ITEM 1.
Business
Cirrus Logic, Inc. (“Cirrus Logic,” “We,” “Us,” “Our,” or the “Company”) is a leader in high performance, low-power integrated circuits (“ICs”) for audio and voice signal processing applications. Cirrus Logic’s products span the entire audio signal chain, from capture to playback, providing innovative components for the world’s top smartphones, tablets, digital headsets, wearables and emerging smart home applications.
We were incorporated in California in 1984, became a public company in 1989 and were reincorporated in the State of Delaware in February 1999. Our primary facility housing engineering, sales and marketing, and administrative functions is located in Austin, Texas. We also have offices in various other locations in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Australia, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan. Our common stock, which has been publicly traded since 1989, is listed on the NASDAQ's Global Select Market under the symbol CRUS.
We maintain a website with the address
www.cirrus.com
. We are not including the information contained on our website as a part of, or incorporating it by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available free of charge through our website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish such material to, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). We also routinely post other important information on our website, including information specifically addressed to investors. We intend for the investor relations section of our website to be a recognized channel of distribution for disseminating information to the securities marketplace in general. To receive a free copy of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, please forward your written request to Cirrus Logic, Inc., Attn: Investor Relations, 800 W. 6
th
Street, Austin, Texas 78701, or via email at Investor.Relations@cirrus.com. In addition, the SEC maintains a website at
www.sec.gov
that contains reports, proxy and information statements filed electronically with the SEC by Cirrus Logic.
Company Strategy
Cirrus Logic targets growing markets where we can leverage our expertise in analog and digital signal processing to solve complex problems. Our approach has been to develop custom and general market components that embody our latest innovations, which we use to engage key players in a particular market or application. We focus on building strong engineering relationships with our customers’ product teams and work to develop highly differentiated components that address their technical and price requirements across product tiers. Many of our products include programmable aspects and are comprised of our best-in-class hardware which incorporates software algorithms from some combination of our own intellectual property (“IP”), algorithms that have been ported to our platform by an ecosystem of third-party partners, and our customers’ IP. When we have been successful with this approach, one initial design win has often expanded into additional products. This strategy gives us the opportunity to increase our content with a customer over time through the incorporation of new features, the integration of other system components into our products and the addition of new components.
Markets and Products
The following provides a detailed discussion regarding our portable audio and non-portable audio and other product lines:
Portable Audio Products
: High-precision analog and mixed-signal components designed for mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, digital headsets, speakers and wearables.
Non-Portable Audio and Other Products
: High-precision analog and mixed-signal components targeting the consumer market, including emerging smart home applications, and the automotive, energy and industrial markets.
PORTABLE AUDIO PRODUCTS
We are a leading supplier of analog and mixed-signal audio converter and digital signal processing products in many of today’s mobile applications. Providing a complete end-to-end solution from capture to playback, we have an extensive portfolio of products that target flagship and mid-tier devices, including “codecs” - chips that integrate analog-to-digital converters (“ADCs”) and digital-to-analog converters (“DACs”) into a single IC, “smart codecs” – codecs with digital signal processing integrated, boosted amplifiers, micro-electromechanical systems (“MEMS”) microphones, as well as standalone digital signal processors (“DSPs”). Additionally, the Company’s SoundClear
®
technology consists of a broad portfolio of tools, software and algorithms that help to differentiate our customers’ products by improving the user experience with features such as enhanced voice quality, voice capture and audio playback. Our products are designed for use in a wide array of portable applications, including smartphones, tablets, digital headsets, speakers, wearables, such as smart watches and smart bands, VR headsets and action cameras.
NON-PORTABLE AUDIO AND OTHER PRODUCTS
We provide high-precision analog and mixed-signal ICs for a variety of products in consumer applications, including the emerging smart home market, automotive, industrial and energy. The Company supplies a wide range of products including ICs, codecs, ADCs, DACs, digital interfaces and amplifiers. Within the consumer market our products are utilized in laptops, audio/video receivers (AVRs”), home theater systems, set-top boxes, musical instruments and professional audio products. Applications for products in the automotive market include satellite radio systems, telematics and multi-speaker car-audio systems. Our products are also used in a wide array of high-precision industrial and energy-related applications including digital utility meters, power supplies, energy control, energy measurement, and energy exploration applications.
Customers, Marketing, and Sales
We offer products worldwide through both direct and indirect sales channels. Our major customers are among the world’s leading electronics manufacturers. We target both large existing and emerging customers that derive value from our expertise in advanced analog and mixed-signal design processing, systems-level integrated circuit engineering and embedded software development. We derive our revenues from both domestic and international sales. Our domestic sales force includes a network of direct sales offices located primarily in California and Texas. International sales offices and staff are located in Japan, People’s Republic of China, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. We supplement our direct sales force with external sales representatives and distributors. We have technical support centers in China, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Our worldwide sales force provides geographically specific support to our customers and specialized selling of product lines with unique customer bases. See Note 15—Segment Information, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements contained in Item 8 for further detail and for additional disclosure regarding sales and property, plant and equipment, net, by geographic locations.
Since the components we produce are largely proprietary and generally not available from second sources, we generally consider our end customer to be the entity specifying the use of our component in their design. These end customers may then purchase our products directly from us, through distributors or third party manufacturers contracted to produce their designs. For fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, and
2016
, our ten largest end customers, represented approximately
92
percent,
92
percent, and
89
percent, of our sales, respectively. For fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, and
2016
, we had one end customer, Apple, Inc., who purchased through multiple contract manufacturers and represented approximately
81
percent,
79
percent, and
66
percent, of the Company’s total sales, respectively. Samsung Electronics represented approximately 15 percent of the Company’s total sales for fiscal year 2016. No other customer or distributor represented more than 10 percent of net sales in fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, or
2016
.
Manufacturing
As a fabless semiconductor company, we contract with third parties for wafer fabrication and product assembly and test. We use a variety of foundries in the production of wafers including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Limited, MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation and GLOBALFOUNDRIES. The Company’s primary assembly and test houses include Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc., Amkor Technology Inc., Nepes Corporation, SFA Semicon Co., Ltd., Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd, and STATS ChipPAC Pte. Ltd,. Our outsourced manufacturing strategy allows us to concentrate on our design strengths and minimize fixed costs and capital expenditures while giving us access to advanced manufacturing facilities. It also provides the flexibility to source multiple leading-edge technologies through strategic relationships. After wafer fabrication by the foundry, third-party assembly vendors package the wafer die. The finished products are then tested before shipment to our customers. While we do have some redundancy of fabrication processes by using multiple outside foundries, any interruption of supply by one or more of these foundries could materially impact the Company. As a result, we maintain some amount of business interruption insurance to help reduce the risk of wafer supply interruption, but we are not fully insured against such risk. Our supply chain management organization is responsible for the management of all aspects of the manufacturing, assembly, and testing of our products, including process and package development, test program development, and production testing of products in accordance with our ISO-certified quality management system.
Although our products are made from basic materials (principally silicon, metals and plastics), all of which are available from a number of suppliers, capacity at wafer foundries sometimes becomes constrained. The limited availability of certain materials may impact our suppliers’ ability to meet our demand needs or impact the price we are charged. The prices of certain other basic materials, such as metals, gases and chemicals used in the production of circuits can increase as demand grows for these basic commodities. In most cases, we do not procure these materials ourselves; nevertheless, we are reliant on such materials for producing our products because our outside foundry and package and test subcontractors must procure them. To help mitigate risks associated with constrained capacity, we use multiple foundries, assembly and test sources.
Patents, Licenses and Trademarks
We rely on patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws to protect our intellectual property, products, and technology. As of
March 31, 2018
, we held approximately 3,100 pending and issued patents worldwide, which include approximately 1,050 granted U.S. patents, 480 U.S. pending patent applications and various international patents and applications. Our U.S. patents expire in calendar years 2018 through 2038. While our patents are an important element of our success, our business as a whole is not dependent on any one patent or group of patents. We do not anticipate any material effect on our business due to any patents expiring in 2018, and we continue to obtain new patents through our ongoing research and development.
We have maintained U.S. federal trademark registrations for CIRRUS LOGIC, CIRRUS, Cirrus Logic logo designs, and SoundClear, among others. These U.S. registrations may be renewed as long as the marks continue to be used in interstate commerce. We have also filed or obtained foreign registration for these marks in other countries or jurisdictions where we conduct, or anticipate conducting, international business. To complement our own research and development efforts, we have also licensed and expect to continue to license, a variety of intellectual property and technologies important to our business from third parties.
Segments
We determine our operating segments in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) guidelines. Our Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) has been identified as the chief operating decision maker as defined by these guidelines.
The Company operates and tracks its results in one reportable segment, but reports revenue performance in two product lines: Portable Audio and Non-Portable Audio and Other. Our CEO receives and uses enterprise-wide financial information to assess financial performance and allocate resources, rather than detailed information at a product line level. Additionally, our product lines have similar characteristics and customers. They share operations support functions such as sales, public relations, supply chain management, various research and development and engineering support, in addition to the general and administrative functions of human resources, legal, finance and information technology. Therefore, there is no discrete financial information maintained for these product lines. For fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, and
2016
, Portable Audio product sales were
$1.4 billion
,
$1.4 billion
, and
$989.1 million
, respectively. For fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, and
2016
, Non-Portable Audio and Other product sales were
$168.3 million
,
$165.1 million
, and
$180.2 million
, respectively.
See Note 15 — Segment Information, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements contained in Item 8 for further details including sales and property, plant and equipment, net, by geographic locations.
Research and Development
We concentrate our research and development efforts on the design and development of new products for each of our principal markets. We also fund certain advanced-process technology development, as well as other emerging product opportunities. Expenditures for research and development in fiscal years
2018
,
2017
, and
2016
were
$366.4 million
,
$303.7 million
, and
$269.2 million
, respectively. Our future success is highly dependent upon our ability to develop complex new products, transfer new products to volume production, introduce them into the marketplace in a timely fashion, and have them selected for design into products of systems manufacturers. Our future success may also depend on assisting our customers with integration of our components into their new products, including providing support from the concept stage through design, launch and production ramp.
Competition
Markets for our products are highly competitive and we expect that competition will continue to increase. Our ability to compete effectively and to expand our business will depend on our ability to continue to recruit key engineering talent, execute on new product developments, partner with customers to include these new products into their applications, and provide cost efficient versions of existing products. We compete with other semiconductor suppliers that offer standard semiconductors, application-specific standard products and fully customized ICs, including embedded software, chip and board-level products.
While no single company competes with us in all of our product lines, we face significant competition in all markets where our products are available. Within Portable Audio, Cirrus Logic is the leading IC supplier with the complete end-to-end solution from capture to playback including amplifiers, codecs, DSP and MEMS microphones. We expect to face additional competition from new entrants in our markets, which may include both large domestic and international IC manufacturers and smaller, emerging companies. Our primary competitors include, but are not limited to AAC Technologies, AKM Semiconductor Inc., Analog Devices Inc., Austriamicrosystems AG, Avnera Corp., Dialog Semiconductor PLC, DSP Group, ESS Technology, Inc., GoerTek Inc., Knowles Corporation, Maxim Integrated Products Inc., MediaTek Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., Qualcomm Incorporated, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, ST Microelectronics N.V., Synaptics Incorporated and Texas Instruments, Inc.
The principal competitive factors in our markets include: time to market; quality of hardware/software design and end-market systems expertise; price; product performance, features, quality and compatibility with standards; access to advanced process and packaging technologies at competitive prices; and sales and technical support, which includes assisting our customers with integration of our components into their new products and providing support from the concept stage through design, launch and production ramp.
Product life cycles may vary greatly by product category. For example, many portable audio devices have shorter design-in cycles; therefore, our competitors have increasingly frequent opportunities to achieve design wins in next-generation systems. Conversely, this also provides us frequent opportunities to displace competitors in products that have previously not utilized our design. The non-portable audio and other markets typically have longer life cycles, which provide continued revenue streams over longer periods of time.
Backlog
Sales are made primarily pursuant to short-term purchase orders for delivery of products. The quantity actually ordered by the customer, as well as the shipment schedules, are frequently revised, without significant penalty, to reflect changes in the customer’s needs. The majority of our backlog is typically requested for delivery within six months. In markets where the end system life cycles are relatively short, customers typically request delivery in six to twelve weeks. We believe a backlog analysis at any given time gives little indication of our future business except on a short-term basis, principally within the next 60 days.
We utilize backlog as an indicator to assist us in production planning. However, backlog is influenced by several factors including market demand, pricing, and customer order patterns in reaction to product lead times. Quantities actually purchased by customers, as well as prices, are subject to variations between booking and delivery because of changes in customer needs or industry conditions. As a result, we believe that our backlog at any given time is an incomplete indicator of future sales.
Employees
As of March 31, 2018, we had 1,596 full-time employees, an increase of 152 employees, or 11 percent, from the end of fiscal year
2018
. The increase was primarily due to expanding our capabilities in the engineering function. Of our full-time employees, 69 percent were engaged in research and product development activities, 25 percent in sales, marketing, general and administrative activities, and 6 percent in manufacturing-related activities. We also employ individuals on a temporary basis and use the services of contractors as necessary, particularly in our software development and test organization. Our future success depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract, retain and motivate highly qualified technical, marketing, engineering, and administrative personnel.
We have never had a work stoppage and the majority of our employees are not represented by collective bargaining agreements. We consider our employee relations to be good.
Forward—Looking Statements
This Annual Report on Form 10-K and certain information incorporated herein by reference contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements included or incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, other than statements that are purely historical, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, forward-looking statements are identified by words such as “expect,” “anticipate,” “target,” “project,” “believe,” “goals,” “estimates,” “will,” “would,” “could,” “can,” “may,” “plan,” and “intend”, and other similar types of words and expressions. Variations of these types of words and similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. Any statements that refer to our plans, expectations, strategies or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are predictions based on management's expectations as of the date of this filing and are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual results may differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated or implied by our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those discussed in
Item 1A. Risk Factors
and elsewhere in this report, as well as in the documents filed by us with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on Form 10-Q and 8-K, each as it may be amended from time to time.
We caution you not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and we undertake no obligation, and expressly disclaim any duty, to revise or update this information, whether as a result of new information, events or circumstances after the filing of this report with the SEC, except as required by law. We urge readers to carefully review and consider the various disclosures made in this Annual Report on Form 10–K and in other documents we file from time to time with the SEC that disclose risks and uncertainties that may affect our business. All forward-looking statements, expressed or implied, included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and
attributable to Cirrus Logic are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. This cautionary statement should also be considered in connection with any subsequent written or oral forward-looking statements that we may make or persons acting on our behalf may issue.
ITEM 1A.
Risk Factors
Our business faces significant risks. The risk factors set forth below may not be the only risks that we face and there is a risk that we may have failed to identify all possible risk factors. Additional risks that we are not aware of yet or that currently are not significant may adversely affect our business operations. You should read the following cautionary statements in conjunction with the factors discussed elsewhere in this and other Cirrus Logic filings with the SEC. These cautionary statements are intended to highlight certain factors that may affect the financial condition and results of operations of Cirrus Logic and are not meant to be an exhaustive discussion of risks that apply to companies such as ours.
We depend on a limited number of customers and distributors for a substantial portion of our sales, and the loss of, or a significant reduction in orders from, or pricing on products sold to, any key customer or distributor could significantly reduce our sales and our profitability.
While we generate sales from a broad base of customers worldwide, the loss of any of our key customers, or a significant reduction in sales or selling prices to any key customer, or reductions in selling prices made to retain key customer relationships, would significantly reduce our revenue, margins and earnings and adversely affect our business. For the twelve-month periods ending
March 31, 2018
,
March 25, 2017
, and
March 26, 2016
, our ten largest end customers represented approximately
92
percent,
92
percent, and
89 percent
of our sales, respectively. For the twelve-month periods ending
March 31, 2018
,
March 25, 2017
, and
March 26, 2016
, we had one end customer, Apple Inc., who purchased through multiple contract manufacturers and represented approximately
81
percent,
79
percent and
66 percent
of the Company’s total sales, respectively. Samsung Electronics represented approximately 15 percent of the Company’s total sales for fiscal year 2016.
We may not be able to maintain or increase sales to certain of our key customers for a variety of reasons, including the following:
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most of our customers can stop incorporating our products into their own products with limited notice to us and suffer little or no penalty;
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our agreements with our customers typically do not require them to purchase a minimum quantity of our products;
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many of our customers have pre-existing or concurrent relationships with our current or potential competitors that may affect the customers’ decisions to purchase our products;
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many of our customers have sufficient resources to internally develop technology solutions and semiconductor components that could replace the products that we currently supply in our customers’ end products;
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our customers face intense competition from other manufacturers that do not use our products; and
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our customers regularly evaluate alternative sources of supply in order to diversify their supplier base, which increases their negotiating leverage with us and their ability to either obtain or dual source components from other suppliers.
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In addition, our dependence on a limited number of key customers may make it easier for them to pressure us on price reductions. We have experienced pricing pressure from certain key customers and we expect that the average selling prices for certain of our products will decline from time to time, potentially reducing our revenue, our margins and our earnings.
Our key customer relationships often require us to develop new products that may involve significant technological challenges. Our customers frequently place considerable pressure on us to meet their tight development schedules. In addition, we may from time to time enter into customer agreements providing for exclusivity periods during which we may only sell specified products or technology to a specific customer. Accordingly, we may have to devote a substantial amount of resources to strategic relationships, which could detract from or delay our completion of other important development projects or the development of next generation products and technologies.
Moreover, our reliance on certain customers may continue to increase, which could heighten the risks associated with having key customers, including making us more vulnerable to significant reductions in revenue, margins and earnings, pricing pressure, and other adverse effects on our business.
Our lack of diversification in our revenue and customer base increases the risk of an investment in our company, and our consolidated financial condition, results of operations, and stock price may deteriorate if we fail to diversify.
Although we continue to investigate, invest in, and try to develop opportunities to diversify our revenue and customer base, our sales, marketing, and development efforts have historically been focused on a limited number of customers and opportunities. Larger companies have the ability to manage their risk by product, market, and customer diversification. However, we lack diversification, in terms of both the nature and scope of our business, which increases the risk of an
investment in our company. If we cannot diversify our customer and revenue opportunities, our financial condition and results of operations could deteriorate.
We frequently develop our products for the specific system architecture of our customers’ end products. If our customers were to change system architectures, develop competing technologies and integrated circuits, or incorporate some of the functionality of our products into other parts of the system, we risk the potential loss of revenue and reduced average selling prices.
Our customers, particularly in the portable audio market, could potentially transition to different audio architectures, develop their own competing technologies and integrated circuits, or integrate the functionality that our integrated circuits and software have historically provided into other components in their audio systems. In addition, some of the audio and voice functionality that we have historically provided could be performed outside of our customers’ end product — for example, through the use of “cloud-based” systems to perform audio and voice processing. If our customers were to transition to these different system architectures, our results of operations could be adversely affected by the elimination of the need for our current technology and products, resulting in reduced average selling prices for our components and loss of revenue.
We have entered into joint development agreements, custom product arrangements, and strategic relationships with some of our largest customers. These arrangements subject us to a number of risks, and any failure to execute on any of these arrangements could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We have entered into joint development, product collaboration and technology licensing arrangements with some of our largest customers, and we expect to enter into new strategic arrangements of these kinds from time to time in the future. Such arrangements can magnify several risks for us, including loss of control over the development and development timeline of jointly developed products, risks associated with the ownership of the intellectual property that is developed pursuant to such arrangements, and increased risk that our joint development activities may result in products that are not commercially successful or that are not available in a timely fashion. In addition, any third party with whom we enter into a joint development, product collaboration or technology licensing arrangement may fail to commit sufficient resources to the project, change its policies or priorities or abandon or fail to perform its obligations related to such arrangement. In addition, we may from time to time enter into customer product arrangements that provide for exclusivity periods during which we may only sell specified products or technologies to that particular customer. Any failure to timely develop commercially successful products through our joint development activities as a result of any of these and other challenges could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our failure to develop and ramp new products into production in a timely manner could harm our operating results.
Our success depends upon our ability to develop new products for new and existing customers, and to introduce these products in a timely and cost-effective manner. New product introductions involve significant investment of resources and potential risks. Delays in new product introductions or less-than-anticipated market acceptance of our new products are possible and would have an adverse effect on our sales and earnings. The development of new products is highly complex and, from time-to-time, we have experienced delays in developing and introducing these new products. Successful product development and introduction depend on a number of factors including, but not limited to:
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proper new product definition;
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timely completion of design and testing of new products;
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assisting our customers with integration of our components into their new products, including providing support from the concept stage through design, launch and production ramp;
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successfully developing and implementing the software necessary to integrate our products into our customers’ products;
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achievement of acceptable manufacturing yields;
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availability of wafer fabrication, assembly, and test capacity; and
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market acceptance of our products and the products of our customers.
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Both sales and/or margins may be materially affected if new product introductions are delayed, or if our products are not designed into successive generations of new or existing customers’ products. Our failure to develop and introduce new products successfully could harm our business and operating results.
In addition, difficulties associated with adapting our technology and product design to the proprietary process technology and design rules of outside foundries can lead to reduced yields of our products. Since low yields may result from either design or process technology failures, yield problems may not be effectively determined or resolved until an actual product exists that can be analyzed and tested to identify process sensitivities relating to the design rules that are used. As a result, yield problems
may not be identified until well into the production process, and resolution of yield problems may require cooperation between our manufacturer and us. This risk could be compounded by the offshore location of certain of our manufacturers, increasing the effort and time required to identify, communicate and resolve manufacturing yield problems. Manufacturing defects that we do not discover during the manufacturing or testing process may lead to costly product recalls. These risks may lead to increased costs or delayed product delivery, which would harm our profitability and customer relationships.
We continue to invest in research and development efforts for several new markets, including voice biometrics. If we are unable to commercialize these technologies, our future results and profits could be negatively affected.
Our investments into new markets subjects us to additional risks. We may have limited or no experience in these markets, and our customers may not adopt our new offerings. These new offerings may present new and difficult challenges, including risks related to technology, customers, competitors, product cycles, customer demand, terms and conditions and other industry specific issues which could negatively affect our operating results.
We have recently increased our investment in our MEMS microphone business. We have limited experience in high volume manufacturing in this market, which leads to a number of risks, including risks related to technology, customers, competition, and other industry specific issues.
We are currently increasing our investment in our MEMS microphone business. This is a competitive market with historically lower gross margins than our existing businesses. In addition, our MEMS microphone business involves different manufacturing technologies, materials, and processes than our traditional semiconductor businesses. Therefore, our investment in new markets in which we have limited experience in high volume manufacturing in those markets increases risks related to technology, customers, competitors, and other industry specific issues.
Further, there can be no assurance that we will generate the expected returns and other projected results we anticipate. For example, we may not be successful in this market or we may incur costs in excess of what we anticipate and the product line may generate lower gross margins than our existing businesses.
Our products are increasingly complex and could contain defects, which could result in material costs to us.
Product development in the markets we serve is becoming more focused on the integration of multiple functions on individual devices. There is a general trend towards increasingly complex products. The greater integration of functions and complexity of operations of our products increases the risk that we or our customers or end users could discover latent defects or subtle faults after volumes of product have been shipped. Quality and reliability issues could result in material costs and other adverse consequences to us, including, but not limited to:
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damage to our reputation;
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replacement costs for product warranty and support;
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payments to our customers related to recall claims, or the delivery of product replacements as part of a recall claim, as a result of various industry or business practices, contractual requirements, or in order to maintain good customer relationships;
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an adverse impact to our customer relationships by the occurrence of significant defects;
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a delay in recognition or loss of revenues, loss of market share, or failure to achieve market acceptance;
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writing off or reserving the value of inventory of such products; and
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a diversion of the attention of our engineering personnel from our product development efforts.
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In addition, any defects or other problems with our products could result in financial losses or other damages to our customers who could seek damages from us for their losses. A product liability or warranty claim brought against us, even if unsuccessful, would likely be time consuming and costly to defend. In particular, the sale of systems and components that are incorporated into certain applications for the automotive industry involves a high degree of risk that such claims may be made.
While we believe that we are reasonably insured against some of these risks and that we have attempted to contractually limit our financial exposure with many of our customers, a warranty or product liability claim against us in excess of our available insurance coverage and established reserves, or a requirement that we participate in a customer product recall, could have material adverse effects on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
We are subject to risks relating to product concentration.
We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from a limited number of products, and we expect these products to represent a large percentage of our revenues in the near term. Customer acceptance of these products is critical to our future success. Our business, operating results, financial condition and cash flows could therefore be adversely affected by:
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a decline in demand for any of our more significant products;
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a decline in the average selling prices of our more significant products;
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failure of our products to achieve continued market acceptance;
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new technological standards or changes to existing standards that we are unable to address with our products;
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manufacturing or supply issues that prevent us from meeting our customers’ demand for these products;
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a failure to release new products or enhanced versions of our existing products on a timely basis; and
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the failure of our new products to achieve market acceptance.
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Our results may be affected by fluctuation in sales in the consumer entertainment and smartphone markets.
Because we sell products primarily in the consumer entertainment and smartphone markets, we are likely to be affected by any decrease in demand or unit volumes, seasonality in the sales of our products, and the cyclical nature of these markets. Further, a decline in consumer confidence and consumer spending relating to economic conditions, terrorist attacks, armed conflicts, oil prices, global health conditions, natural disasters, and/or the political stability of countries in which we operate or sell products could have a material adverse effect on our business.
In general, our customers may cancel or reschedule orders on short notice without incurring significant penalties; therefore, our sales and operating results in any quarter are difficult to forecast.
In general, we rely on customers issuing purchase orders to buy our products rather than long-term supply contracts. Customers may cancel or reschedule orders on short notice without incurring significant penalties. Therefore, cancellations, reductions, or delays of orders from any significant customer could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
In addition, a significant portion of our sales and earnings in any quarter depends upon customer orders for our products that we receive and fulfill in that quarter. Because our expense levels are based in part on our expectations as to future revenue and to a large extent are fixed in the short term, we likely will be unable to adjust spending on a timely basis to compensate for any unexpected shortfall in sales or reductions in average selling prices. Accordingly, any significant shortfall of sales in relation to our expectations could hurt our operating results.
Strong competition in the semiconductor market may harm our business.
The IC industry is intensely competitive and is frequently characterized by rapid technological change, price erosion, technological obsolescence, and a push towards IC component integration. Because of shortened product life cycles and even shorter design-in cycles in a number of the markets that we serve, our competitors have increasingly frequent opportunities to achieve design wins in next-generation systems. In the event that competitors succeed in supplanting our products, our market share may not be sustainable and our net sales, gross margin and operating results would be adversely affected.
We compete in a number of markets. Our principal competitors in these markets include AAC Technologies, AKM Semiconductor Inc., Analog Devices Inc., Austriamicrosystems AG, Avnera Corp., Dialog Semiconductor PLC, DSP Group, ESS Technology, Inc., GoerTek Inc., Knowles Corporation, Maxim Integrated Products Inc., MediaTek Inc., NXP Semiconductors N.V., Qualcomm Incorporated, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, ST Microelectronics N.V., Synaptics Incorporated and Texas Instruments, Inc. Many of these competitors have greater financial, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, technical, distribution, and other resources; broader product lines; and broader intellectual property portfolios. We also expect intensified competition from emerging companies and from customers who develop their own IC products. In addition, some of our current and future competitors maintain their own fabrication facilities, which could benefit them in connection with cost, capacity, and technical issues.
Increased competition could adversely affect our business. We cannot provide assurances that we will be able to compete successfully in the future or that competitive pressures will not adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations. Competitive pressures could reduce market acceptance of our products and result in price reductions and increases in expenses that could adversely affect our business and our financial condition.
Our sales could be materially impacted by the failure of other component suppliers to deliver required parts needed in the final assembly of our customers’ end products.
The products we supply our customers are typically a portion of the many components provided from multiple suppliers in order to complete the final assembly of an end product. If one or more of these other component suppliers are unable to deliver their required component(s) in order for the final end product to be assembled, our customers may delay, or ultimately cancel, their orders from us.
We are dependent on third-party manufacturing and supply chain relationships for the majority of our products. Our reliance on third-party foundries and suppliers involves certain risks that may result in increased costs, delays in meeting our customers’ demand, and loss of revenue.
We do not own or operate a semiconductor fabrication facility and do not have the resources to manufacture the majority of our products internally. We use third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test the vast majority of our products. As a result, we are subject to risks associated with these third parties, including:
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insufficient capacity available to meet our demand;
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inadequate manufacturing yields and excessive costs;
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inability of these third parties to obtain an adequate supply of raw materials;
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difficulties selecting and integrating new subcontractors;
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limited warranties on products supplied to us;
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potential increases in prices; and
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increased exposure to potential misappropriation of our intellectual property.
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Our outside foundries and assembly and test suppliers generally manufacture our products on a purchase order basis, and we have few long-term supply arrangements with these suppliers. Therefore, our third-party manufacturers and suppliers are not obligated to supply us with products for any specific period of time, quantity, or price, except as may be provided in any particular purchase order or in relation to an existing supply agreement. A manufacturing or supply disruption experienced by one or more of our outside suppliers or a disruption of our relationship with an outside foundry could negatively impact the production of certain of our products for a substantial period of time.
In addition, difficulties associated with adapting our technology and product design to the proprietary process technology and design rules of outside foundries can lead to reduced yields of our products. Since low yields may result from either design or process technology failures, yield problems may not be effectively determined or resolved until an actual product exists that can be analyzed and tested to identify process sensitivities relating to the design rules that are used. As a result, yield problems may not be identified until well into the production process, and resolution of yield problems may require cooperation between our manufacturer and us. This risk could be compounded by the offshore location of certain of our manufacturers, increasing the effort and time required to identify, communicate and resolve manufacturing yield problems. Manufacturing defects that we do not discover during the manufacturing or testing process may lead to costly product recalls. These risks may lead to increased costs or delayed product delivery, which would harm our profitability and customer relationships.
In some cases, our requirements may represent a small portion of the total production of the third-party suppliers. As a result, we are subject to the risk that a producer will cease production of an older or lower-volume process that it uses to produce our parts. We cannot provide any assurance that our external foundries will continue to devote resources to the production of parts for our products or continue to advance the process design technologies on which the manufacturing of our products are based. Each of these events could increase our costs, lower our gross margin, and cause us to hold more inventories, or materially impact our ability to deliver our products on time.
We may experience difficulties transitioning to advanced manufacturing process technologies, which could materially adversely affect our results.
Our future success depends in part on our ability to transition our current development and production efforts to advanced manufacturing process technologies. We are currently making a significant investment to transition our products and intellectual property to circuit geometries of 55 and 28 nanometer. To the extent that we do not timely transition to smaller geometries, experience difficulties in shifting to smaller geometries, or have significant quality or reliability issues at these smaller geometries, our results could be materially adversely affected.
System security risks, data protection breaches, cyber-attacks and other related cyber security issues could disrupt our internal operations, and any such disruption could increase our expenses, damage our reputation and adversely affect our stock price.
Our security measures are subject to third-party security breaches, employee error, malfeasance, faulty password management, and other irregularities. For example, experienced computer programmers and hackers may be able to penetrate our security controls and misappropriate or compromise our confidential information or that of third parties, create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. Computer programmers and hackers also may be able to develop and deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs that attack our websites, products or otherwise exploit any security vulnerabilities of our websites and products. The costs to us to eliminate or alleviate cyber or other security problems, bugs, viruses, worms, malicious software programs and security vulnerabilities could be significant, and our efforts to address these problems may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays, cessation of service and loss of existing or potential customers that may impede our sales, manufacturing, distribution or other critical functions.
We manage and store various proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data relating to our business. In addition, we manage and store a significant amount of proprietary and sensitive confidential information from our customers. Any breach of our security measures or the accidental loss, inadvertent disclosure or unapproved dissemination of proprietary information or sensitive or confidential data about us or our customers, including the potential loss or disclosure of such information or data as a result of fraud, trickery or other forms of deception, could result in litigation and potential liability for us, damage our brand and reputation or otherwise harm our business.
Potential intellectual property claims and litigation could subject us to significant liability for damages and could invalidate our proprietary rights.
The IC industry is characterized by frequent litigation regarding patent and other intellectual property rights. We may find it necessary to initiate lawsuits to assert our patent or other intellectual property rights. These legal proceedings could be expensive, take significant time, and divert management’s attention. We cannot provide assurances that we will ultimately be successful in any lawsuit, nor can we provide assurances that any patent owned by us will not be invalidated, circumvented, or challenged. We cannot provide assurances that rights granted under our patents will provide competitive advantages to us, or that any of our pending or future patent applications will be issued with the scope of the claims sought by us, if at all.
As is typical in the IC industry, our customers and we have, from time to time, received and may in the future receive, communications from third parties asserting patents, mask work rights, or copyrights. In the event third parties were to make a valid intellectual property claim and a license was not available on commercially reasonable terms, our operating results could be harmed. Litigation, which could result in substantial cost to us and diversion of our management, technical and financial resources, may also be necessary to defend us against claimed infringement of the rights of others. An unfavorable outcome in any such litigation could have an adverse effect on our future operations and/or liquidity.
We have significant international sales, and risks associated with these sales could harm our operating results.
International sales represented 98 percent of our net sales in each of fiscal years
2018
and
2017
, and 94 percent of our net sales in fiscal year
2016
. We expect international sales to continue to represent a significant portion of product sales. This reliance on international sales subjects us to the risks of conducting business internationally, including risks associated with political and economic instability, global health conditions, currency controls, exchange rate fluctuations and changes in import/export regulations, and tariff and freight rates. For example, the political or economic instability in a given region may have an adverse impact on the financial position of end users in the region, which could affect future orders and harm our results of operations. Our international sales operations involve a number of other risks including, but not limited to:
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unexpected changes in government regulatory requirements;
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sales, VAT, or other indirect tax regulations and treaties and potential changes in regulations and treaties in the United States and in and between countries in which we manufacture or sell our products;
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changes to countries’ banking and credit requirements;
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changes in diplomatic and trade relationships;
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delays resulting from difficulties in obtaining export licenses for technology, particularly in China;
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any changes in U.S. trade policy, including potential adoption and expansion of trade restrictions, higher tariffs, or cross border taxation by the U.S. government involving other countries, particularly China, that might impact overall customer demand for our products or affect our ability to manufacture and/or sell our products overseas;
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tariffs and other barriers and restrictions, particularly in China;
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competition with non-U.S. companies or other domestic companies entering the non-U.S. markets in which we operate;
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longer sales and payment cycles;
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problems in collecting accounts receivable;
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changes to economic, social, or political conditions in countries such as China, where we have significant operations; and
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the burdens of complying with a variety of non-U.S. laws.
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In addition, our competitive position may be affected by the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against other currencies. While our sales are predominately denominated in U.S. dollars, increases in the value of the dollar would increase the price in local currencies of our products in non-U.S. markets and make our products relatively more expensive. We cannot provide assurances that regulatory, political and other factors will not adversely affect our operations in the future or require us to modify our current business practices.
We could be subject to changes in tax laws, the adoption of new U.S. or international tax legislation or exposure to additional tax liabilities.
We are subject to taxes in the U.S. and numerous foreign jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, where a number of our subsidiaries are organized. Due to economic and political conditions, tax laws in various jurisdictions may be subject to significant change. Our future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, or changes in tax laws or their interpretation, including in the U.S. and the United Kingdom. We are also subject to the examination of our tax returns and other tax matters by the Internal Revenue Service of the United States (the “IRS”) and other tax authorities and governmental bodies. We regularly assess the likelihood of an adverse outcome resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our provision for taxes. There can be no assurance as to the outcome of these examinations. If our effective tax rates were to increase, particularly in the U.S. or the United Kingdom, or if the ultimate determination of taxes owed is for an amount in excess of amounts previously accrued, our operating results, cash flows, and financial condition could be adversely affected.
Significant judgment is required in the calculation of our tax provision and the resulting tax liabilities. Our estimates of future taxable income and the regional mix of this income can change as new information becomes available. Any such changes in our estimates or assumptions can significantly impact our tax provision in a given period.
The final impacts of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could be materially different from our current estimates.
The legislation commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”) was enacted on December 22, 2017. The Tax Act reduces the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, restricts the deductibility of certain business expenses, requires companies to pay a one-time transition tax on earnings of certain foreign subsidiaries that were previously deferred from U.S. tax and creates new U.S. taxes on certain foreign sourced earnings, among other provisions. As of the end of fiscal year 2018, we have made a reasonable estimate of the effects of the Tax Act and recognized a provisional amount that is included as a component of income tax expense from continuing operations. This provisional amount is based on management's current knowledge and assumptions. Final amounts could be materially different from current estimates based on further analysis of the tax law changes or on additional guidance from Treasury, the IRS, the Commission, or the FASB.
Our international operations subject our business to additional political and economic risks that could have an adverse impact on our business.
In addition to international sales constituting a large portion of our net sales, we maintain international operations, sales, and technical support personnel. International expansion has required, and will continue to require, significant management attention and resources. There are risks inherent in expanding our presence into non-U.S. regions, including, but not limited to:
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difficulties in staffing and managing non-U.S. operations;
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failure in non-U.S. regions to adequately protect our intellectual property, patent, trademarks, copyrights, know-how, and other proprietary rights;
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global health conditions and potential natural disasters;
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political and economic instability in international regions;
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international currency controls and exchange rate fluctuations;
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vulnerability to terrorist groups targeting American interests abroad; and
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legal uncertainty regarding liability and compliance with non-U.S. laws and regulatory requirements.
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If we are unable to successfully manage the demands of our international operations, it may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations.
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (U.K.) held a referendum in which voters approved an exit from the European Union (the “E.U.”), commonly referred to as “Brexit.” Following the referendum result, the British government invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on March 29, 2017 and have two years from that date to negotiate the terms of the U.K.’s withdrawal from the E.U. and the U.K.’s future relationships with E.U. member states. Although it is unknown what those terms will be, it is possible that there will be greater restrictions on immigration between the U.K. and E.U. countries that make it more difficult to staff our U.K. operations, changes in tax laws that negatively impact our effective tax rate, restrictions on imports and exports between the U.K. and E.U. member states, and increased regulatory complexities. These changes may adversely affect our operations and financial results.
Because we depend on subcontractors internationally to perform key manufacturing functions for us, we are subject to political, economic, and natural disaster risks that could disrupt the fabrication, assembly, packaging, or testing of our products.
We depend on third-party subcontractors, primarily in Asia, for the fabrication, assembly, packaging, and testing of most of our products. International operations may be subject to a variety of risks, including political instability, global health conditions, currency controls, exchange rate fluctuations, changes in import/export regulations, tariff and freight rates, as well as the risks of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods. Although we seek to reduce our dependence on any one subcontractor, this concentration of subcontractors and manufacturing operations in Asia subjects us to the risks of conducting business internationally, including associated political and economic conditions. If we experience manufacturing problems at a particular location, or a supplier is unable to continue operating due to financial difficulties, natural disasters, or other reasons, we would be required to transfer manufacturing to a backup supplier. Converting or transferring manufacturing from a primary supplier to a backup facility could be expensive and time consuming. As a result, delays in our production or shipping by the parties to whom we outsource these functions could reduce our sales, damage our customer relationships, and damage our reputation in the marketplace, any of which could harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our products may be subject to average selling prices that decline over time. If we are unable to maintain average selling prices for existing products, increase our volumes, introduce new or enhanced products with higher selling prices, or reduce our costs, our business and operating results could be harmed.
Historically in the semiconductor industry, average selling prices of products have decreased over time. Moreover, our dependence on a limited number of key customers may make it easier for key customers to pressure us to reduce the prices of the products we sell to them. If the average selling price of any of our products declines and we are unable to increase our unit volumes, introduce new or enhanced products with higher margins, and/or reduce manufacturing costs to offset anticipated decreases in the prices of our existing products, our operating results may be adversely affected. In addition, because of procurement lead times, we are limited in our ability to reduce total costs quickly in response to any reductions in prices or sales shortfalls. Because of these factors, we may experience material adverse fluctuations in our future operating results on a quarterly or annual basis.
As we carry only limited insurance coverage, uninsured or under-insured losses could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Our insurance policies may not be adequate to fully offset losses from covered incidents, and we do not have coverage for certain losses. For example, there is limited coverage available with respect to the services provided by our third-party foundries and assembly and test subcontractors. Although we believe that our existing insurance coverage is consistent with common practices of companies in our industry, our insurance coverage may be inadequate to protect us against product recalls, natural disasters, and other unforeseen catastrophes that could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.
Shifts in industry-wide capacity and our practice of ordering and purchasing our products based on sales forecasts may result in significant fluctuations in inventory and our quarterly and annual operating results.
We rely on independent foundries and assembly and test houses to manufacture our products. Our reliance on these third- party suppliers involves certain risks and uncertainties. For example, shifts in industry-wide capacity from shortages to oversupply, or from oversupply to shortages, may result in significant fluctuations in our quarterly and annual operating results. In addition, we may order wafers and build inventory in advance of receiving purchase orders from our customers. Because our industry is highly cyclical and is subject to significant downturns resulting from excess capacity, overproduction, reduced demand, order cancellations, or technological obsolescence, there is a risk that we will forecast inaccurately and produce excess inventories of particular products. In addition, if we experience supply constraints or manufacturing problems at a particular supplier, we could be required to switch suppliers or qualify additional suppliers. Switching and/or qualifying additional
suppliers could be an expensive process and take as long as six to twelve months to complete, which could result in material adverse fluctuations to our operating results.
We generally order our products through non-cancelable purchase orders from third-party foundries based on our sales forecasts, and our customers can generally cancel or reschedule orders they place with us without significant penalties. If we do not receive orders as anticipated by our forecasts, or our customers cancel orders that are placed, we may experience increased inventory levels.
Due to the product manufacturing cycle characteristic of IC manufacturing and the inherent imprecision in the accuracy of our customers’ forecasts, product inventories may not always correspond to product demand, leading to shortages or surpluses of certain products. As a result of such inventory imbalances, future inventory write-downs and charges to gross margin may occur due to lower of cost or market accounting, excess inventory, and inventory obsolescence.
We have historically experienced fluctuations in our operating results and expect these fluctuations to continue in future periods.
Our quarterly and annual operating results are affected by a wide variety of factors that could materially and adversely affect our net sales, gross margin, and operating results. If our operating results fall below expectations of market analysts or investors, the market price of our common stock could decrease significantly. We are subject to business cycles and it is difficult to predict the timing, length, or volatility of these cycles. These business cycles may create pressure on our sales, gross margin, and/or operating results.
Factors that could cause fluctuations and materially and adversely affect our net sales, gross margin and/or operating results include, but are not limited to:
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the volume and timing of orders received;
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changes in the mix of our products sold;
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market acceptance of our products and the products of our customers;
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excess or obsolete inventory;
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pricing pressures from competitors and key customers;
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our ability to introduce new products on a timely basis;
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the timing and extent of our research and development expenses;
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the failure to anticipate changing customer product requirements;
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disruption in the supply of wafers, assembly, or test services;
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reduction of manufacturing yields;
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certain production and other risks associated with using independent manufacturers, assembly houses, and testers; and
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product obsolescence, price erosion, competitive developments, and other competitive factors.
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We may be adversely impacted by global economic conditions. As a result, our financial results and the market price of our common shares may decline.
Global economic conditions could make it difficult for our customers, our suppliers, and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and could cause global businesses to defer or reduce spending on our products, or increase the costs of manufacturing our products. During challenging economic times our customers and distributors may face issues gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impact their ability to make timely payments to us. If that were to occur, we may be required to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and our days sales outstanding would increase.
We cannot predict the timing, strength, or duration of any economic slowdown or subsequent economic recovery. If the economy or markets in which we operate were to deteriorate, our business, financial condition, and results of operations will likely be materially and/or adversely affected.
Our foreign currency exposures may change over time as the level of activity in foreign markets grows and could have an adverse impact upon financial results.
As a global enterprise, we face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates. Certain of our assets, including certain bank accounts, exist in non-U.S. dollar-denominated currencies, which are sensitive to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations. The non-U.S. dollar-denominated currencies are principally the British Pound Sterling. We also have a significant number of employees that are paid in foreign currency, the largest group being United Kingdom-based employees who are paid in British Pounds Sterling.
If the value of the U.S. dollar weakens relative to these specific currencies, the cost of doing business in terms of U.S. dollars rises. With the growth of our international business, our foreign currency exposures may grow and under certain circumstances, could harm our business.
We do not currently hedge currency exposures relating to operating expenses incurred outside of the United States, but we may do so in the future. If we do not hedge against these risks, or our attempts to hedge against these risks are not successful, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.
We may be unable to protect our intellectual property rights.
Our success depends in part on our ability to obtain patents and to preserve our other intellectual property rights covering our products. We seek patent protection for those inventions and technologies for which we believe such protection is suitable and is likely to provide a competitive advantage to us. We also rely on trade secrets, proprietary technology, non-disclosure and other contractual terms, and technical measures to protect our technology and manufacturing knowledge. We actively work to foster continuing technological innovation to maintain and protect our competitive position. We cannot provide assurances that steps taken by us to protect our intellectual property will be adequate, that our competitors will not independently develop or design around our patents, or that our intellectual property will not be misappropriated. In addition, the laws of some non-U.S. countries may not protect our intellectual property as well as the laws of the United States.
Any of these events could materially and adversely affect our business, operating results, or financial condition. Policing infringement of our technology is difficult, and litigation may be necessary in the future to enforce our intellectual property rights. Any such litigation could be expensive, take significant time, and divert management’s attention.
If we fail to attract, hire and retain qualified personnel, we may not be able to develop, market, or sell our products or successfully manage our business.
Competition for highly qualified personnel in our industry is intense. The number of technology companies in the geographic areas in which we operate is greater than it has been historically and we expect competition for qualified personnel to intensify. There are only a limited number of individuals in the job market with the requisite skills. Furthermore, changes in immigration laws and regulations, or the administration or enforcement of such laws or regulations, can also impair our ability to attract and retain qualified personnel. Our Human Resources organization focuses significant efforts on attracting and retaining individuals in key technology positions. The loss of the services of key personnel or our inability to hire new personnel with the requisite skills could restrict our ability to develop new products or enhance existing products in a timely manner, sell products to our customers, or manage our business effectively.
If we fail to effectively manage our hiring needs and successfully assimilate new talent, or are unable to hire contractors to support our development efforts, our ability to meet development schedules, productivity, employee morale and retention could be impacted, resulting in an adverse effect on our business and operating results.
We must effectively integrate, develop and motivate new employees, while at the same time not losing key personnel. While managing those risks, we still must sustain the beneficial aspects of our award-winning corporate culture, which we believe fosters innovation, teamwork and mitigates voluntary turnover.
We intend to make substantial investments in our engineering, research and development organizations. If we fail to effectively manage our hiring needs and successfully assimilate new talent, our ability to meet development schedules, productivity, employee morale and retention could be impacted, resulting in an adverse effect on our business and operating results.
In connection with our efforts to cost-effectively manage our headcount growth, we have also increasingly relied on contractors for various functions, including our research and development efforts, and in particular, our software development and test functions. If our contractors do not perform effectively or are unable to provide sufficient resources to meet our growing needs, our product introductions may be delayed and we may incur additional costs.
We may acquire other companies or technologies, which may create additional risks associated with our ability to successfully integrate them into our business.
We continue to consider future acquisitions of other companies, or their technologies or products, to improve our market position, broaden our technological capabilities, and expand our product offerings. If we are able to acquire companies, products or technologies that would enhance our business, we could experience difficulties in integrating them. Integrating acquired businesses involves a number of risks, including, but not limited to:
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the potential disruption of our ongoing business;
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unexpected costs or incurring unknown liabilities;
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the diversion of management resources from other strategic and operational issues;
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the inability to retain the employees of the acquired businesses;
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difficulties relating to integrating the operations and personnel of the acquired businesses;
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adverse effects on our existing customer relationships or the existing customer relationships of acquired businesses;
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the potential incompatibility of the acquired business or their business customers;
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adverse effects associated with entering into markets and acquiring technologies in areas in which we have little experience; and
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acquired intangible assets becoming impaired as a result of technological advancements or worse-than-expected performance of the acquired business.
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If we are unable to successfully address any of these risks, our business could be harmed.
Our debt obligations may be a burden on our future cash flows and cash resources.
On August 29, 2014, we entered into a credit agreement (the “Credit Agreement”), which provides for a $250 million senior secured revolving credit facility. On July 12, 2016, we amended the Credit Agreement to increase the facility to $300 million. As of March 31, 2018, the Company did not have an outstanding balance under the facility. The credit facility matures on July 12, 2021. To the extent the Company has an outstanding balance, our ability to repay the principal of, to pay interest on or to refinance our indebtedness, depends on our future performance, which is subject to economic, financial, competitive, regulatory and other factors, some of which are beyond our control. Our business may not generate cash flow from operations in the future sufficient to satisfy our obligations or to make necessary capital expenditures. If we are unable to generate such cash flow, we may be required to adopt one or more alternatives, such as reducing or delaying investments or capital expenditures, selling assets, or refinancing or obtaining additional equity capital on terms that may be onerous or highly dilutive. Our ability to refinance any indebtedness will depend on the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. We may not be able to engage in any of these activities or engage in these activities on desirable terms, which could result in a default on the Credit Agreement.
Our Credit Agreement contains restrictions that could limit our flexibility in operating our business.
Our Credit Agreement contains various covenants that could limit our ability to engage in specified types of transactions under certain conditions. These covenants could limit our ability to, among other things:
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pay dividends on, repurchase or make distributions in respect of our capital stock or make other restricted payments;
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incur additional indebtedness or issue certain preferred shares;
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make certain investments;
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consolidate, merge, sell or otherwise dispose of all or substantially all of our assets; and
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enter into certain transactions with our affiliates.
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A breach of any of these covenants could result in a default under Credit Agreement. In the event of a default under the Credit Agreement, the lenders could elect to declare all amounts outstanding to be immediately due and payable. If our lenders accelerate the repayment of borrowings, we may not be able to repay our debt obligations. If we were unable to repay amounts due to the lenders under our credit facility, those lenders could proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure that indebtedness.
We are subject to the export control regulations of the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Commerce. A violation of these export control regulations could have a material adverse effect on our business or our results of operations, cash flows, or financial position.
The nature of our international business subjects us to the export control regulations of the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Commerce. Any changes regarding such regulations or U.S. trade policy more generally, including potential adoption and expansion of trade restrictions, particularly with respect to China, might impact overall customer demand for our products or affect our ability to manufacture and/or sell our products overseas. Violation of these export control regulations could result in monetary penalties and denial of export privileges. The U.S. government is very strict with respect to compliance and has served notice generally that failure to comply with these regulations may subject violators to fines and/or imprisonment. Although we are not aware of any material violation of any export control regulations, a failure to comply with any of these regulations could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our stock price has been and is likely to continue to be volatile.
The market price of our common stock fluctuates significantly. This fluctuation has been or may be the result of numerous factors, including, but not limited to:
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actual or anticipated fluctuations in our operating results;
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announcements concerning our business or those of our competitors, customers, or suppliers;
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loss of a significant customer, or customers;
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changes in financial estimates by securities analysts or our failure to perform as anticipated by the analysts;
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news, commentary, and rumors emanating from the media relating to our customers, the industry, or us. These reports may be unrelated to the actual operating performance of the Company, and in some cases, may be potentially misleading or incorrect;
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announcements regarding technological innovations or new products by us or our competitors;
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announcements by us of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, or capital commitments;
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announcements by us of significant divestitures or sale of certain assets or intellectual property;
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litigation arising out of a wide variety of matters, including, among others, employment matters and intellectual property matters;
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departure of key personnel;
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single significant stockholders selling for any reason;
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general conditions in the IC industry; and
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general market conditions and interest rates.
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We have provisions in our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws, and are subject to certain provisions of Delaware law, which could prevent, delay or impede a change of control of our company. These provisions could affect the market price of our stock.
Certain provisions of Delaware law and of our Certificate of Incorporation and Bylaws could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if our stockholders support the acquisition. These provisions include, but are not limited to:
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the inability of stockholders to call a special meeting of stockholders;
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a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent; and
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a requirement that stockholders provide advance notice of any stockholder nominations of directors or any proposal of new business to be considered at any meeting of stockholders.
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We are also subject to the anti-takeover laws of Delaware that may prevent, delay or impede a third party from acquiring or merging with us, which may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.
We are subject to the risks of owning real property.
We currently own our U.S. headquarters and research facility in Austin, Texas as well as property in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. The ownership of our U.S. and United Kingdom properties subjects us to the risks of owning real property, which may include:
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the possibility of environmental contamination and the costs associated with correcting any environmental problems;
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adverse changes in the value of these properties, due to interest rate changes, changes in the neighborhood in which the property is located, or other factors; and
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the risk of financial loss in excess of amounts covered by insurance, or uninsured risks, such as the loss caused by damage to the buildings as a result of fire, floods, or other natural disasters.
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