and 2018.

 

 

Net Sales,  Cost of Sales, and Gross Profit

 

The following table presents net sales, cost of sales and gross profit for 2019 and 2018 (dollars in thousands):

 

 

Net Sales

 

Net sales include resales of certain component products, including SSDs and DRAM products, and sales of our high-performance memory subsystems. In 2019 and 2018, resales of component products represented 77% and 75% of net sales, respectively.

 

Net sales decreased 22% or $7.4 million during 2019 compared to 2018 primarily as a result of a $4.2 million decrease in the resales of SODIMM and RDIMM products, a $3.1 million decrease in sales of our Specialty SODIMM and RDIMM products and a $0.3 million decrease in sales of our very low profile (“VLP”) memory subsystem products, partially offset by a $0.3 million increase in sales of SSDs.

 

Our product sales were impacted by fluctuating customer concentrations. During 2019, there were no customers who accounted for more than 10% of our net sales, while during 2018, there was one customer that accounted for more than 10% of our net sales. During 2019 and 2018, our four largest customers accounted for an aggregate of 23% and 38% of our net sales, respectively.

 

Cost of Sales and Gross Profit    

 

Cost of sales decreased in 2019 compared to 2018 due primarily to lower SODIMM and RDIMM product sales. Gross profit increased in 2019 compared to 2018 due primarily to higher gross profits on our SSD products and the resales of SODIMM and RDIMM products, partially offset by lower gross profit on the sales of our Specialty SODIMM

and RDIMM products. Year-over-year gross margin (or gross profit as a percentage of net sales) increased during 2019 due primarily to the increased margin on the SODIMM and RDIMM products and NAND products.

 

Operating Expenses

 

The following table presents operating expenses for 2019 and 2018 (dollars in thousands):

 

 

Research and Development

 

Research and development expenses decreased in 2019 compared to 2018 primarily as a result of a $0.5 million decrease in headcount-related expenses and depreciation expenses. This is due to the decline in demand for our memory subsystem products and increase in component product resales in recent years.

 

Intellectual Property Legal Fees

 

Intellectual property legal fees consist of legal fees incurred for patent filings, protection and enforcement. Although we expect intellectual property legal fees to generally increase over time as we continue to protect, defend and enforce and seek to expand our patent portfolio, these increases may not be linear but may occur in lump sums depending on the due dates of patent filings and their associated fees and the arrangements we may make with our legal advisors in connection with enforcement proceedings, which may include fee arrangements such as with TRGP or contingent fee arrangements in which we would pay these legal advisors on a scaled percentage of any negotiated fees, settlements or judgments awarded to us based on if, how and when the fees, settlements or judgments are obtained. See Note 8 “Commitments and Contingencies” to the consolidated financial statements in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K for further discussion.

 

Pursuant to the terms of the TRGP Agreement, the legal expenses we incurred for our first action against SK hynix at the ITC and our U.S. district court proceedings that were paid directly by TRGP were excluded in their entirety from our financial statements. As of December 28, 2019, accumulated deficit excluded $1.7 million and $10.2 million of such legal expenses incurred in 2018 and 2017, respectively. In 2019, we did not have such legal expenses incurred that were excluded from our financial statements. TPGP does not fund the legal expenses incurred for our second ITC action and our proceedings in international courts. Any settlement or other cash proceeds we may recover in the future in connection with our first ITC action against SK hynix that were funded by TRGP would be reduced by the aggregate amount of legal expenses we excluded as a result of TRGP’s payment of these expenses, plus the premium amount due to TRGP under the terms of the TRGP Agreement at the time of any such recovery. As a result, so long as the TRGP Agreement remains in effect, we expect our intellectual property legal fees may show different trends. Additionally, we expect our intellectual property legal fees would be significantly higher in the period in which a recovery from the SK hynix proceedings covered by the TRGP Agreement, if any, occurs.    

 

Intellectual property legal fees decreased in 2019 as compared to 2018 due primarily to lower legal expenses incurred to defend our patent portfolio internationally, including the costs incurred for our second ITC action and inter partes review of our patents before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  

 

Selling, General and Administrative

 

SG&A expenses increased in 2019 compared to 2018 primarily as a result of a $1.1 million increase in payroll and related compensation expenses and travel expenses related to employment of additional sales and marketing personnel to support new business revenue, partially offset by a $0.3 million decrease in professional fees and public company expenses.

 

Other Expense, Net

 

The following table presents other expense, net for 2019 and 2018 (dollars in thousands):

 

 

Interest expense, net, in 2019 and 2018 consisted primarily of interest expense on a revolving line of credit under the SVB Credit Agreement, the $15 million senior secured convertible note issued to Samsung Venture Investment Co. (“SVIC”) (“SVIC Note”) in November 2015 and the Iliad Note issued in August 2018. Interest expense also includes the accretion of debt discounts and amortization of debt issuance costs on the SVIC Note and Iliad Note. The increase in 2019 compared to 2018 was primarily driven by the full year of interest expense, accretion of debt discount and amortization of debt issuance costs in 2019 related to the Iliad Note issued in August 2018.

 

Liquidity and Capital Resources

 

Our primary sources of cash are historically proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities and receipts from revenues, including from product sales and the NRE fee from our JDLA with Samsung. We have also funded our operations with a revolving line of credit under a bank credit facility, a funding arrangement for costs associated with certain of our legal proceedings against SK hynix and, to a lesser extent, equipment leasing arrangements.

 

The following table presents  selected financial information as of and for the years ended December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018 (in thousands):

 

 

Cash Flows from Operating Activities 

 

Net cash used in operating activities for 2019 was primarily a result of a net loss of $12.5 million, adjusted for non-cash charges of $2.6 million, which primarily consisted of stock-based compensation, non-cash lease expense, amortization of debt discounts and interest accrued on our convertible notes. These non-cash activities are offset by net cash outflows from changes in working capital balances of $1.8 million driven predominantly by a $0.8 million increase in accounts receivable due to higher sales in the fourth quarter of 2019, a $0.6 million increase in inventories due to higher purchases to support increased sales, and a $0.6 million decrease in accrued expenses and other current liabilities primarily from the decrease in operating lease liabilities, partially offset by a decrease of $0.5 million in prepaid expenses and other current liabilities. 

 

Net cash used in operating activities for 2018 was primarily a result of a net loss of $17.1 million, adjusted for non-cash charges of $1.7 million. These non-cash charges primarily consisted of stock-based compensation, interest accrued on convertible notes, depreciation and amortization and amortization of debt discounts. The net loss is offset by net cash inflows from changes in working capital balance of $4.8 million driven predominantly from an increase in accounts payable due to an increase in legal fees.

 

Cash Flows from Investing Activities

 

Net cash used in investing activities for 2019 and 2018 was primarily the result of purchases of property and equipment during the periods.

 

Cash Flows from Financing Activities

 

Net cash provided by financing activities for 2019 primarily consisted of $6.4 million in proceeds from issuance of common stock to Lincoln Park and $0.7 million in net borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement, partially offset by $0.4 million in payment of note payable to finance insurance policies. 

 

Net cash provided by financing activities for 2018 primarily consisted of $9.2 million in net proceeds from the 2018 Offering, $5.8 million in net proceeds from the ATM Program, $2.1 million from the issuance of the Iliad Note, $0.8 million from the issuance of common stock to a trust controlled by our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, and $0.3 million in net borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement, partially offset by $0.3 million in payment of note payable to finance insurance.

 

Capital Resources

 

2019 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

 

On June 24, 2019, we entered into the 2019 Purchase Agreement with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $10 million in shares of our common stock over the 36-month term of the 2019 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2019 Purchase Agreement. As of December 28, 2019, an aggregate of $3.6 million in shares of our common stock was available for purchases over the remaining term under the 2019 Purchase Agreement.  

 

2020 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

 

On March 5, 2020, we entered into the 2020 Purchase Agreement with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $20 million in shares of our common stock over the 36-month term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2020 Purchase Agreement.

 

2018 Offering

 

On September 12, 2018, we entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with certain investors, pursuant to which we issued and sold to the investors in the 2018 Offering an aggregate of 22,222,220 shares of our common stock and warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 11,111,110 shares of our common stock at a per share purchase price of $0.45 per share. The 2018 Offering closed on September 14, 2018. The net proceeds to us from the 2018 Offering were $9.2 million, after deducting placement agent fees and offering costs paid by us.

 

Iliad Note

 

On August 27, 2018, we entered into the Iliad Purchase Agreement with Iliad, pursuant to which we issued a $2.3 million Iliad Note with an original debt discount of $0.2 million. The Iliad Note bore interest at an annual rate of 8% and would mature on August 27, 2020, unless earlier repurchased, redeemed or converted in accordance with its terms. During 2019, Iliad fully converted the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to shares of our common stock as follows: (1) $1.9 million of the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to 7,778,270 shares of our common stock at the Redemption Conversion Price and (2) $0.5 million of the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to 1,388,890 shares of our common stock at the Lender Conversion Price. As a result, as of December 28, 2019,  there were no outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note.

 

Share Purchase Agreement

 

On May 17, 2018, we entered into a Board approved arm’s length Share Purchase Agreement with a trust controlled by C.K. Hong, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, pursuant to which we sold to the trust 5,405,405 shares of our common stock at a price per share of $0.148 (the closing price of our common stock as of the signing of the agreement). The net proceeds received by us were $0.8 million.

 

TRGP Agreement

 

On May 3, 2017, we entered into the TRGP Agreement, which generally provided that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings against SK hynix. During 2018 and 2017, TRGP directly paid $1.7 million and $10.2 million on our behalf incurred in connection with these proceedings. On January 23, 2020, we entered into an amendment to the TRGP Agreement to alter the recovery sharing formula related to claims against SK hynix.

 

SVB Credit Agreement

 

On October 31, 2009, we entered into an SVB Credit Agreement, which provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $5.0 million. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable (increased from 80% as of August 29, 2018), subject to certain adjustments as set forth in the SVB Credit Agreement. As of December 28, 2019, the borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement bear interest at the Wall Street Journal “prime rate” plus 2.75% per annum and mature on March 30, 2020. On February 27, 2020, the SVB Credit Agreement was amended to extend the maturity date to April 30, 2021.

 

As of December 28, 2019, the outstanding borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement were $3.0 million with additional borrowing availability of $0.2 million. During 2019, we made net borrowings of $0.7 million under the SVB Credit Agreement.

 

SVIC Note

 

On November 18, 2015, we issued the SVIC Note, which has an original principal amount of $15.0 million, accrues interest at a rate of 2.0% per year, is due and payable in full on December 31, 2021, and is convertible into shares of our common stock at a conversion price of $1.25 per share, subject to certain adjustments, on the maturity date of the SVIC Note. Partial proceeds from the SVIC Note were used to repay a former loan from a different lender.

 

Sufficiency of Cash Balances and Potential Sources of Additional Capital

 

We believe our existing balance of cash and cash equivalents together with cash receipts from revenues, borrowing availability under the SVB Credit Agreement, the equity financing available under the 2020 and 2019 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreements, funds raised through the debt and equity offerings and taking into account cash expected to be used in our operations, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months. Our capital requirements will depend on many factors, including, among others: the acceptance of, and demand for, our products; our levels of net product sales and any other revenues we may receive, including NRE, license, royalty or other fees; the extent and timing of any investments in developing, marketing and launching new or enhanced products or technologies; the costs of developing, improving and maintaining our internal design, testing and  manufacturing processes; the costs associated with defending and enforcing our intellectual property rights; and the nature and timing of acquisitions and other strategic transactions in which we participate, if any.

 

Although we expect to rely in the near term on our existing cash and cash equivalents balance and our primary source of cash described above, our estimates of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we anticipate. Further, some or all of our ongoing or planned investments may not be successful and could result in further losses. Until we can generate sufficient revenues to finance our cash requirements from our operations, which we may never do, we may need to increase our liquidity and capital resources by one or more measures, which may include, among others, reducing operating expenses,

restructuring our balance sheet by negotiating with creditors and vendors, entering into strategic partnerships or alliances, raising additional financing through the issuance of debt, equity or convertible securities or pursuing alternative sources of capital, such as through asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements. We may not be able to obtain capital when needed, on terms acceptable to us or at all and may have the need to seek the authorization of additional shares from our stockholders, which could be costly, time-consuming and unsuccessful.

 

Inadequate working capital would have a material adverse effect on our business and operations and could cause us to fail to execute our business plan, fail to take advantage of future opportunities or fail to respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. A lack of sufficient funding may also require us to significantly modify our business model and/or reduce or cease our operations, which could include implementing cost-cutting measures or delaying, scaling back or eliminating some or all of our ongoing and planned investments in corporate infrastructure, research and development projects, business development initiatives and sales and marketing activities, among other activities. Modification of our business model and operations could result in an impairment of assets, the effects of which cannot be determined. Furthermore, if we continue to issue equity or convertible debt securities to raise additional funds, our existing stockholders may experience significant dilution, and the new equity or debt securities may have rights, preferences and privileges that are superior 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 or have other material consequences. If we pursue asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements to obtain additional capital, our operational capacity may be limited and any revenue streams or business plans that are dependent on the sold or licensed assets may be reduced or eliminated. Moreover, we may incur substantial costs in pursuing any future capital-raising transactions, including investment banking, legal and accounting fees, printing and distribution expenses and other similar costs, which would reduce the benefit of the capital received from the transaction.

 

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements.

 

We do not have any off-balance sheet arrangements that have or are reasonably likely to have a current or future effect on our financial condition, changes in financial condition, revenues or expenses, results of operations, liquidity, capital expenditure or capital resources that is material to investors.

 

Critical Accounting Policies

 

The preparation of our consolidated financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States requires management to make judgments, assumptions and estimates that affect the amounts reported. Note 2 “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” of the notes to consolidated financial statements in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K describes the significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities. Actual results may differ from these estimates, and such differences may be material. We have reviewed our critical accounting policies and estimates with the audit committee of our board of directors.

 

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 we reasonably believe will be collected. For accounts receivable from our international customers, we purchase comprehensive foreign credit insurance to mitigate risks related to the collectability. For all other customers, we record allowances for doubtful accounts based 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 expectations and the provisions established. However, we cannot guarantee that we will continue to experience credit loss rates similar to those experienced in the past.

 

Our accounts receivable are generally 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, liquidity and future operating results.

 

Inventories

 

We value inventories at the lower of cost or the net realizable value. 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. Net realizable value is the estimated selling prices in the ordinary course of business, less reasonably predictable costs of completion, disposal, and transportation. On a regular basis, we evaluate inventory balances for excess quantities and obsolescence by analyzing estimated demand, inventory on hand, sales levels and other information and reduce inventory balances to net realizable value for excess and obsolete inventory based on this analysis. Once established, lower of cost or net realizable value write-downs are considered permanent adjustments to the cost basis of the excess or obsolete inventories.

 

Impairment of Long-Lived Assets

 

We evaluate the recoverability of the carrying value of long-lived assets held and used by us 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 sale 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 Liability

 

We offer product warranties generally ranging from one to three years, depending on the product and negotiated terms of any 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 sales of component products. We record an estimate for warranty-related costs at the time of sale based on our historical and estimated future product return rates and expected repair or replacement costs. While such costs have historically been within management’s expectations and the provisions established, unexpected changes in failure rates could have a material adverse impact on us, requiring additional warranty reserves, and could adversely affect our gross profit and gross margins.

 

Stock-Based Compensation

 

Stock-based awards are comprised principally of stock options, restricted stocks and restricted stock units. Stock-based compensation cost is measured at the grant date based on the fair value of the award and is recognized as an expense over the requisite service period, which is the vesting period, on a straight-line basis, net of estimated forfeitures. We use the Black-Scholes option pricing model to determine the grant date fair value of stock options. The model requires us to estimate the expected volatility and expected term of the stock options, which are highly complex and subjective variables. The expected volatility is based on the historical volatility of our common stock. The expected term is computed using the simplified method as our best estimate given our lack of actual exercise history. 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 dividend assumption is based on our history and management’s

expectation regarding dividend payouts. The grant-date fair value of restricted stocks and restricted stock units equals the closing price of our common stock on the grant date.

 

Prior to the adoption of Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2018-07, Compensation – Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Nonemployee Share-Based Payment Accounting (“ASU 2018-07” or “Topic 718”) in the second quarter of 2018, we accounted for equity-based awards to non-employees in accordance with ASC Topic 505, Equity. All transactions in which goods or services were the consideration received for the issuance of equity instruments were accounted for based on the fair value of the consideration received or the fair value of the equity instrument issued, whichever was more reliably measurable. The measurement date used to determine the estimated fair value of the equity instrument issued was the earlier of the date on which the third-party performance was complete or the date on which it was probable that performance would occur. Upon the adoption of ASU No. 2018-07, we account for all stock-based awards in accordance with Topic 718.

 

Income Taxes

 

Deferred income tax assets and liabilities are recognized for temporary differences between the financial statement carrying amounts of assets and liabilities and the amounts that are reported in the income tax returns. Deferred taxes are evaluated for realization on a jurisdictional basis. We record valuation allowances to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount that is more likely than not to be realized. In making this assessment, management analyzes future taxable income, reversing temporary differences and ongoing tax planning strategies. Should a change in circumstances lead to a change in judgment about the realizability of deferred tax assets in future years, we will adjust related valuation allowances in the period that the change in circumstances occurs, along with a corresponding increase or charge to income.

We recognize the tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained upon examination by the taxing authorities based on the technical merits of our position. The tax benefit recognized in the financial statements for a particular tax position is based on the largest benefit that is more likely than not to be realized. The amount of unrecognized tax benefits is adjusted as appropriate for changes in facts and circumstances, such as significant amendments to existing tax laws, new regulations or interpretations by the taxing authorities, new information obtained during a tax examination, or resolution of an examination. We recognize both accrued interest and penalties associated with uncertain tax positions as a component of provision for income taxes in the consolidated statements of operations.

 

The application of tax laws and regulations is subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. Tax laws and regulations may 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 require us to record additional tax liabilities or to reduce previously recorded tax liabilities, as applicable.

 

Recent Accounting Pronouncements

 

See Note 2 “Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Part IV, Item 15 of this Form 10-K for further discussion

 

Item 7A.Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

 

Not applicable.

 

Item 8.Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

 

The information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to our consolidated financial statements included in Part IV, Item 15. Exhibit and Financial Statements Schedules beginning on page F-2.

 

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

 

None.

 

Item 9A.Controls and Procedures

 

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

 

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure 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.

 

Our management conducted an evaluation, with the participation of our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures 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 as of December 28, 2019.

 

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

 

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting for our Company, as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act. Our management conducted an evaluation, with the participation of our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 28, 2019, based on the criteria set forth in the 2013 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 28, 2019.

 

This report does not include an attestation report of our independent registered public accounting firm regarding our internal control over financial reporting, in accordance with applicable SEC rules that permit us to provide only management’s report in this report.

 

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

 

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the most recently completed fiscal quarter that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

 

Inherent Limitations on Disclosure Controls and Procedures and Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

 

In designing our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting, management recognizes that any control system, no matter how well-designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance of achieving the desired control objectives. Further, the design of our controls and procedures must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and management necessarily applies its judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations, our disclosure and internal controls may not prevent or detect all instances of fraud, misstatements or other control issues, and our evaluations of disclosure and internal controls cannot provide assurance that all such control issues have been detected.

 

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

 

Item 9B.Other Information

 

2020 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

 

On March 5, 2020, we entered into the 2020 Purchase Agreement with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to $20 million in shares of our common stock, subject to certain limitations and conditions set forth in the Purchase Agreement.

 

Pursuant to the 2020 Purchase Agreement, on any business day and as often as every other business day over the 36-month term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement, and up to an aggregate of $20 million (subject to certain limitations) in shares of our common stock, we have the right, from time to time, at our sole discretion and subject to certain conditions to direct Lincoln Park to purchase up to 400,000 shares of our common stock, which amount can be increased under certain circumstances. The purchase price of shares of our common stock pursuant to the 2020 Purchase Agreement will be based on prevailing market prices of our common stock at the time of sales without any fixed discount, and we will control the timing and amount of any sales of our common stock to Lincoln Park, but in no event will Lincoln Park be required to purchase more than $1.0 million in shares of our common stock on any single regular purchase date (excluding an accelerated purchase request on such date). In addition, we may direct Lincoln Park to purchase additional amounts as accelerated purchases under certain circumstances.

 

All shares of our common stock to be issued and sold to Lincoln Park under the 2020 Purchase Agreement will be issued pursuant to our effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (Registration No. 333-228348), filed with the SEC in accordance with the provisions of the Securities Act, and declared effective on November 28, 2018, and the prospectus supplement thereto dated March 9, 2020. Based on the number of shares of our common stock authorized as of the date of the 2020 Purchase Agreement, unless the trading price of our common stock increases substantially, we will not be able to utilize all of the capacity of the equity line financing unless we increase the total number of our authorized shares, which would require the approval of a majority of our outstanding shares voting at a duly convened stockholder meeting. Seeking such approval could be costly, time-consuming and unsuccessful.

 

The 2020 Purchase Agreement contains customary representations, warranties and agreements of us and Lincoln Park, limitations and conditions to completing future sale transactions, indemnification rights and other obligations of the parties. There is no upper limit on the price per share that Lincoln Park could be obligated to pay for our common stock under the 2020 Purchase Agreement. We have the right to terminate the 2020 Purchase Agreement at any time, at no cost or penalty. Actual sales of shares of our common stock to Lincoln Park under the 2020 Purchase Agreement will depend on a variety of factors to be determined by us from time to time, including (among others) market conditions, the trading price of our common stock and determinations by us as to available and appropriate sources of funding for us and our operations. As consideration for entering into the 2020 Purchase Agreement, we issued to Lincoln Park 1,529,052 shares of our common stock on March 6, 2020, and up to 917,431 additional shares of our common stock on a pro rata basis as Lincoln Park purchases up to $20 million in shares of our common stock in our discretion under the 2020 Purchase Agreement over the term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement. We will not receive any cash proceeds from the issuance of these 1,529,052 shares or the 917,431 shares that may be issued if we receive subsequent funding.    

 

This shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any shares of our common stock, nor shall there be any sale of shares of our common stock in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction.

 

The 2020 Purchase Agreement is filed as Exhibit 10.37 to this Form 10-K and incorporated herein by reference. The foregoing descriptions of such agreement and the transactions contemplated thereby are qualified in their entirety by reference to such exhibits. In addition, the 2020 Purchase Agreement has been included to provide investors with information regarding its terms. The 2020 Purchase Agreement is not intended to provide any other factual information about us. The 2020 Purchase Agreement contains representations and warranties that we have made to Lincoln Park. The assertions embodied in those representations and warranties are qualified by information in confidential disclosure schedules that we have provided to Lincoln Park in connection with signing the 2020 Purchase Agreement. The

disclosure schedules may contain information that modifies, qualifies and creates exceptions to the representations and warranties set forth in the 2020 Purchase Agreement. Accordingly, investors should not rely on the representations and warranties as characterizations of the actual state of facts at the time they were made or otherwise.

 

Amendment to SVB Loan and Security Agreement

 

On February 27, 2020, we entered into an amendment to a credit agreement dated October 31, 2009 with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) (the “SVB Credit Agreement”) to extend the maturity date of the borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement from March 30, 2020 to April 30, 2021. 

 

Compensation Adjustments

 

On March 6, 2020, our Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors approved compensation for our two named executive officers beginning calendar year 2020. The Compensation Committee approved a base salary of $450,000 per annum for Chun K. Hong, our Chief Executive Officer, and $275,000 per annum for Gail Sasaki, our Chief Financial Officer. In making this determination, the Compensation Committee considered that both officers had held their positions since our initial public offering in 2006 and that Mr. Hong had not received an increase in his base salary for 13 years and Ms. Sasaki had not received any increase in her base salary for 10 years. In its deliberations regarding the adjustments to base salary, the Compensation Committee considered the cost of living increases in the United States, California and Orange County, California during the period since the initial public offering as calculated according to various government and private publications. The final determination of base salary levels was made after considering the range of calculations as well as a number of other factors that the Compensation Committee determined to be relevant in the exercise of its business judgment. The Compensation Committee also established bonus targets for the officers of 100% of base salary dependent upon achieving agreed financial objectives. Finally, the Compensation Committee approved awards of 300,000 restricted stock units for Mr. Hong and 75,000 restricted stock units for Ms. Sasaki, subject to four-year vesting. 

 

 

 

PART III

 

Item 10.Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance

 

Each member of our Board of Directors (referred to as our “Board” or “Board of Directors”) is elected annually at a meeting of our stockholders and serves for a one-year term until the next annual meeting of our stockholders and until his or her successor is elected and qualified, or until an earlier resignation or removal. Each of our executive officers is appointed by, and serves at the direction of, our Board, subject to the terms of our employment agreement with our President and Chief Executive Officer, which is described under “Employment Agreements” in Item 11 of this Form 10-K, and which establishes, among other things, such executive officer’s term of office.

 

The table and narrative below provide, for our current directors and executive officers, each such individual’s name; age as of March 3, 2020; current position(s) with our Company; tenure in such position(s); information about such individual’s business experience and qualifications, including principal occupation or employment and principal business of the employer, if any, for at least the past five years, and involvement in certain legal or administrative proceedings, if any; and, for each of our directors, other public company director positions held currently or at any time in the last five years and the experiences, qualifications, attributes and skills that led to the conclusion that such individual should serve as a director of our Company. Additionally, for each of our directors, and in addition to each such individual’s specific qualifications and skills described below, we believe each such individual brings a strong and unique background and set of skills to our Board of Directors, which gives our Board competence and experience in a wide variety of areas, including corporate governance and board service, executive management, financial reporting, law and regulation, the memory systems market, the semi-conductor industry, licensing, and worldwide customer and manufacturer management. There is no arrangement or understanding between any director or executive officer and any other person(s) pursuant to which such director or executive officer was or is to be selected as a director or executive officer of our Company, and there are no family relationships between any of our directors or executive officers.

 

 

Chun K. Hong is one of the founders of Netlist and has been our President and Chief Executive Officer and a director since our inception in June 2000. Mr. Hong assumed the title of Chairman of the Board of Directors in January 2004. Prior to his tenure at Netlist, Mr. Hong has served in various other executive positions including President and Chief Operating Officer of Infinilink Corporation, a DSL equipment company, as Executive Vice President of Viking Components, Inc., a memory subsystems manufacturing company, and as General Manager of Sales at LG Semicon Co., Ltd., a public semiconductor manufacturing company in South Korea. Mr. Hong received his Bachelor of Science degree in economics from Virginia Commonwealth University and his Master of Science degree in technology management from Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Management. As one of our founders and as our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Hong brings to the Board extensive knowledge of our organization and our market.

 

Jun S. Cho joined the Netlist Board in November 2014 and became the Lead Independent Director of the Board in December 2017. Mr. Cho currently serves as General Counsel to Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (“FCA”) Asia Pacific and Vice President and Assistant General Counsel to FCA US LLC (formerly, Chrysler Group LLC), a global automobile company. Mr. Cho has more than 19 years of experience as legal counsel for the FCA and over 12 years of experience in the Asia Pacific region leading FCA’s initiatives in technology licensing, product distribution, M&A transactions and joint ventures, from his bases in Beijing and Shanghai. Prior to FCA, Mr. Cho specialized in international financing and corporate transactions working for global-reaching law firms including Debevoise & Plimpton in New York, Kim & Chang in Seoul, Korea and Arnold & Porter in Washington D.C. Mr. Cho holds a Juris Doctorate degree from the New York University School of Law and is admitted to the bar in the state of New York and in Washington D.C. He received his undergraduate degree in economics from the College of William and Mary. Mr. Cho brings to Netlist’s Board of Directors his considerable legal background and extensive experience with complex organizations and transactions.

 

Kiho Choi joined the Netlist Board in May 2017. In 2005, Mr. Choi established CKP, LLP (formerly, Choi, Kim & Park, LLP), the largest Korean American full service CPA firm in the United States, and is currently the Managing Partner of the firm. In this role, Mr. Choi is responsible for directing the publicly-held and international company audit service and management and financing consulting practices of the firm. Mr. Choi also currently serves on the Board of Directors of Hanmi Financial Corporation and Hanmi Bank. Mr. Choi began his public accounting career in 1989 in the Assurance and Consulting Division of Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Co, LLC in Washington D.C., a full service regional accounting and consulting firm specializing in government, financial institutions, and non-profit organizations. As a director in-charge of the resolution services division, Mr. Choi had responsibility for auditing banks and government contractors and worked closely with Resolution Trust Corporation and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. In 1995, Mr. Choi joined Kim & Lee, LLP, a Korean-American CPA firm, as a partner responsible for the firm’s audit and consulting practice. Mr. Choi is a graduate of the University of Illinois, at Chicago, receiving both a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Accounting. Mr. Choi brings to Netlist’s Board of Directors his significant accounting and financial expertise, as well as his extensive senior management experience.

 

Blake A. Welcher joined the Netlist Board in August 2013. Mr. Welcher currently serves as Vice President, Legal (previously General Counsel) for PSI Services LLC, an assessment and testing development and administration company. Mr. Welcher served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of DTS, Inc. (“DTS”), a consumer electronics company, until December 2016, when DTS was sold to Tessera Technologies. Mr. Welcher had been a member of the DTS executive team since March 2000. As General Counsel at DTS, he managed the licensing operations and was instrumental in building key assets that have led to DTS’ success. Mr. Welcher led DTS’ legal licensing functions, collaborated with key partners and worked to establish DTS as a global name in consumer electronics. Mr. Welcher holds a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, a Juris Doctorate and Masters of Intellectual Property degree from Franklin Pierce Law Center (University of New Hampshire School of Law) and is a U.S. licensed Patent Attorney. Mr. Welcher brings more than 20 years of industry experience to Netlist’s Board of Directors with his extensive background in worldwide licensing operations, corporate governance, risk management, intellectual property and legal affairs.

 

Gail Sasaki has been our Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since January 2008 and our Secretary since August 2007. From 2006 to January 2008, Ms. Sasaki served as our Vice President of Finance. Prior to her tenure at Netlist, Ms. Sasaki served in various senior financial roles, including Chief Financial Officer of eMaiMai, Inc., a commercial technology company based in Hong Kong and mainland China; Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President of Finance, Secretary and Treasurer of eMotion, Inc. (a Kodak subsidiary and formerly Cinebase Software), a developer of business-to-business media management software and services, and Chief Financial Officer of MicroNet Technology, Inc., a leader in storage technology. Ms. Sasaki also spent seven years in public accounting leaving as an audit manager with Arthur Young (now known as Ernst &Young LLP). Ms. Sasaki earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Los Angeles, and also earned a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Southern California.

 

Board Committees

 

Our Board has a standing Audit Committee, Compensation Committee, and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, each of which is described below and operates pursuant to a written charter adopted by our Board and available on our website (www.netlist.com). The table below shows the membership of these committees during our fiscal year ended December 28, 2019 and our current fiscal year ending December 26, 2020 to date. Our 2018 fiscal year ended December 29, 2018. Our Board may also create additional committees from time to time, including committees relating to pending litigation proceedings or other significant corporate matters or committees to approve financing or other strategic transactions.

 

 

Audit Committee

 

The primary functions of our Audit Committee are, among other things, to:

 

oversee our financial reporting process, including discussing with our independent registered public accounting firm the scope and plans for all annual audits and discussing with management and our independent registered public accounting firm the adequacy and effectiveness of our accounting and financial controls, systems to monitor and manage business risk, and legal and ethical compliance programs; 

 

Compensation Committee

 

The primary functions of our Compensation Committee are, among other things, to:

 

 

Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee

 

The primary functions of our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee are, among other things, to:

 

 

Code of Business Conduct and Ethics

 

Our Board has adopted a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics that applies to our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller, or persons performing similar functions, as well as all of our other executive officers and employees and all of our directors. Shareholders may download a free copy of our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics from our website (www.netlist.com). We intend to disclose on our website any amendments to or waivers from this code by posting the relevant material on our website (www.netlist.com) in accordance with SEC rules.

 

Item 11.Executive Compensation

 

Executive Compensation

 

The table below provides information about the compensation awarded to, earned by or paid to each of the following individuals, which we refer to collectively as our “named executive officers,” for 2019 and 2018: each person serving at any time during 2019 as our principal executive officer (our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Hong); and our only other executive officer serving as such at any time during 2019 (our Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary, Ms. Sasaki).

 

Summary Compensation Table

 

 

Employment Agreements

 

We entered into an employment agreement with our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Hong, in September 2006. This agreement provides for an initial base salary of $323,000 plus other specified benefits, including the reimbursement of professional fees and expenses incurred in connection with income and estate tax planning and preparation, income tax audits and the defense of income tax claims; the reimbursement of membership fees and expenses for professional organizations and one country club; the reimbursement of employment-related legal fees; automobile rental payments and other vehicle-related expenses; and the reimbursement of health club membership fees and other similar health-related expenses. Mr. Hong may earn annual cash performance bonuses, at the discretion of our Compensation Committee or our Board, of up to 100% of his base salary based upon the achievement of individual and Company performance objectives.

 

Mr. Hong’s employment agreement automatically renews for additional one-year periods unless we provide or Mr. Hong provides notice of termination six months prior to the renewal date, but at all times Mr. Hong may terminate his employment upon six months’ advance written notice to us and we may terminate Mr. Hong’s employment upon 30 days’ advance written notice to Mr. Hong. If we terminate Mr. Hong’s employment without cause or if he resigns from his employment for good reason, which includes a termination or resignation upon a change of control of our Company, Mr. Hong would be entitled to receive continued payments of his base salary for one year, reimbursement of medical insurance premiums during that period unless he becomes employed elsewhere, a pro-rated portion of his annual performance bonus, and, if any severance payment is deemed to be an “excess parachute payment” within the meaning of Section 280G of the Code, an amount equal to any excise tax imposed under Section 4999 of the Code. In addition, upon any such termination or resignation, any unvested stock options held by Mr. Hong would immediately become fully vested and exercisable as of the effective date of the termination or resignation. If Mr. Hong’s employment is terminated due to death or disability, he or his estate would receive a lump-sum payment equal to half of his annual base salary and any stock options held by Mr. Hong would vest to the same extent as they would have vested one year thereafter. Additionally, if Mr. Hong’s employment is terminated due to death or disability, 25% of the shares subject to outstanding stock options, or such lesser amount as is then unvested, would immediately vest and become exercisable. If Mr. Hong resigns without good reason or is terminated for cause, we would have no further obligation to him other than to pay his base salary or other amounts earned by him through the date of resignation or termination.

 

For purposes of Mr. Hong’s employment agreement:

 

 

We have not entered into an employment agreement with Ms. Sasaki, our Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary. For 2019 and 2018, Ms. Sasaki received an annualized base salary of $200,000. If Ms. Sasaki’s employment is terminated due to death or disability, any stock options held by Ms. Sasaki would vest to the same extent as they would have vested one year thereafter. Additionally, if Ms. Sasaki’s employment is terminated due to death or disability, 25% of the shares subject to outstanding stock options, or such lesser amount as is then unvested, would immediately vest and no additional shares would vest thereafter. Ms. Sasaki is eligible for a target cash bonus of 75% of her base salary, which is to be determined by our Board in its discretion based on various factors.

 

Cash Bonuses

 

No cash bonuses were paid to either Mr. Hong or Ms. Sasaki for 2019 and 2018.

 

Retirement Benefits

 

We maintain a savings plan that qualifies as a defined contribution plan under Section 401(k) of the Code, to which all of our employees, including our named executive officers, are able to contribute up to the limit prescribed by applicable tax rules on a before-tax basis. All of these employee contributions are fully-vested upon contribution. In addition, we may make matching contributions on the contributions of our employees on a discretionary basis, and in 2018, we made matching contributions equal to 50% of the first 6% of pay that was contributed by employees, including our named executive officers, to the plan. Effective for pay periods beginning April 15, 2018, we no longer make these matching contributions.

 

Outstanding Equity Awards at Fiscal Year End

 

The following table shows information about the equity awards held by our named executive officers as of December 28, 2019:

(1)Represents stock option awards granted under the Netlist, Inc. Amended and Restated 2006 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Equity Plan”). These stock option awards that are not fully exercisable vest in 16 equal quarterly installments, subject to continued service on each vesting date, subject to accelerated vesting in certain circumstances as described under “Employment Agreements” above.

(2)Represents RSAs and RSUs granted under the Equity Plan. Restrictions on the RSAs lapse equally on the first and second anniversaries of their grant date. Restrictions on RSUs lapse in eight equal semi-annual installments from the grant date.

 

2020 Compensation Adjustments

 

On March 6, 2020, our Compensation Committee approved compensation for our two named executive officers beginning calendar year 2020. The Compensation Committee approved a base salary of $450,000 per annum for Chun K. Hong, our Chief Executive Officer, and $275,000 per annum for Gail Sasaki, our Chief Financial Officer. In making this determination, the Compensation Committee considered that both officers had held their positions since our initial public offering in 2006 and that Mr. Hong had not received an increase in his base salary for 13 years and Ms. Sasaki had not received any increase in her base salary for 10 years. In its deliberations regarding the adjustments to base salary, the Compensation Committee considered the cost of living increases in the United States, California and Orange County, California during the period since the initial public offering as calculated according to various government and private publications. The final determination of base salary levels was made after considering the range of calculations as well as a number of other factors that the Compensation Committee determined to be relevant in the exercise of its business judgment. The Compensation Committee also established bonus targets for the officers of 100% of base salary dependent upon achieving agreed financial objectives. Finally, the Compensation Committee approved awards of 300,000 restricted stock units for Mr. Hong and 75,000 restricted stock units for Ms. Sasaki, subject to four-year vesting.

 

Director Compensation

 

Non-Employee Director Compensation

 

Our non-employee directors receive annual cash compensation of $30,000, which is paid in four equal quarterly installments, and additional cash payments of $1,000 for each regularly scheduled Board meeting and each Board committee meeting not held on the same day as a Board meeting that is attended by the director. The Lead Independent Director and the Chair of our Audit Committee each receive additional cash compensation of $5,000 per year. All of our directors, including our non-employee directors, are also reimbursed for their reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred in attending Board and Board committee meetings.

 

In addition, each of our non-employee directors is granted a stock option award to purchase up to 25,000 shares of our common stock upon his or her initial appointment or election to the Board, and a stock option award to purchase up to 20,000 shares of our common stock each year in which he or she continues to serve as a director. For awards granted to non-employee directors before 2017, all stock options vest in 16 equal quarterly installments, and for awards granted to non-employee directors in 2017 and thereafter, all stock options vest in one installment on the, earlier of, the one-year anniversary of the award or the day prior to the next annual shareholders meeting, in all cases subject to continued service on each vesting date. All stock option awards granted to non-employee directors are granted under our equity compensation plans then in effect and have an exercise price equal to the fair market value of our common stock on the grant date of the award.

 

Directors who are our employees receive no additional compensation for their service as directors.

 

Director Compensation Table

 

The following table shows the compensation of our non-employee directors for 2019. Mr. Hong, our President and Chief Executive Officer, is not included in this table because he is an employee of our Company and receives no additional compensation for his service as a director. The compensation received by Mr. Hong as an employee of our Company is described in this Item 11 above.

 

  

Equity Compensation Plans

 

We currently maintain one equity incentive plan, the Equity Plan. The Equity Plan initially became effective in 2006, was amended and restated in 2010, 2016 and 2019. Our Board and, when required, our stockholders have previously approved the Equity Plan, including all amendments and restatements of such plan. The terms of the Equity Plan are summarized below.

 

Share Reserve and Share Limits

 

Each January 1, the number of shares reserved for issuance under the Equity Plan will continue to be automatically increased by the lesser of (i) 2.5% of the shares then issued and outstanding, or (ii) 1,200,000 shares. As of

March 3, 2020, there were 15,005,566 total shares reserved for issuance under the Equity Plan, including 9,516,811 shares subject to outstanding equity awards granted under this plan.

 

Any shares subject to an award or portion of an award which is forfeited, canceled or expired shall be deemed not to have been issued for purposes of determining the maximum aggregate number of shares which may be issued under the Equity Plan. Shares that have been issued under the Equity Plan pursuant to an award generally shall not be returned to the reserve under the Equity Plan and shall not become available for future issuance under the Equity Plan, except that if unvested shares are forfeited, or repurchased by us at the lower of their original purchase price or their fair market value at the time of repurchase, such shares shall become available for future grant under the Equity Plan. Shares tendered or withheld in payment of an option exercise price shall not be returned to or become available for future issuance under the Equity Plan.

 

The maximum number of shares with respect to which options and stock appreciation rights may be granted to a participant during a calendar year is 1,000,000 shares (with an additional 1,000,000 shares of stock in connection with the participant’s initial employment). For awards of restricted stock, restricted stock units, and performance units that are intended to be performance-based compensation under Section 162(m) of the Code, the maximum number of shares granted to a participant during a calendar year is 1,000,000 shares.

 

Administration

 

The Equity Plan is administered, with respect to grants of awards to employees, directors, officers, and consultants, by the administrator, which is defined as the Board or one or more committees designated by the Board. With respect to grants to officers and directors, the committee shall be constituted in such a manner as to satisfy applicable laws, including Rule 16b-3 under the Exchange Act and Section 162(m) of the Code. The Equity Plan is administered by the Compensation Committee of our Board, the composition of which satisfies such tax and SEC rules, subject to such committee’s delegation to management to grant awards to certain eligible persons of up to 25,000 shares.

 

Eligibility

 

Persons eligible to receive awards under the Equity Plan include directors, officers and other employees of and consultants and advisors to our Company or any of our subsidiaries. As of December 28, 2019, approximately 70 officers and other employees of our Company and our subsidiaries (including all of the named executive officers) and each of our three non-employee directors are eligible to receive awards under the Equity Plan.

 

Vesting

 

Although the Equity Plan provides the administrator with the discretion to determine the vesting schedule of any awards granted under the plan, stock option awards granted to employees under the Equity Plan typically vest over four years in either 16 equal quarterly installments or one installment of 25% of the shares subject to the award on the one-year anniversary of the grant date and 12 equal quarterly installments thereafter, subject to continued service on each vesting date. RSAs granted to employees under the Equity Plan vest annually on each anniversary of the grant date over a two-year term, and RSUs granted for employees and consultants under the Equity Plan typically vest semi-annually from the grant date over a four-year term, subject to continued service on each vesting date. RSUs granted for independent directors under the Equity Plan fully-vest on the grant date.

 

Adjustments Upon Corporate Transactions

 

The Equity Plan provides that, in the event of an “acquisition,” as defined in the Equity Plan, the administrator may provide for the termination of outstanding awards under the Equity Plan, unless awards are assumed or replaced by the successor entity in the acquisition. Except as provided in an individual award agreement, for the portion of each award that is not assumed or replaced by the successor entity, such portion of the award may be vested and become exercisable in full or be released from any repurchase or forfeiture rights before the effective date of the acquisition, provided that the participant’s continuous service has not terminated before such date.