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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM
10-K
(Mark One)
☒
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES
EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended
January 31,
2023
OR
☐
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES
EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from
to
Commission File Number:
001-35667
AMBARELLA, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
|
|
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Cayman Islands
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98-0459628
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(State or other jurisdiction of
incorporation or organization)
|
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(I.R.S. Employer
Identification No.)
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3101 Jay Street
Santa Clara,
California
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95054
|
(Address of principal executive offices)
|
|
(Zip Code)
|
Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:
(408)
734-8888
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the
Act:
|
|
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Title of each class
|
Trading Symbol
|
Name of each exchange on which registered
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Ordinary Shares, $0.00045 Par Value Per Share
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AMBA
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The Nasdaq Global Market
|
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the
Act:
None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned
issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.
Yes
☒
NO
☐
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file
reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. YES
No
☒
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all
reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months and
(2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90
days.
Yes
☒
NO
☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted
electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted
pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter)
during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the
registrant was required to submit such files).
Yes
☒
NO
☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large
accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a
smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the
definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,”
“smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule
12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
|
|
|
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Large accelerated filer
|
☒
|
Accelerated filer
|
☐
|
Non-accelerated filer
|
☐
|
Smaller reporting company
|
☐
|
Emerging growth company
|
☐
|
|
|
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the
registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period
for complying with any new or revised financial accounting
standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange
Act.
☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on
and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness
of its internal control over financial reporting under Section
404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the
registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit
report.
☒
If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act,
indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the
registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an
error to previously issued financial statements.
☐
Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are
restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based
compensation received by any of the registrant’s executive officers
during the relevant recovery period pursuant to
§240.10D-1(b).
☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company
(as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). YES
☐
NO
☒
The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting ordinary
shares held by non-affiliates of the Registrant as of July 31,
2022, was approximately $2.5
billion based upon the closing price reported for such date on the
NASDAQ Global Market. For purposes of this disclosure, ordinary
shares held by persons known to the Registrant (based on
information provided by such persons and/or the most recent
schedule 13Gs filed by such persons) to beneficially own more than
5% of the Registrant’s ordinary shares and ordinary shares held by
officers and directors of the Registrant have been excluded because
such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination is
not necessarily a conclusive determination for other
purposes.
Number of ordinary shares, $0.00045 par value, outstanding as of
March 24, 2023:
39,581,559
shares.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Certain information is incorporated into Part III of this report by
reference to the Proxy Statement for the Registrant’s annual
meeting of shareholders to be held on or about June 8, 2023 to be
filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to
Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal
year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements
within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section
21E of the Exchange Act. The forward-looking statements are
contained principally in, but not limited to, the sections titled
“Business,” “Risk Factors,” and “Management’s Discussion and
Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” as well
as elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Forward-looking
statements are identified by the use of the words “would,” “could,”
“will,” “may,” “expect,” “believe,” “should,” “anticipate,”
“outlook,” “if,” “future,” “intend,” “plan,” “estimate,” “predict,”
“potential,” “target,” “seek,” “continue,” “foreseeable” or
“forecast” and similar words and phrases, including the negatives
of these terms, or other variations of these terms, that denote
future events. Forward-looking statements include, but are not
limited to, information concerning our possible or assumed future
results of operations, competitive position, industry environment,
potential growth opportunities and the effects of competition, our
product development strategy and areas of focus, our market
opportunity, our ability to develop new solutions, including our
ability to integrate and apply acquired technologies to our
solutions, our future financial and operating performance, sales
and marketing strategy, investment strategy and the results of our
investments, research and development, customer and supplier
relationships, inventory levels, customer demand and our ability to
secure design wins, industry trends, our cash needs and capital
requirements, and expectations about seasonality, taxes, and
operating expenses. These statements reflect our current views with
respect to future events and our potential financial performance
and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our
actual results and financial position to differ materially and
adversely from what is projected or implied in any forward-looking
statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Factors that could affect such forward-looking statements include,
but are not limited to, risks associated with revenue being
generated from new customers or design wins, neither of which is
assured; our ability to retain and expand customer relationships
and to achieve design wins; economic factors beyond our control,
including risks associated with high inflation and recessionary
concerns; geopolitical factors beyond our control, including
tensions between the United States and China and the ongoing
hostility between Russia and Ukraine; the potential impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic on our operations or the operations of our supply
chain or our customers; our ability to timely produce sufficient
quantities of our products on a cost-effective basis through our
third-party vendors; the commercial success of our customers’
products; our growth strategy; our ability to anticipate future
market demands and future needs and preferences of our customers;
our ability to introduce new and enhanced solutions, including our
ability to license software modules; the expansion of our current
markets and our ability to successfully enter new markets;
anticipated trends and challenges, including competition, in the
markets in which we operate; our expectations regarding the
adoption of computer vision technology; our ability to effectively
generate and manage growth; our ability to retain key employees;
the potential for intellectual property disputes or other
litigation; the risks described under Item 1A of Part I—“Risk
Factors,” Item 7 of Part II—“Management’s Discussion and Analysis
of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and elsewhere in
this Annual Report on Form 10-K; and those discussed in other
documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of the date of this Annual Report
on Form 10-K. We have no obligation (and expressly disclaim any
such obligation) to update or alter any forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information or otherwise except as
otherwise required by securities regulations.
For purposes of this Annual Report, the terms “Ambarella”, “the
Company”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Ambarella, Inc. and its
consolidated subsidiaries.
3
PART
I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
Ambarella is a leading developer of low-power system-on-a-chip, or
SoC, semiconductors and software for edge artificial intelligence,
or AI, applications. Our technologies make electronic systems
smarter, enabling features such as person detection, object
classification, and analytics, in addition to performing complex
data analysis in real time, delivering high quality imagery, and
preserving vital system resources such as power and network
bandwidth. We specialize in the development of deployable, scalable
designs for intelligent electronic systems that utilize
high-bandwidth sensors offering a proven path to mass
production.
Incorporated in 2004, we have primarily served human-viewing
applications with video and image processors for enterprise, public
infrastructure and home applications, such as internet protocol, or
IP, security cameras, sports cameras, wearables, aerial drones, and
aftermarket automotive video recorders. We are now leveraging our
human-viewing heritage to pursue the machine sensing market. Our
recent development efforts have focused on creating advanced AI
technology that enables edge devices to visually perceive the
environment and make decisions based on the data collected from
cameras and other types of sensors, such as 4D radar. This category
of AI technology is known as computer vision, or CV, and our CV
SoCs integrate our state-of-the-art video processor technology
together with our recently developed deep learning neural network
processing technology, which we refer to as CVflow®. The
CVflow-architecture supports a variety of computer vision
algorithms, including, object detection, classification and
tracking, semantic and instance segmentation, image processing,
stereo object detection, terrain mapping, and face recognition. In
addition, CVflow can process other sensor modalities, including
lidar, radar, time of flight, thermal and near infrared (NIR), and
allows customers to differentiate their products by porting their
own or third party neural networks and/or classical computer vision
algorithms to our CVflow-based SoCs. Our CV technology is creating
opportunities for us to address a broader range of markets and
applications while also allowing us to capture more content per
electronic system.
Our new CV3 AI central domain controller family of SoCs is
specifically architected for automated driving applications. In
addition to offering our existing advanced camera perception
processing, CV3 adds sensor fusion and planning layers that enable
a broader set of fully-automated devices.
In November 2021, we acquired Oculii Corp., a developer of high
definition radar technology. Oculii’s adaptive AI software
algorithms are designed to enable radar perception using current
production radar chips to achieve significantly higher resolution,
longer range and greater accuracy. Oculii’s software can be
deployed on our existing CVflow SoCs, operating in conjunction with
leading radar RF solutions to significantly increase safety and
reliability. We recently introduced a centralized radar
architecture that synergistically leverages Oculii’s adaptive AI
software algorithms together with our CV3 domain controller family,
resulting in improved perception, lower power consumption and
reduced bills-of-material for mobility applications compared to the
current generation of radar systems utilized in the market
today.
As described below, Ambarella’s products are now used in a wide
variety of human viewing and computer vision applications,
including a variety of automotive camera systems, video security
cameras, mobile and fixed robots, industrial applications, and
consumer devices, such as action, drone and 360° cameras. For our
fiscal years ended January 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, we recorded
revenue of $337.6 million, $331.9 million and $223.0 million,
respectively. For the fiscal years ended January 31, 2023, 2022 and
2021, we incurred net losses of $65.4 million, $26.4 million and
$59.8 million, respectively. We have generated cash from operations
in each fiscal year starting from 2009.
Industry Background and Target Markets
Computer vision functionality has historically been executed with
graphics processing units (GPU), field programmable gate-arrays
(FPGA) or general purpose microprocessors (CPU) in servers or
datacenters. This approach requires large amounts of data to be
transported from an end-point electronic system or device into the
network infrastructure, where the data may be stored, processed,
and then sent back to the end point, creating added delay, power
consumption and incremental expense from data communications,
server processing and storage. In some applications, unacceptable
levels of latency are introduced by the transportation of this
data, minimizing or, in some cases, eliminating the utility of the
product. In addition, this approach often requires personal
information to be transmitted from the end-point device to the
network infrastructure, potentially raising privacy and security
concerns.
4
We believe the CV end-point market, sometimes referred to as the
system’s edge, requires a fundamentally different SoC architecture
versus the GPU, FPGA and CPU approach commonly used in the
datacenter. Our CV SoCs are optimized for the requirements of the
end-point market to provide highly accurate results, significant
processing power, small form factor and minimal latency while
consuming very low amounts of power and simultaneously delivering
both human viewing and computer vision functionality, often while
supporting multiple cameras and multiple AI applications with a
single SoC incorporated in an end-point device. In addition,
privacy and security can be enhanced, as critical personal
information may not need to enter the network
infrastructure.
Our first CV SoC was introduced in 2018 and CV3 is our third
generation computer vision chip in our SoC family. Our development
efforts are now focused on SoCs that provide both human viewing and
computer vision functionality. With the acquisition of Oculii, we
also now complement our advanced camera perception capabilities
with advanced radar perception to enable higher levels of
autonomy.
We are focusing on the automotive and Internet-of-Things (IoT) end
markets:
•
Automotive Applications.
Cameras and other sensors, as well as high performance computing
processors, are utilized for a variety of applications in the
automotive market and our products are designed into both original
equipment manufacturer (OEM) and aftermarket applications. We
address the following automotive market applications:
▪
Automotive Video Recorders (also known as data loggers).
These video cameras are pre-installed in vehicles or mounted
(aftermarket) to record events for reconciliation, such as for
insurance and liability, driver scoring or training, and security
purposes. We offer solutions for both OEM and aftermarket drive
recording devices, some of which include advanced driver assistance
systems (ADAS) features.
▪
Electronic Mirrors.
One or more cameras, in conjunction with an electronic display, are
used to augment, or in some cases replace, reflective glass rear
view and/or side view mirrors to provide a wider and unobstructed
field of view. Smart electronic mirrors that incorporate our CV
SoCs may also help with detecting objects in blind spots,
overtaking vehicles and alerting for vulnerable road users, such as
pedestrians and bicycles.
▪
Front Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) Cameras.
These front-facing cameras are often positioned behind the rearview
mirror, enabling functions such as automatic emergency braking,
lane departure warning, forward collision warning, intelligent
headlight control, and speed assistance functions, many of which
are required by an increasing number of regional New Car Assessment
Programs, or NCAP. The most advanced front ADAS cameras generally
require ultra high-definition (UHD) resolution and advanced CV
processing, which can be critical for long-distance object
detection with a wide field-of-view, and extremely low power due to
their inherently small form factor.
5
▪
Cabin Monitoring System (CMS) and Driver Monitoring System (DMS)
Cameras.
These interior mounted cameras track drivers and passengers to help
prevent accidents by alerting a drowsy or distracted driver and
assisting with the deployment of safety features, such as airbags.
These interior cameras may also be utilized by service providers,
in particular with autonomous vehicles, to create new business
opportunities in which in-cabin information, collected through
cameras, may be monetized. Our solutions process our customers’
interior-sensing algorithms at high speeds and with low power
consumption, and are effective even at night via onboard
RGB-infrared processing. Our DMS solutions can be integrated with
supplementary camera applications, including electronic mirror,
front ADAS, and high-resolution driver recording.
▪
Central domain controllers for L2+ to L4 Autonomous
Vehicles.
We continue to advance our research in critical areas of autonomous
vehicle development, such as vehicle detection, obstacle detection,
pedestrian detection, lane detection, traffic sign recognition,
stereovision processing, and sensor fusion and planning, enabling
us to design strong platforms for applications ranging from Level2+
autopilot to full autonomy. The CV3 family enables centralized,
single-chip processing for multi-sensor perception, including
high-resolution vision, radar, ultrasonic and lidar, as well as
deep fusion for multiple sensor modalities and autonomous vehicle
path planning. The central domain controller in autonomous vehicles
is connected to the camera, radar and other sensor suites. Using
neural network and traditional computer vision processing, the
domain controller fuses the sensor data and perceives the vehicle’s
surroundings. Based on this multi-sensor surround perception, the
domain controller estimates a safe driving path for the vehicle. In
addition, the domain controller can simultaneously process in-cabin
sensing applications, including driver and occupant
monitoring.
•
Security Cameras.
We are a leader in enterprise and home security camera markets,
with solutions that deliver exceptional computer vision
performance, industry-leading compression efficiency, low power
consumption, and outstanding image quality, including high dynamic
range (HDR), low-light processing and fisheye lens dewarping. Our
CV products enable higher levels of automation than our vision
processors through advanced algorithms, such as object detection,
classification and tracking, license plate recognition and facial
recognition. We address the following security camera
applications:
▪
Enterprise and Public Class Security.
These cameras are used for video monitoring and security
surveillance in enterprise and public infrastructure applications.
Our solutions enable the streaming of multiple video streams to
enable remote monitoring at multiple locations. Embedded computer
vision technology supports advanced analytics at the system’s edge,
including people counting and tracking, facial recognition and
retail behavior analysis.
▪
Home Security.
Home security cameras are designed for home or small business use
and may be connected to cloud services and applications via home
networks using WiFi. These cameras may require very low bitrate
operation to support high-definition (HD) resolution over limited
bandwidth connections, while their small form factors or battery
powered design may require very low power operation. Form factors
include smart video door-bells and video-enabled lights. Embedded
computer vision technology supports advanced functions, including
intruder and pet detection, face recognition and package
monitoring.
•
Emerging Robotic and Industrial Applications.
Our solutions can add intelligence to a range of partially or fully
robotic applications, including access control, industrial/factory
automation, sensing cameras, and a variety of industrial and home
robotic applications. Our advanced CV SoCs handle an array of
complex algorithms, from low-level perception functions and neural
networks to higher-level autonomous software stacks, while our
video processing pipeline enables operation in challenging lighting
conditions such as high-contrast scenes and extremely low-light
environments, all with low power consumption. We address the
following industrial and robotic market applications:
▪
Identification/Authentication Cameras.
Our video-based sensing solutions enable contactless access control
for home, enterprise and public applications. Our CV SoCs are
engineered to quickly extract input from the physical environment,
fuse data from multiple sensors, analyze the incoming data and
deliver the appropriate feedback, with low-latency and low-power
responsiveness. Applications include enterprise access control
panels, electronic locks and contactless mobile payment
terminals.
▪
Robotic Products.
Our products and technology are well suited for a variety of smart
home and enterprise robotic applications. With stereovision
capabilities and convolutional neural network (CNN)-based object
classification, our solutions are also suited for a variety of
industrial machine vision systems, mobile robots for delivery or
factory/warehouse applications, aerial drones, robotic vacuum
cleaners, and other emerging robotic applications.
▪
Sensing Cameras.
Our CV SoCs enable sensing cameras that analyze video using
AI-based algorithms running in the camera to provide remote users
with updates, warnings or business data based on the analysis.
Since no video, audio or image data needs to leave the camera,
privacy can be prioritized. Applications for sensing cameras
include elderly monitoring, building occupancy monitoring and
retail store business analytics.
6
•
Other IoT Applications.
Cameras for the home, public spaces and consumer leisure
applications that provide HD video quality increasingly include
embedded connectivity to share and display video. Our low power,
high-resolution and connected solutions can be found in a variety
of cameras, including wearable body cameras, sports action cameras,
social media cameras, drones for capturing aerial video or
photographs, video conferencing and virtual reality
applications.
Our Competitive Strengths
Our platform technology solutions provide performance attributes
that satisfy the stringent demands of the camera market, enable
integration of HD video and image capture capabilities in portable
devices, and provide computer vision capabilities that address the
evolving needs of the automotive and IoT markets. We believe that
our leadership is the result of our competitive strengths,
including:
•
Proprietary AI, Radar and Computer Vision Architecture.
Our proprietary AI and computer vision processing architecture,
known as CVflow, uses a flexible hardware engine programmed with a
high level algorithm description to achieve increased performance
while minimizing die size and power consumption. The CVflow
architecture specifies data flow connections between a set of
optimized AI and computer vision operators, such as the convolution
and matrix multiply functions that are specifically optimized for
deep learning algorithms. The CVflow architecture supports a
variety of AI, radar and computer vision algorithms, including
object detection, classification and tracking, semantic and
instance segmentation, image processing, and stereo object
detection. CVflow also allows customers to differentiate their
products by porting their own algorithms and neural networks to our
SoCs.
•
Deep Sensor Fusion.
Ambarella provides AI perception processing for cameras, and with
the acquisition of Oculii we provide software that enables
efficient HD 4D radar perception. Our CV3 SoC family implements
centralized camera and radar perception processing on the same SoC,
allowing data from all camera and radar sensors in the sensor suite
to be fused at a deeper data level, which we believe will
facilitate improved levels of perception accuracy.
•
High-Performance, Low Power, AI, Video and Image Algorithm
Expertise.
Our extensive algorithm expertise, which facilitates efficient AI,
video and image compression, enables our solutions to achieve low
power consumption without compromising performance. Our solutions
provide Full HD and UHD video up to 32-megapixel resolution and 60
frames per second. Our solutions achieve high storage and
transmission efficiencies through innovative and complex video and
image compression algorithms that significantly reduce the output
bitrate. This smaller storage footprint directly benefits the
performance of our solutions in several ways, including lower
memory storage requirements and reduced bandwidth needs for
transmission, which both facilitate sharing content between
devices. These benefits are particularly important in transcoding,
the digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding format to
another, and video cloud applications. Our solutions can deliver
clear images in low light conditions because of our advanced noise
reduction, including 3D motion compensated temporal filtering
(MCTF) and multiple exposure processing. Additionally, our HDR
processing capabilities handle scenes with large dynamic range
between the lightest and darkest areas to reveal details that would
otherwise be lost in shadow or highlight areas. Our advanced
de-warping capability enables cameras to use wide angle lenses,
making it ideal for a variety of security camera applications, as
well as 3D electronic image stabilization and surround view for
automotive applications.
•
Highly Integrated SoC Solutions Based on a Scalable
Platform.
Our product families leverage a flexible and highly-scalable
platform including our core high-performance AI and video
processing architecture combined with an extensive set of
integrated peripherals. Our flexible and highly-scalable platform
enables our customers to address multiple applications and markets
with reduced design cycles and costs. Our software compatible
portfolio of products, with a broad range of performance and price
points, allows our customers to develop a range of end products
from a common software base.
•
Comprehensive and Flexible Software.
Our years of investment in developing and optimizing our
comprehensive and flexible software serve as the foundation of our
high-performance video application solutions. Key components of our
software include highly customized middleware that integrates many
unique features for efficient scheduling and other system-level
functions, and firmware that is optimized to reduce power
requirements and improve performance. In addition, we provide our
customers full-function software development kits with a suite of
application programming interfaces or APIs, which allow customers
to rapidly integrate our solution, adjust product specifications
and provide additional functionality to their systems, thereby
enabling them to differentiate their product offerings and reduce
time to market. We also provide extensive software tools to map
algorithms from commonly-used AI frameworks such as PyTorch or
TensorFlow into our proprietary CVflow architecture. Our software
development kits (SDKs) contain reference code for specific
features that customers can quickly deploy.
7
Products
We have a wide range of products in our portfolio, including
products that have commercially shipped, products for which we have
shipped engineering samples and products that are under
development. We typically introduce two to three new silicon
products per year which, when combined with our flexible software
development kits, allow us to offer product families addressing the
specific needs of a wide range of end markets. In addition to
enabling small device size and low power consumption, our SoC
solutions make possible differentiated functionalities, such as
computer vision functionality, simultaneous video and image
capture, multiple-stream video capture, image stabilization and
wireless connectivity.
Central Domain Controller.
Our new CV3-AD685, the first production version of the CV3 family
of automotive AI domain controllers, targets L2+ to L4 autonomous
vehicles. Its next-generation CVflow® AI engine includes neural
network processing that is 20x faster than the previous generation
of CV2 SoCs, along with additional general vector processing
capabilities to provide the overall performance required for full
autonomous driving (AD) stack processing, including computer
vision, HD radar, deep fusion and planning. It also integrates
advanced image processing, a dense stereo and optical flow engine,
Arm® Cortex® A78AE and R52 CPUs, an automotive GPU for
visualizations, and a hardware security module (HSM). The CV3-AD685
is an “algorithm first” architecture that provides support for the
entire AD software stack.
CVflow SoCs.
Our AI architecture, incorporated into our CV family of SoCs,
extracts and processes data from video streams, enabling our
customers to develop intelligent camera systems. These SoCs combine
advanced image processing, high-resolution video encoding and
CVflow AI processing in a single, low-power design to enable a new
class of smart edge devices for applications including smart home
security, retail monitoring, consumer robotics, and occupancy
monitoring. Some of our CVflow SoCs are manufactured to satisfy the
functional safety requirements of the automotive market.
Vision Processor SoCs.
Our video and image processing SoCs, based on our proprietary
architecture, integrate an advanced image sensor pipeline (ISP),
H.264 and/or H.265 encoders, and a powerful ARM CPU for advanced
analytics, flight control, WiFi streaming, and other user
applications. Our unique architecture and advanced process node
technology lower power consumption while maintaining high
performance for security camera and consumer applications such as
connected drones, sports cameras, and 360º (VR) cameras.
High Definition Radar.
Through our acquisition of Oculii, we offer adaptive AI software
algorithms designed to enable radar perception using current
production radar chips to achieve significantly higher resolution,
longer range and greater accuracy. These improvements eliminate the
need for specialized high-resolution radar chips, which have
significantly higher power consumption and cost than conventional
radar solutions. Oculii’s software can be deployed on Ambarella’s
existing CVflow SoCs, operating in conjunction with leading radar
RF solutions to increase safety and reliability. In addition, we
recently introduced a centralized radar architecture that leverages
Oculii’s adaptive AI software algorithms together with our CV3
processor family to enable both central processing of raw radar
data and deep, low-level fusion with other sensor inputs, including
cameras, lidar and ultrasonics.
Serializer/Deserializers.
Our B6 and B8 SerDes (Serializer/Deserializer) products are
mixed-signal (analog and digital) semiconductors used to transport
data short distances (up to 10 meters) from a CMOS image sensor,
often in a remote camera location, to our video and CV SoCs. The
SerDes chips are used to add additional camera(s) to an automotive
application, as well as used as a bridge chip for other automotive
applications, such as a MIPI combiner, splitter or display driver.
Our SerDes chips are also used in security applications such as
ATMs that can use a single B8 chip for connecting multiple remote
cameras to a single video processor SoC.
Software Modules.
In the future, we may separately license proprietary software
modules that can be used in conjunction with a customer’s
internally developed software and/or with third-party software.
Features that may be licensed include functionality for a variety
of automotive applications, including dataloggers, ADAS and
autonomous driving systems, eMirrors and in-cabin applications.
Additionally, our neural-network image signal processing (NN-ISP)
software module improves low light imaging in security camera
applications.
8
The chart below describes our current product lines:
Technology
9
Our semiconductor processing solutions enable artificial
intelligence and computer vision processing, HD, UHD and 8K UHD (up
to 7680 x 4320p60) video and image processing, and video
compression, sharing and display while offering exceptional power,
size, and performance characteristics.
Key differentiators of our technology include:
•
flexible and scalable CVflow processors for deep learning, HD radar
processing and other CV algorithms that cover a broad range of
consumer, professional and automotive requirements with power and
die size efficiency;
•
stereo/optical flow processing engines for robust CV processing
with high performance and power efficiency;
•
scalable image processing and video compression engines that cover
consumer, professional and automotive requirements from Full HD to
8K video performance levels as well as multiple image sensors
simultaneously to support multiple viewpoints, including surround
view and virtual reality applications;
•
algorithms for image processing including deep learning augmented
processing for challenging low light and high dynamic range
conditions for robust CV and human viewing with high power
efficiency.
•
algorithms and software for scalable and robust HD 4D radar
processing using sparse antenna arrays using machine learning and
adaptive transmit waveforms for lower cost and better power
efficiency;
•
deep learning algorithms and software for multi class 2D/3D object
detection and segmentation, including vehicles, pedestrians,
cycles, road markings, traffic signs and traffic lights optimized
for our CV2 and CV3 SoC families;
•
algorithms and software for stereo obstacle detection to provide
robust safety in the event of obstacles that are not in the
training data;
•
autonomous driving stack modules optimized for our CV3 SoC family,
including fusion for multiple cameras and sensor modalities,
mapping and localization algorithms and planning;
•
algorithms to compress video signals with high compression and
power efficiency at multiple operating points;
•
software development kit comprised of application programming
interfaces, or APIs, to facilitate integration into customers’
products; and tools for porting and optimizing customer deep neural
networks, or DNNs, developed in industry standard training
frameworks;
•
low-power architecture with minimal system memory footprint;
and
•
programmable architecture that balances flexibility, quality, power
and die size with powerful CPUs and optimized hardware acceleration
to support advanced processing functions.
10
Our technology platform is based on a high-performance, low-power
architecture supported by a high level of system integration. The
building blocks of our platform are illustrated below:
Our technology platform enables the capture of high-resolution
still images and UHD video while simultaneously performing CV
processing and encoding for high-quality storage and lower
resolution real time streaming.
CVflow
Our proprietary AI computer vision processing architecture, known
as CVflow®, uses a flexible hardware engine programmed with a data
flow graph algorithm description to achieve increased performance
while minimizing die size and power consumption. This description
allows the hardware to maximize use of its resources by exploiting
all available parallelism without software intervention. The CVflow
architecture specifies data flow connections between a set of
optimized AI and computer vision operators, such as the convolution
and matrix multiply functions that are used for deep learning
algorithms. The CVflow architecture also supports a variety of
other algorithms, including radar processing, stereo obstacle
detection and sensor fusion. Our platform allows customers to
differentiate their products by porting and optimizing their own
algorithms and neural networks to our CVflow-based chips using
industry-standard training tools and APIs.
Computer Vision and Radar Technology
Computer vision is a core technology that complements our
proprietary image processing and video compression technology. We
have developed efficient deep learning algorithms for object
detection and segmentation leveraging our deep understanding of the
CVflow processor. A significant feature of our third generation
CVflow SoCs is support for HD stereo and HD radar based depth and
velocity sensing. We believe HD stereo and HD radar are
complementary sensor modalities that provide robust depth
information after fusion. This depth information provides an
important augmentation to monocular computer vision processing,
resulting in an extra margin of safety for autonomous driving and
other applications. Monocular processing depends on training to
detect obstacles, and may not detect obstacles that are not
represented in the training set. Stereo cameras and radar detect
obstacles without relying on training for specific obstacle
categories because the depth information is used to directly
construct a three-dimensional model of the camera’s surroundings,
including any obstacles. This allows more robust decisions to be
made in applications such as autonomous driving.
11
Compatible Family of SoC Solutions
Our current SoC designs integrate our fully-programmable and
highly-efficient CVflow architecture, UHD image processing and
video compression, applications processing and system functions
onto a single chip, delivering exceptional performance, quality and
power efficiency with differentiated features. Our multi-core DSP
architecture is highly scalable and balances software
programmability with hardware-accelerated performance to achieve
extremely low power consumption and maximized camera battery life.
We have used this scalability to develop an extensive family of
software compatible SoCs with a wide range of performance and price
points (CV28, CV25, CV22, CV2, CV2FS, CV5, CV3 AD685, and CV-3 High
Dev). This scalable, programmable architecture provides our
customers with the flexibility they need to quickly develop a wide
range of differentiated products. Additionally, our SoCs integrate
mixed signal (analog/digital) functionality and high speed
interfaces required for interfacing to advanced high-speed CMOS
sensors and industry standard interfaces such as PCI-E, USB 3.2 and
HDMI 2.0. Our next generation CV3 family extends our CVflow
architecture to cover L2+/L3/L4 autonomous driving and other high
performance safety critical applications. The CV3 family will cover
multiple performance and price points with a software compatible
SDK.
Software Development Kits
We provide to our customers fully-functional software development
kits with a suite of APIs which allow customers to rapidly
integrate our solution, adjust product specifications and provide
additional functionality to their systems, thereby enabling them to
differentiate their product offerings and reduce time to market. We
have software development kits for all of our core
markets.
We also provide a toolkit to accelerate the development of computer
vision algorithms onto our hardware. We provide tools to map and
optimize algorithms developed in commonly used computer vision
frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow into our proprietary
CVflow architecture. We also provide a framework for development of
higher-level computer vision tasks. This enables our customers to
write complex computer vision algorithms with multiple tasks
running in parallel on multiple processing engines, as would be
required in applications such as autonomous driving.
Software Modules
We are developing optimized software modules to give customers the
option to leverage our expertise and reduce development time and
expense. These modules include HD radar processing for standalone
and central radar processing, DL based low light and HDR image
processing, monocular and stereo camera perception, and autonomous
driving stack modules optimized for the CV3 family, including
fusion for multiple cameras and sensor modalities, mapping and
localization algorithms and planning.
AmbaClear
Our proprietary image signal processing architecture, known as
AmbaClear, incorporates advanced algorithms to convert raw sensor
data to UHD video and/or still images. Image processing algorithms
include sensor, lens and color correction, HDR tone mapping, color
processing and de-mosaicing to reconstruct a full color image from
incomplete color samples and specialized color filters, noise
filtering, detail enhancement and image format conversion. For
example, raw sensor data can be captured at up to 32-megapixel (8K)
resolution at 60 frames per second. This image processing reduces
noise in the sensor data and improves color, contrast and sharpness
resulting in improved computer vision performance, enhanced human
viewing and enhanced storage and transmission efficiencies. Our WDR
and HDR processing capabilities handle greater dynamic range
between the lightest and darkest areas of an image, permitting
video images to reveal details that would otherwise be lost against
a bright background. We have developed efficient scalable deep
learning algorithms for advanced low light processing and HDR tone
mapping that augment our image processing hardware. These
algorithms provide significant image quality improvements over our
standard image processing while running in real time at HD and
higher resolutions. Our advanced de-warping capability enables
cameras to use wide angle lenses to capture images from a wide
area, making it ideal for a variety of IP security camera and
surround view applications. Our RGB- infrared fusion capability
allows a single sensor to produce simultaneous RGB and infrared
images for sensing and improved low light performance.
AmbaCast
Our proprietary UHD video compression architecture, known as
AmbaCast, incorporates advanced algorithms for motion estimation,
motion-compensated 3D temporal filtering, mode decision and AI
based rate control. Successful implementation of these
computationally intensive steps has helped us maximize compression
efficiency. We support H.264 and H.265 video compression standard
with our H.265 providing up to 2x better compression efficiency
compared to our H.264 video compression technology.
12
Design Methodology
The success of our technology platform stems from our algorithm
driven design methodology. We do extensive algorithm studies in
deep learning AI, image processing and compression including our
internally developed and public external algorithms. We use these
studies to develop high power and die area efficient processing
engines compared with general purpose processors like CPUs and
GPUs. We also include a high degree of programmability to provide
flexibility in supporting new algorithms that we and our customers
develop. We test and verify our algorithms on our proprietary
architectural model prior to implementing our processor engines in
hardware. Our advanced verification methodology validates our
approach through simultaneous modeling of architecture, algorithms,
and the hardware itself. This redundant approach enables us to
identify and remediate any weaknesses early in the development
cycle, providing a solid foundation on which we build our hardware
implementation, and enhances our ability to achieve first-pass
silicon success. We possess extensive expertise in AI deep
learning, video and imaging algorithms, as well as deep sub-micron
digital and mixed-signal design experience.
Customers
We sell our solutions to leading original design manufacturers, or
ODMs, and original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, globally. In
the automotive OEM market, we may sell our solutions to Tier-1
suppliers that develop and sell devices incorporating our solutions
to automotive OEMs. We refer to ODMs and Tier-1 suppliers as our
customers and OEMs as our end customers, except as otherwise
indicated or as the context otherwise requires.
Sales to customers in Asia accounted for approximately 82%, 88%,
and 88% of our total revenue in the fiscal years ended January 31,
2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively. As many of our OEM end
customers or their ODM manufacturers are located in Asia, we
anticipate that a majority of our revenue will continue to come
from sales to customers in that region. Although a large percentage
of our sales are made to customers in Asia, we believe that a
significant number of the products designed by these customers and
incorporating our SoCs are then sold to consumers globally. To
date, all of our sales have been denominated in U.S.
dollars.
We work closely with our end customer OEMs and ODMs throughout
their product design cycles that often last nine to eighteen months
for many of our target markets, although new products may have
longer design cycles, particularly those implementing advanced AI
features. Product design cycles for certain portions of the
automotive market generally last longer than eighteen months,
particularly for products containing user safety features. As a
result, we are able to develop long-term relationships with our
customers as our technology becomes embedded in their products.
Consequently, we believe we are well positioned to not only be
designed into our customers’ current products, but also to continue
to develop next-generation HD video and image processing solutions
for their future products.
The product life cycles in many of our target markets typically
range from twelve to 24 months. We expect that product lifecycles
in the automotive OEM and the industrial and robotics markets will
typically be longer than 24 months, as new product introductions
occur less frequently. For many of our solutions, early engagement
with our customers’ technical staff is necessary for
success.
In fiscal year 2023, the customers representing 10% or more of
revenue were Wintech Microelectronics Co., Ltd., or WT, our
Asia-based distributor, and Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd., or
Chicony, a direct ODM customer that manufactures products for
multiple end-customers, which accounted for approximately 57% and
12% of total revenue, respectively. We currently rely, and expect
to continue to rely, on a limited number of customers for a
significant portion of our revenue.
Sales and Marketing
We sell our solutions worldwide using our direct sales force and
our distributors. We have direct sales personnel covering the
United States, Asia and Europe, and we operate sales offices in
Santa Clara, California and Hong Kong, and business development
offices in China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In
addition, in each of these locations we employ a staff of field
applications engineers to provide direct engineering support
locally to our customers.
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Our sales cycles typically require a significant investment of time
and a substantial expenditure of resources before we can realize
revenue from the sale of our solutions, if any. Our typical sales
cycle consists of a multi-month sales and development process
involving our customers’ system designers and management and our
sales personnel and software engineers. If successful, this process
culminates in a customer’s decision to use our solutions in its
system, which we refer to as a design win. Our sales efforts are
typically directed to the OEM of the product that will incorporate
our computer vision and video and image processing solution, but
the eventual design and incorporation of our SoC into the product
may be handled by an ODM or Tier-1 supplier on behalf of the OEM.
Volume production may begin within nine to 18 months after a design
win, depending on the complexity of our customer’s product and
other factors upon which we may have little or no influence. Once
our solutions have been incorporated into a customer’s design, they
are likely to be used for the life cycle of the customer’s product.
Conversely, a design loss to a competitor will likely preclude any
opportunity for future revenue from such customer’s
product.
Our sales are generally made pursuant to purchase orders received
approximately four to 30 weeks prior to the scheduled product
delivery date, depending upon agreed terms with our customers and
the current manufacturing lead time at the time the purchase order
is received. These purchase orders may be cancelled without charge
upon notification within an agreed period of time in advance of the
delivery date. Our standard warranty provides that our SoCs
containing defects in materials, workmanship or performance may be
returned for a refund of the purchase price or for replacement, at
our discretion. We may agree to different warranty terms with
specific customers from time to time.
Our sales are primarily made through standard purchase orders for
delivery of products. Our manufacturing production is based on
estimates and advance non-binding commitments from customers as to
future purchases. We follow industry practice that allows customers
to cancel, change or defer orders with limited advance notice prior
to shipment. Given this practice, we do not believe that backlog is
a reliable indicator of future revenue levels.
Manufacturing
We employ a fabless business model and use third-party foundries
and assembly and test contractors to manufacture, assemble and test
our solutions. This outsourced manufacturing approach allows us to
focus our resources on the design, sales and marketing of our
solutions and avoid the cost associated with owning and operating
our own manufacturing facility. Our engineers work closely with
foundries and other contractors to increase yields, lower
manufacturing costs and improve quality. In addition, we believe
outsourcing many of our manufacturing and assembly activities
provides us the flexibility needed to respond to new market
opportunities, simplifies our operations and significantly reduces
our capital requirements. We do not have a guaranteed level of
production capacity from any of our suppliers’ facilities to
produce our solutions. We carefully qualify each of our suppliers
and their subcontractors and processes in order to meet the
extremely high-quality and reliability standards required of our
solutions.
Wafer Fabrication
We have a history of using several process nodes from 130 nm
through 5 nm. We aim to use the most advanced manufacturing process
technology appropriate for our products that is available from our
third-party foundries. As a result, we periodically evaluate the
benefits of migrating our solutions to smaller geometry process
technologies in order to improve performance and efficiency. We
believe this strategy will help us remain competitive. While we
currently manufacture the majority of our solutions in the 28 nm,
14 nm and 10 nm process nodes, our most recent products are
manufactured in the 5 nm process node. Currently, the substantial
majority of our SoCs are supplied by Samsung in facilities located
in Austin, Texas and South Korea, from whom we have the option to
purchase both fully-assembled and tested products as well as tested
die in wafer form for assembly. We also have small volumes of some
products supplied by GlobalFoundries Inc. Our foundry vendors are
ISO 9001 certified.
Assembly and Testing
Samsung subcontracts the assembly and initial testing of the
assembled chips it supplies to us to Signetics Corporation and
STATS ChipPAC Ltd. In the case of purchases of tested die from
Samsung, we contract the assembly to Advanced Semiconductor
Engineering, Inc., or ASE. We contract the assembly of products
supplied by Global Foundries Inc. to ASE. Final testing of our
products is handled primarily by Sigurd Corporation or King Yuan
Electronics Co., Ltd. under the supervision of our engineers. All
test software and related processes for our products are developed
by our engineers. We continually monitor the results of testing at
all of our test contractors to ensure that our testing procedures
are properly implemented.
As part of our total quality assurance program, our quality
management system has been certified to ISO 9001:2015 standards.
Our assembly and testing vendors are also ISO 9001
certified.
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Due to the scheduling requirements of our foundry, assembly and
test contractors, we generally provide our contractors with our
production forecasts and place firm orders for products with our
suppliers up to 36 weeks prior to the anticipated delivery date, or
potentially longer during times of acute capacity shortages,
usually without a purchase order from our own customers.
Research and Development
We believe our technology is a competitive advantage and we engage
in substantial research and development efforts to develop new
products and integrate AI computer vision capabilities into our HD
and UHD video processing solutions. We believe that our continued
success depends on our ability to both introduce improved versions
of our existing solutions and to develop new solutions for the
markets that we serve. As of January 31, 2023, approximately 74% of
our employees are engaged in research and development. Our research
and development team is comprised of both semiconductor and
software designers. Our semiconductor design team has extensive
experience in large-scale semiconductor design, including
architecture description, logic and circuit design, implementation
and verification. Our software design team has extensive experience
in development and verification of software for the HD video
market. Because the integration of hardware and software is a key
competitive advantage of our solutions, our hardware and software
design teams work closely together throughout the product
development process. The experience of our hardware and software
design teams enables us to effectively assess tradeoffs and
advantages when determining which features and capabilities of our
solutions should be implemented in hardware and in
software.
We have assembled a core team of experienced engineers and systems
designers in four research and development design centers located
in the United States, China, Italy, and Taiwan.
Competition
The global semiconductor market in general, and the AI and video
and image processing markets in particular, are highly competitive.
We expect competition to increase and intensify as more and larger
semiconductor companies enter our markets and as we penetrate new
markets, such as the automotive OEM market. Increased competition
could result in price pressure, reduced profitability and loss of
market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect
our business, revenue and operating results.
Our competitors range from large, international companies offering
a wide range of semiconductor products to smaller companies
specializing in narrow markets. In the IoT market, our primary
competitors include AMLogic Inc., Fuzhou Rockchip Electronics Co.,
Ltd., HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd., or HiSilicon, which is
owned by Huawei Technologies Co., Ingenic Semiconductor Co.,
Ltd.,
Novatek Microelectronics Corp., or Novatek, NVIDIA Corporation, or
NVIDIA, OmniVision Technologies, Inc., Qualcomm Incorporated, or
Qualcomm, Sigmastar Technology Ltd., and Socionext Inc. In the
automotive camera market, we compete against Allwinner Technology
Co., Ltd., Horizon Robotics Inc., iCatch Technology, Inc.,
Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel Corporation, Novatek, NVIDIA, NXP
Semiconductors N.V., Qualcomm, Renesas Electronics Corporation, and
Texas Instruments. Certain of our customers and suppliers also have
divisions that produce products that compete with ours.
Our ability to compete successfully depends on elements both within
and outside of our control, including industry and general economic
trends. Many of our competitors are substantially larger, have
greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution, customer
support and other resources, are more established than we are, and
have significantly better brand recognition and broader product
offerings which may enable them to develop and enable new
technology into product solutions better or faster than us and to
better withstand adverse economic or market conditions in the
future.
Our ability to compete successfully in the rapidly evolving camera
markets depends on several factors, including:
•
the design and manufacturing of new solutions, including software,
that anticipate the video processing and integration needs of our
customers’ next-generation products and applications;
•
performance of our computer vision solutions, as measured by
convolutional neural network performance, video and still picture
image quality, resolution and frame processing rates;
•
power consumption efficiency of our solutions;
•
the ease of implementation of our products by
customers;
•
the strength of our customer relationships;
•
the selection of the foundry process technology and architecture
tradeoffs to meet customers’ product requirements in a timely
manner;
15
•
reputation and reliability;
•
the cost of the total solution.
We believe we compete favorably with respect to these factors,
particularly because our solutions typically provide
high-performance and low power consumption video, CNN performance,
efficient integration of our advanced algorithms, exceptional
storage and transmission efficiencies at lower power,
highly-integrated SoC solutions based on a scalable platform, and
comprehensive and flexible software. We cannot ensure, however,
that our solutions will continue to compete favorably or that we
will be successful in the face of increasing competition from new
products introduced by existing or new competitors.
Intellectual Property
We rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including
patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks, and contractual
protections, to protect our core technology and intellectual
property. As of January 31, 2023, we had 300 issued patents in the
United States, 109 of which were continuation or divisional
patents, 10 issued patents in Europe, 7 issued patents in China, 7
issued patents in Japan and 86 pending patent applications in the
United States. The issued patents in the United States expire
beginning in 2024 through 2042. Our issued patents and pending
patent applications primarily relate to image and video processing
and HD video compression, AI processing, system level camera, and
radar perception applications spanning multiple market
segments.
We may not receive competitive advantages from any rights granted
under our patents, and our patent applications may not result in
the issuance of any new patents. In addition, any patent we hold
may be opposed, contested, circumvented, designed around by a third
party or found to be unenforceable or invalidated. Others may
develop technologies that are similar or superior to our
proprietary technologies, duplicate our proprietary technologies or
design around patents owned or licensed by us.
In addition to our own intellectual property, we also use
third-party licenses for certain technologies embedded in our SoC
solutions. These are typically non-exclusive contracts provided
under royalty-accruing or paid-up licenses. These licenses are
generally perpetual or automatically renewed for so long as we
continue to pay any maintenance fees that may be due. To date,
maintenance fees have not constituted a significant portion of our
capital expenditures. While we do not believe our business is
dependent to any significant degree on any individual third-party
license, we expect to continue to use and may license additional
third-party technology for our solutions.
We generally control access to and use of our confidential
information through employing internal and external controls,
including contractual protections with employees, contractors and
customers. We rely in part on U.S. and international copyright laws
to protect our mask work. All employees and consultants are
required to execute confidentiality agreements in connection with
their employment and consulting relationships with us. We also
require them to agree to disclose and assign to us all inventions
conceived or made in connection with the employment or consulting
relationship.
Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property,
unauthorized parties may still copy or otherwise obtain and use our
software, technology or other information that we regard as
proprietary intellectual property. In addition, we continue to
operate internationally, and effective patent, copyright, trademark
and trade secret protection may not be available or may be limited
in foreign countries.
Seasonality
Our business has tended to be seasonal with higher revenue in our
second and third fiscal quarters as our customers typically
increase their production to meet holiday shopping season or
year-end demand for their products. We also may experience
seasonally lower demand in our first and fourth fiscal quarters due
in part to the Asia-based portion of the security camera market as
a result of industry seasonality and the impact of ODM and OEM
factory closures associated with the Chinese New Year holiday.
These seasonal fluctuations may diminish if our revenue diversifies
and becomes less dependent on sales of our customers’ consumer
products.
Governmental Regulation
Our business and operations around the world are subject to
government regulation at the national, state or local level
addressing, among other matters, applicable environmental laws,
health and safety laws and regulations, laws relating to export
controls and economic sanctions, and the rules of industrial
standards bodies such as the International Standards Organization
and governmental agencies such as the Federal Trade
Commission.
16
We believe that our properties and operations comply in all
material respects with applicable laws protecting the environment
and worker health and safety. As a fabless semiconductor company,
we do not manufacture our own products but do maintain laboratory
space at certain of our facilities to facilitate the development,
evaluation and testing of our SoC products. These laboratories may
maintain small quantities of hazardous materials. While we believe
we are in material compliance with applicable law concerning the
safeguarding of these materials and with respect to other matters
relating to health, safety and the environment, the risk of
liability relating to hazardous conditions or materials cannot be
eliminated completely. To date, we have not incurred significant
expenditures relating to environmental compliance at our facilities
nor have we experienced any material issues relating to employee
health and safety.
In addition to environmental and worker health and safety laws, our
business is subject to various rules and regulations and executive
orders relating to export controls and trade sanctions. Certain of
our products are subject to the Export Administration Regulations
(EAR), which are administered by the United States Department of
Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), and we may from
time to time be required to obtain an export license before we can
export certain products or technology to specified countries or
customers. In addition, the EAR imposes broad controls on entities
listed on sanctioned persons lists, including the BIS Entity List.
If one of our customers is listed on the BIS Entity List or another
U.S. government sanctioned persons’ list, then subject to certain
exceptions, we will, as a general rule, be precluded from doing
business with that customer. For example, certain of our Chinese
customers, or their affiliated entities, have been added to the BIS
Entity List in the last couple of years, which limits our ability
to ship certain products to these customers. We cannot guarantee
that export control restrictions or sanctions imposed in the future
will not prevent, or materially limit, our ability to conduct
business with certain customers or in certain countries. Any
failure to comply with these laws could result in governmental
enforcement actions, including substantial monetary penalties and
denial of export privileges.
Human Capital Resources
Innovation has been the lifeblood of our company since our founding
in 2004. We continually strive to develop leading-edge image and
video, and now AI, processors using the most advanced semiconductor
processes available to create high performance, power efficient
SoCs. We depend on our people to sustain our competitive
advantages.
As of January 31, 2023, we employed a total of 937 people,
including 260 in the United States, 595 in Asia, primarily 355 in
Taiwan and 223 in China, and 82 in Europe. Approximately 74% of our
employees are engaged in research and development, 2% in
operations, and 24% in sales, marketing and administration. As of
January 31, 2023, females represented 29% of our independent
directors, 21% of senior management, 16% of our technical roles,
and 20% of our total workforce. Of our total employee workforce,
38% is represented by a work council in Taiwan. The work council
group, which is common in Taiwan, is comprised of employees elected
by the general employee base in that location. We consider our
global employee relations to be good. Despite employees working in
geographically disparate locations and differences in cultures, we
strive to treat all employees as part of one team working together.
Our Chief Executive Officer holds quarterly town hall style
meetings with employees of all of our offices to keep employees
apprised of company activities and objectives and to provide an
opportunity for all employees to meet and ask questions. All
employees receive training in the prevention of sexual harassment
and abusive conduct in the workplace.
Our human capital resources objectives include attracting and
retaining talented and experienced employees. We utilize multiple
online search tools, specialized recruiting firms, employee
referral programs and university hires to ensure a varied outreach
approach for candidates. We are committed to ensuring the human
rights of our worldwide workforce and treating all employees with
dignity and respect. We offer a combination of competitive base
salary, time-based equity incentives and bonus plans linked to
financial and strategic performance that are designed to motivate
and reward personnel with annual grants of stock-based and
cash-based incentive compensation awards, plus other benefits, in
order to increase stockholder value and the success of our company
by motivating such individuals to perform to the best of their
abilities and achieve both our short and long-term objectives. We
offer competitive benefits tailored to local markets and laws and
designed to support employee health, welfare and retirement;
examples of such benefits include paid time off; 401(k), pension or
other retirement plans; an employee stock purchase plan; basic and
voluntary life, disability and supplemental insurance; medical,
dental and vision insurance; health savings and flexible spending
accounts; relocation assistance; and employee assistance programs.
Approximately 81% of eligible U.S. employees participate in our
401(k) plan, and 89% of eligible employees participated in the most
recent offering period of our employee stock purchase
plan.
The average tenure of our employees is approximately 7.4 years and
approximately 30% of our employees have been employed by us for
more than 10 years. We believe our compensation and benefits
packages, combined with our culture that promotes teamwork,
innovation and hands-on experience from the first day of
employment, contribute to low employee turnover and an
above-average tenure. We monitor employee turnover rates by region
and our company as a whole. Our worldwide voluntary employee
turnover rate in fiscal year 2023 was approximately
7.4%.
17
Our primary focus during the COVID-19 pandemic has been protecting
the health and safety of our employees and the communities in which
we operate. In our locations that have experienced high rates of
infection, employees have worked remotely to reduce spread of the
virus.
Corporate Information
Ambarella was founded and incorporated in the Cayman Islands in
January 2004. Our registered address is PO Box 309GT, Ugland House,
South Church Street, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. The
address of our U.S. operating subsidiary is Ambarella Corporation,
3101 Jay Street, Santa Clara, California. The Securities and
Exchange Commission, or SEC, maintains a website at
www.sec.gov
that contains reports, proxy, and information statements, and other
information regarding registrants that file electronically. You may
also obtain copies of our Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and other filings
with the SEC, and all amendments to these filings, free of charge,
by visiting the Investor Relations page on our website
(http://investor.ambarella.com)
as soon as reasonably practicable following our filing of any of
these reports with the SEC. Information on our website is not
incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K or our other
securities filings and is not a part of such filings.
ITEM 1A. Risk Factors
Certain factors may have a material adverse effect on our business,
financial condition and results of operations. You should consider
carefully the risks and uncertainties described below, in addition
to other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K,
including our consolidated financial statements and related notes.
The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones
we face. Additional risks and uncertainties that we are unaware of,
or that we currently believe are not material, may also become
important factors that adversely affect our business. If any of the
following risks actually occurs, our business, financial condition,
results of operations, and future prospects could be materially and
adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our
ordinary shares could decline, and you could lose part or all of
your investment.
Summary of Risk Factors
Our business and our industry is subject to numerous risks and
uncertainties, including those described in the following Risk
Factors. These risks include, but are not limited to, the
following:
•
Risks related to the global semiconductor supply shortage, high
inflation and weak economic conditions could adversely affect our
business, financial condition, and results of
operations.
•
If we fail to penetrate new markets, including the automotive
original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, advanced driver assistance
systems (ADAS) market, our revenue and financial condition could be
harmed.
•
If our customers do not design our solutions into their product
offerings, or if our customers’ product offerings are not
commercially successful, our business would suffer.
•
If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced solutions that
meet market requirements on a timely basis, our ability to attract
and retain customers could be impaired and our competitive position
could be harmed.
•
Shortages in, or increased costs of, wafers and materials could
adversely impact our gross margins and lead to reduced
revenues.
•
Our primary inventory warehouse is located in Hong Kong and may be
affected by political, social and economic conditions in Hong
Kong.
•
Our target markets may not grow or develop as we currently expect
and are subject to market risks, any of which could harm our
business, revenue and operating results.
•
The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected our business and could
materially and adversely affect our business in the
future.
•
Our customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities
or delay production. If we fail to accurately forecast demand for
our solutions, revenue shortfalls or excess, obsolete or
insufficient inventory could result.
•
We depend on a limited number of customers and end customers for a
significant portion of our revenue. If we fail to retain or expand
our customer relationships, our revenue could decline.
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•
Achieving design wins is subject to lengthy competitive selection
processes that require us to incur significant costs. Even if we
begin a product design, a customer may decide to cancel or change
its product plans, resulting in no revenue from such
expenditures.
•
Some of our customers may require our products and our third-party
contractors to undergo a qualification process that does not assure
product sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying
these products or third-party contractors with a customer, our
business and operating results could suffer.
•
We expect competition to increase in the future, which could have
an adverse effect on our revenue and market share.
•
A breach of our security systems may have a material adverse effect
on our business.
•
While we intend to continue to invest in research and development,
we may be unable to make the substantial investments that are
required to remain competitive in our business.
•
We rely on highly skilled personnel and, if we are unable to hire,
retain or motivate key personnel, we may not be able to grow
effectively. Similarly, the loss of any of our key personnel could
seriously harm our business.
•
The average selling prices of semiconductor solutions in our target
markets have typically decreased over time and will likely do so in
the future, which could harm our revenue and gross
margins.
•
If we are unable to manage any future growth, we may not be able to
execute our business plan and our operating results could
suffer.
•
Deterioration of the financial conditions of our customers could
adversely affect our operating results.
•
We are subject to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor
industry. We may have difficulty accurately predicting our future
revenue and appropriately budgeting our expenses.
•
The complexity of our solutions could result in unforeseen delays
or expenses from undetected defects, errors or bugs in hardware or
software which could reduce the market adoption of our new
solutions, damage our reputation with current or prospective
customers and adversely affect our operating costs.
•
We may experience difficulties transitioning to new wafer
fabrication process technologies or achieving higher levels of
design integration, which may result in reduced manufacturing
yields, delays in product deliveries and increased
costs.
•
Rapidly changing industry standards could make our video and image
processing solutions obsolete, which would cause our operating
results to suffer.
•
Some of our operations and a significant portion of our customers
and our subcontractors are located outside of the United States,
which subjects us to additional risks, including increased
complexity and costs of managing international operations and
geopolitical instability.
•
We face integration risks relating to our acquisition of Oculii
Corp. Any acquisitions we may make in the future could disrupt our
business, cause dilution to our shareholders, reduce our financial
resources and harm our business.
•
We face tax risks, including relating to the complexity of
calculating our tax provision, changes in effective tax rates, or
unfavorable tax law changes.
•
Fluctuations in our operating results on a quarterly and annual
basis could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to
decline.
•
If we do not generate revenue growth, we may not be able to execute
our business plan and our operating results could
suffer.
•
We do not have long-term supply contracts with our third-party
manufacturing vendors, and they may not allocate sufficient
capacity to us at reasonable prices to meet future demands for our
solutions.
•
Our customers incorporate components supplied by multiple third
parties, and a supply shortage or delay in delivery of these
components could delay orders for our solutions by our
customers.
•
We outsource our wafer fabrication, assembly and testing operations
to third parties, and if these parties fail to produce and deliver
our products according to requested demands in specification,
quantity, cost and time, our reputation, customer relationships and
operating results could suffer.
•
A substantial portion of our revenue is processed through a single
distributor and the loss of this distributor may cause disruptions
in our shipments, which may adversely affect our operations and
financial condition.
19
•
We are subject to risks associated with our distributors' product
inventories.
•
We rely on various third party vendors, service providers and
contractors in the operation of our business.
•
Our ability to sell our products to certain China customers has
been restricted. In addition, we are subject to governmental export
and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair
our ability to compete in international markets, including
China.
•
Global economic and political conditions, including high inflation
and trade restrictions, may impact our business and financial
condition in ways that we currently cannot predict.
•
We are subject to warranty and product liability claims and to
product recalls.
•
We are subject to numerous regulatory compliance requirements,
which are costly to comply with, and our failure to comply with
these requirements could harm our business and operating
results.
•
Third parties’ assertions of infringement of their intellectual
property rights could result in our having to incur significant
costs and cause our operating results to suffer. Any potential
dispute involving our intellectual property could affect our
customers, which could trigger our indemnification obligations to
them and result in substantial expense to us.
Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry
Impacts of the global semiconductor supply shortage and high
inflation could adversely affect our business, financial condition,
and results of operations.
During the COVID-19 global pandemic, various restrictions were put
in place causing a temporary decline in demand for certain items.
As restrictions began easing across the world, an increase in
demand for products containing semiconductor chips exacerbated
bottlenecks in the supply chain, resulting in a global
semiconductor supply shortage impacting our industry, which
resulted in a lengthening of the manufacturing lead time for our
products and impacting the normal forecasting and ordering patterns
of our customers. With respect to our suppliers, we have in the
past experienced supply constraints for certain chips from Samsung
and we may in the future experience similar issues. With respect to
our customers, to the extent customers face supply chain issues
with respect to other components needed to pair with our products
in order to produce their end products, such customers may delay
future orders of our products or hold inventory of our products for
longer periods of time. While we are continuing to work closely
with our suppliers and customers to minimize the potential adverse
impacts of the supply shortage and longer lead times, we have
experienced increased volatility in our business. Recently, some
customers have indicated they are reducing their inventory levels
as lead times for semiconductor chips and other components used by
customers begin to shrink, which may reduce such customers’ demand
for our products in future periods and harm our financial results.
The global supply shortages and uncertainty in customer demand and
the worldwide economy in general may be exacerbated by the impacts
of high inflation and global banking concerns, and we may
experience increased volatility in sales and revenues as a
result.
If our customers do not design our solutions into their product
offerings, or if our customers’ product offerings are not
commercially successful, our business would suffer.
We sell our video and image processing system-on-a-chip, or SoC,
solutions to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, who include
our SoCs in their products, and to original design manufacturers,
or ODMs, who include our SoCs in the products that they supply to
OEMs. We generally refer to ODMs as our customers and OEMs as our
end customers, except as otherwise indicated or as the context
otherwise requires. Our SoCs are generally incorporated into our
customers’ products at the design stage, which is referred to as a
design win. As a result, we rely on OEMs to design our solutions
into the products that they design and sell. Without these design
wins, our business would be significantly harmed. We often incur
significant expenditures developing a new SoC solution without any
assurance that any OEM will select our solution for design into its
own product. Once an OEM designs a competitor’s device into its
product, it becomes significantly more difficult for us to sell our
SoC solutions to that OEM because changing suppliers involves
significant cost, time, effort and risk for the OEM. We anticipate
that it will take longer and require more resources and greater
expenditures to achieve design wins, and likely take longer to
generate revenue from such design wins, in the new markets we are
targeting, such as the OEM automotive and robotics markets, than
our legacy camera markets. In addition, trade tensions between the
United States and China and potential new export restrictions may
make it more difficult to secure future design wins with China
customers.
20
Even if an OEM designs one of our SoC solutions into its product,
we cannot be assured that the OEM’s product will be commercially
successful over time or at all. For example, in the past we have
secured design wins for customer products that were never
commercially released by our customer or did not sell in volumes
initially forecast by the customer, as a result of factors beyond
our control. If products incorporating our SoC solutions are not
commercially successful or experience rapid decline, our revenue
and business will suffer. Similarly, if an OEM designs one of our
SoC solutions into its product, we are not assured that we will
receive or continue to receive new design wins from that OEM, which
could negatively impact our business.
If we fail to penetrate new markets, including the automotive OEM
ADAS market, our revenue and financial condition could be
harmed.
We believe that our future revenue growth, if any, will
significantly depend on our ability to expand within the
Intelligence of Things, or IoT, camera markets with our new
artificial intelligence, or AI, computer vision SoC solutions, and
the OEM automotive, robotics and industrial markets. Each of these
markets presents distinct and substantial risks and, in many cases,
requires us to develop new functionality or software to address the
particular requirements of that market. If any of these markets do
not develop as we currently anticipate, the technical requirements
of these markets evolve in ways we do not anticipate, the
development of such markets is delayed or impacted by factors
outside of our control, or if we are unable to penetrate them
successfully with our solutions, our revenue could decline and our
financial condition would be negatively impacted. Some of these
markets are primarily served by only a few large, multinational
OEMs with substantial negotiating power relative to us and, in some
instances, with internal solutions that are competitive to our
products. Meeting the technical requirements and securing design
wins with any of these companies requires a substantial investment
of our time and resources and we cannot assure you that we will
secure design wins from these or other companies or that we will
achieve meaningful revenue from the sales of our solutions into
these markets. In addition, we face competition from larger
competitors with greater resources and more history in these
markets. If we fail to penetrate these or other new markets we are
targeting, our financial condition would likely suffer. Moreover,
if we are successful in achieving design wins in these new markets,
it will likely take longer to generate revenue from such design
wins than in our traditional markets.
If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced solutions that
meet market requirements on a timely basis, our ability to attract
and retain customers could be impaired and our competitive position
could be harmed.
We operate in a dynamic environment characterized by rapidly
changing technologies. To compete successfully, we must design,
develop, market and sell enhanced solutions that provide
increasingly higher levels of performance and functionality and
that meet the technical and cost expectations of our customers. Our
existing or future solutions could be rendered obsolete by the
introduction of new products by our competitors; convergence of
other markets with or into the camera market; the market adoption
of products based on new or alternative technologies; the emergence
of new industry standards applicable to our solutions; or the
requirement of additional functionality included in video
processors. In addition, some of the markets for our solutions are
characterized by frequent introduction of next-generation and new
products, short product life cycles, increasing demand for added
functionality and significant price competition. As we develop and
introduce new solutions, we face the risk that customers may not
value or be willing to bear the cost of incorporating these newer
solutions into their products, particularly if they believe their
customers are satisfied with current solutions. Regardless of the
improved features or superior performance of the newer solutions,
customers may be unwilling to adopt our new solutions due to design
or pricing constraints. If we or our customers are unable to manage
product transitions in a timely and cost-effective manner, our
business and results of operations would suffer.
Our failure to anticipate or timely develop new or enhanced
solutions in response to technological shifts could result in
decreased revenue and our competitors achieving design wins that we
sought. In particular, we may experience difficulties with product
design, development of new software, manufacturing, marketing or
qualification that could delay or prevent our development,
introduction or marketing of new or enhanced solutions. In
addition, for some markets, such as the automotive OEM market, we
need to establish and maintain relationships with third-party
suppliers or software providers in order to effectively market our
solutions to end-customers. Failure to establish these
relationships could harm our ability to achieve design wins. Delays
in product development could impair our relationships with our
customers and negatively impact sales of our solutions under
development. If we fail to introduce new or enhanced solutions that
meet the needs of our customers or penetrate new markets in a
timely fashion, we will lose market share, and our operating
results will be adversely affected.
21
Shortages in, or increased costs of, wafers and materials could
adversely impact our gross margins and lead to reduced
revenues.
Worldwide manufacturing capacity for silicon wafers is relatively
inelastic. If the demand for silicon wafers or assembly material
exceeds market supply, our supply of silicon wafers or assembly
material could quickly become limited or prohibitively expensive.
Silicon wafers constitute a material portion of our product cost
and if we are unable to purchase wafers at favorable prices, our
results of operations and financial condition will be adversely
affected. The semiconductor industry has recently experienced
significant shortages of manufacturing capacity, which resulted in
a lengthening of the manufacturing lead time for our products and
which has at times harmed our revenue. While this capacity shortage
has improved, lead times for our products remain longer than
normal, which could negatively impact our ability to meet our
customer’s demand for our products and have an adverse impact on
our revenue, results of operations and customer relationships. We
have also experienced, during times of supply chain capacity
shortages, customers placing orders for our products that exceed
their actual demand, which may lead to us manufacturing a surplus
of products and could have a negative impact on our results of
operations and cash reserves and lead to our customers having
excess inventory. Recently, some customers have indicated they are
reducing their inventory levels as lead times for semiconductor
chips and other components used by customers begin to shrink, which
may reduce such customers’ demand for our products in future
periods and harm our financial results.
Our primary inventory warehouse is located in Hong Kong and may be
affected by continued political, social, health and economic
conditions in Hong Kong.
We operate a warehouse facility in Hong Kong through which the
substantial majority of our finished SoCs are shipped to customers
or our logistic partners. Hong Kong has experienced, and continues
to experience, political unrest and social strife in addition to
the impact of ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and measures to control
spread of the virus. The Bureau of Industry and Security, or BIS,
has imposed restrictions on exports and reexports of
U.S.-controlled items to Hong Kong by imposing stringent licensing
requirements similar to those applicable to China. It is possible
that the U.S. government may take future measures to impose
stricter export controls or duties on shipments made to Hong Kong,
which could harm our business, increase the cost of conducting our
operations in Hong Kong or result in retaliatory actions against
U.S. interests. While we have not been materially impacted by these
problems to date, continued deterioration in political, social or
economic conditions in Hong Kong or future unforeseen problems,
including health pandemics, could affect deliveries of our SoCs to
our customers or logistic partners, possibly resulting in business
interruptions, substantially delayed or lost sales, loss of
inventory, or increased expenses that cannot be passed on to
customers, any of which could ultimately have a material adverse
effect on our business and financial results. In addition, we could
be forced to relocate our warehouse operations, either temporarily
or permanently, to another potentially costlier location (or a
location resulting in higher tax costs) or find alternative
potentially costlier methods of shipping our finished SoCs to
customers and logistic partners.
Our target markets may not grow or develop as we currently expect
and are subject to market risks, any of which could harm our
business, revenue and operating results.
We are focusing our development resources on addressing computer
vision applications, primarily in the automotive and IoT markets.
The application of computer vision functionality in these markets
is relatively new, and we may be unable to predict the timing or
development of these markets with accuracy. For example, a slower
than expected adoption rate for computer vision technology in
automotive or IP security camera applications could slow the demand
for our new solutions. If our key target markets do not grow, grow
slower, or do not develop in ways that we currently expect, demand
for our SoCs may not materialize as expected, and our business and
operating results could suffer.
22
The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected our business and could
materially and adversely affect our business in the
future.
The global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the
populations and businesses of many countries. Our business has
been, and is expected to continue to be, adversely impacted by the
effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to global
macroeconomic effects, the COVID-19 pandemic and related adverse
public health developments have caused, and are expected to
continue to cause, disruption to our operations. We have had to
impose remote or work from home conditions at different times for
varying periods of time in most of our offices. Approximately 360
of our employees are located in Taiwan and approximately 220
employees are located in China, and lengthy closures of these
offices could significantly disrupt our software engineering and
customer support operations. In addition, we and our suppliers,
third-party distributors and customers have been, and may in the
future again be, disrupted by quarantines and restrictions on
certain employees’ ability to perform their jobs, office closures
or restrictions, disruptions to shipping infrastructure, or other
travel or health-related restrictions. Moreover, if there is a
significant COVID-19 outbreak that impacts Samsung’s ability to
manufacture our SoCs or our third-party contractors’ ability to
assemble, test and ship our products, we could experience delays or
reductions in our ability to ship products to our
customers.
During fiscal year 2023, we experienced, and we expect to continue
to experience, a significant disruption of orders by customers, due
in part to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first half
of fiscal year 2023, we experienced a significant increase in the
manufacturing lead time for our products, including supply
constraints for certain chips from Samsung Electronics Corporation
(Samsung), which disrupted the normal ordering patterns of our
customers and harmed our revenue, but which may have in turn led to
increased customer demand for our products in order to increase
their inventory levels. Recently, customers have indicated they are
reducing their inventory levels as lead times for semiconductor
chips and other components used by customers shrink, which has
reduced, and may continue to reduce, such customers’ demand for our
products in future periods. High inflation may exacerbate these
risks. In addition, decreased consumer demand from the impact of
pandemic lockdowns in China contributed to, and could in the future
contribute to, decreased revenue in consumer-related markets. There
can be no assurance that any decrease in sales resulting from the
impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will be offset by increased sales
in subsequent periods.
Our customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities
or delay production. If we fail to accurately forecast demand for
our solutions, revenue shortfalls or excess, obsolete or
insufficient inventory could result.
Our customers typically do not provide us with firm, long-term
purchase commitments. A substantial majority of our sales are made
on a purchase order basis, which permits our customers to cancel,
change or delay their product purchase commitments with little or
no notice to us and often without penalty to them. Because
production lead times often exceed the amount of time required by
our customers to fill their orders, we often must build SoCs in
advance of receiving orders from customers, relying on an imperfect
demand forecast to project volumes and product mix. As a result of
a number of factors, including longer manufacturing times for our
products and increased demand from customers during fiscal year
2023, we have increased our inventory levels in the near term.
Recently, some customers have indicated they are reducing their
inventory levels of our products, which may reduce such customers’
demand for our products in future quarters.
Our SoCs are incorporated into products manufactured by or for our
end customers, and as a result, demand for our solutions is
influenced by the demand for our customers’ products. Our ability
to accurately forecast demand can be adversely affected by a number
of factors, including inaccurate forecasting by our customers,
changes in market conditions including reductions in market
activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, adverse changes in our
product order mix and fluctuating demand for our customers’
products. Even after an order is received, our customers may cancel
these orders, request a decrease in production quantities or
request a delay in the delivery of our solutions. Any such
cancellation, decrease or delay subjects us to a number of risks,
most notably that our projected sales will not materialize on
schedule or at all, leading to unanticipated revenue shortfalls and
excess or obsolete inventory that we may be unable to sell to other
customers.
Alternatively, if we are unable to project customer requirements
accurately, we may not build enough SoCs, which could lead to
delays in product shipments and lost sales opportunities in the
near term, as well as force our customers to identify alternative
sources, which could affect our ongoing relationships with these
customers. In addition, the rapid pace of innovation in our
industry could render portions of our inventory obsolete. Excess or
obsolete inventory levels could result in unexpected expenses or
increases in our reserves that could adversely affect our business,
operating results and financial condition.
23
We depend on a limited number of customers and end customers for a
significant portion of our revenue. If we fail to retain or expand
our customer relationships, our revenue could decline.
We derive a significant portion of our revenue from a limited
number of ODMs who build products on behalf of a limited number of
OEMs and from a limited number of OEMs to whom we ship directly. We
anticipate that this customer concentration will continue for the
foreseeable future. In fiscal year 2023, the customers representing
10% or more of our revenue were WT Microelectronics Co., Ltd., or
WT, our distributor, and Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd., or Chicony,
a direct ODM customer, which accounted for approximately 57% and
12% of total revenue, respectively. In addition, we believe that
revenue from our top 10 OEM customers, either directly or through a
distributor or an ODM on behalf of it, accounted for approximately
47% of our total revenue in fiscal year 2023. We believe that our
operating results for the foreseeable future will continue to
depend on sales to a relatively small number of customers and end
customers. In the future, these customers may decide not to
purchase our SoC solutions at all, may purchase fewer solutions
than they did in the past or may alter their purchasing patterns.
As substantially all of our sales to date have been made on a
purchase order basis, these customers may cancel, change or delay
product purchase commitments with little or no notice to us and
often without penalty and may make our revenue volatile from period
to period, which has happened in the past. The loss of a
significant customer, or substantial reduction in purchases by a
significant customer, could happen again at any time and without
notice, and such loss would likely harm our financial condition and
results of operations. Moreover, because several of our largest OEM
customers have a dominant position in their markets, a loss of a
significant customer may not be easily replaced.
Achieving design wins is subject to lengthy competitive selection
processes that require us to incur significant costs. Even if we
begin a product design, a customer may decide to cancel or change
its product plans, resulting in no revenue from such
expenditures.
We are focused on selling our SoC solutions to ODMs and OEMs for
incorporation into their products at the design stage. These
efforts to achieve design wins typically are lengthy, especially in
emerging markets, such as the OEM automotive market, and in any
case can require us to both incur design and development costs and
dedicate scarce engineering resources in pursuit of a single
customer opportunity. We may not prevail in the competitive
selection process, and even when we do achieve a design win, we may
never generate any revenue despite incurring development
expenditures. In addition, even if an OEM designs one of our SoC
solutions into one of its products, we cannot be assured that we
will secure new design wins from that OEM for future products.
Further, even after securing a design win, we have experienced and
may again experience delays in generating revenue from our
solutions as a result of the lengthy product development cycle
typically required, if we generate any revenue at all as a result
of any such design win.
Our customers generally take a considerable amount of time to
evaluate our solutions. The typical time from early engagement by
our sales force to actual product introduction runs from nine to 12
months for IoT markets and potentially significantly longer in the
OEM automotive, robotics and industrial markets. The delays
inherent in these lengthy sales cycles increase the risk that a
customer will decide to cancel, curtail, reduce or delay its
product plans, causing us to lose anticipated sales. In addition,
any delay or cancellation of a customer’s plans could harm our
financial results, as we may have incurred significant expense and
generated no revenue. If we were unable to generate revenue after
incurring substantial expenses to develop any of our solutions, our
business would suffer.
Some of our customers may require our products and our third-party
contractors to undergo a qualification process that does not assure
product sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying
these products or third-party contractors with a customer, our
business and operating results could suffer.
Prior to purchasing our products, some of our customers,
particularly in the automotive market, may require that our
products and our third-party contractors undergo extensive
qualification processes, which involve testing of our products in
the customers’ systems, as well as testing for reliability of our
products and our supply chain. This qualification process may take
several months and qualification of a product by a customer does
not assure any sales of the product to that customer. Even after
successful qualification and sales of a product to a customer, a
subsequent revision in our third party contractors’ manufacturing
process or our selection of a new supplier may require a new
qualification process, which may result in delays and in our
holding excess or obsolete inventory. After our products are
qualified, it can take several months or more before the customer
commences volume production of components or systems that
incorporate our products. Despite these uncertainties, we devote
substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales,
marketing and management efforts, to qualify our products with
customers in anticipation of sales. If we are unsuccessful or
delayed in qualifying these products with a customer, sales of the
products to the customer may be precluded or delayed, which may
impede our growth and cause our business to suffer.
24
We expect competition to increase in the future, which could have
an adverse effect on our revenue and market share.
The global semiconductor market in general, and the computer vision
and video/image processing markets in particular, are highly
competitive. We compete in different target markets to various
degrees on the basis of a number of competitive factors, including
our solutions’ performance, features, energy efficiency, size, ease
with which our solution may be integrated into our customers’
products, customer support, reliability and price, as well as on
the basis of our reputation. We expect competition to increase and
intensify as more and larger semiconductor companies enter our
markets and as existing competitors improve or expand their product
offerings. We also expect that the trend among large OEMs to seek
to develop their own semiconductor solutions will continue and
expand, particularly in camera markets experiencing consolidation,
such as the IP security market. In addition, in our newer markets,
such as the OEM automotive and robotics markets, we will face
competition from larger competitors with longer histories in these
markets. Increased competition could result in price pressure,
reduced profitability and loss of market share, any of which could
harm our business, revenue and operating results.
Our competitors range from large, international companies with
greater resources offering a wide range of semiconductor products
to smaller, nimble companies specializing in narrow markets. In the
IoT market, our primary competitors include AMLogic Inc., Fuzhou
Rockchip Electronics Co., Ltd., HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd.,
or HiSilicon, which is owned by Huawei Technologies Co., Ingenic
Semiconductor Co., Ltd.,
Novatek Microelectronics Corp., or Novatek, NVIDIA Corporation, or
NVIDIA, OmniVision Technologies, Inc., Qualcomm Incorporated, or
Qualcomm, SigmaStar Technology Corp., and Socionext Inc. In the
automotive camera market, we compete against Allwinner Technology
Co., Ltd., Horizon Robotics Inc., iCatch Technology, Inc.,
Mobileye, a subsidiary of Intel Corporation, Novatek, NVIDIA, NXP
Semiconductors N.V., Qualcomm, Renesas Electronics Corporation, and
Texas Instruments. Certain of our customers and suppliers also have
divisions that produce products competitive with ours and other
customers may seek to vertically integrate competitive solutions in
the future. In addition, certain third-party developers of
technology competitive to our solutions have licensed their
technology, including image signal processing and computer vision
IP, which potentially enables a greater number of competitors to
offer competitive solutions.
Our ability to compete successfully depends on elements both within
and outside of our control. Many of our competitors are
substantially larger, have greater financial, technical, marketing,
distribution, customer support and other resources, are more
established than we are and have significantly better brand
recognition and broader product offerings than us, which may enable
them to develop and enable new technology into product solutions
better or faster than us and to better withstand adverse economic
or market conditions in the future. Our ability to compete will
depend on a number of factors, including:
•
our ability to anticipate market and technology trends and
successfully develop solutions that meet market needs;
•
our ability to understand the price points and performance metrics
of competing products in the marketplace;
•
our solutions’ performance and cost-effectiveness relative to that
of competing products;
•
our success in identifying and penetrating new markets,
applications and customers;
•
our ability to gain access to leading design tools and product
specifications at the same time as our competitors;
•
our ability to develop and maintain relationships with key OEMs and
ODMs;
•
our products’ effective implementation of video processing or radar
standards;
•
our ability to protect our intellectual property;
•
our ability to expand international operations in a timely and
cost-efficient manner;
•
our ability to deliver products in volume on a timely basis at
competitive prices;
•
our ability to support our customers’ incorporation of our
solutions into their products; and
•
our ability to recruit design and application engineers with
expertise in computer vision, video and image processing
technologies and sales and marketing personnel.
Our competitors may also establish cooperative relationships among
themselves or with third parties or acquire companies that provide
similar products to ours. As a result, new competitors or alliances
may emerge that could acquire significant market share. Any of
these factors, alone or in combination with others, could harm our
business and result in a loss of market share and an increase in
pricing pressure.
25
A breach of our security systems may have a material adverse effect
on our business.
Our security systems are designed to maintain the physical security
of our facilities and information systems and protect our
customers’, suppliers’ and employees’ confidential information.
Accidental or willful security breaches or incidents or other
unauthorized access by third parties to our facilities or our
information systems or the existence of computer viruses or other
malicious code or security vulnerabilities in our data or software
could expose us to a risk of loss, unavailability, misappropriation
and other unauthorized processing of proprietary and confidential
information. The costs to us to eliminate or alleviate cyber or
other security problems, bugs, viruses, ransomware and other
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 and delays that may
impede our sales, product distribution, financial reporting or
other critical functions. In addition, we could incur significant
costs in notifying affected persons and entities and otherwise
complying with the multitude of foreign, federal, state and local
laws and regulations relating to the unauthorized access to, or use
or disclosure of, personal information.
Security breaches and incidents, computer malware and computer
hacking attacks have become more prevalent and sophisticated. These
threats are constantly evolving, making it increasingly difficult
to successfully defend against or implement adequate preventive
measures, and we may face difficulties or delays in identifying and
otherwise responding to any security breach or incident. Moreover,
remote work by our personnel and remote access to our systems have
increased significantly, which also increases our cybersecurity
risk profile. We expect to incur significant costs in an effort to
detect and prevent security breaches and incidents, and we may face
increased costs and requirements to expend substantial resources in
the event of an actual or perceived security breach or incident.
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 or create
system disruptions. Computer programmers and hackers also may be
able to deploy viruses, worms and other malicious software programs
that attack our information systems and cause disruptions of our
business. For portions of our IT infrastructure, we rely on
products and services provided by third parties. These third-party
providers may also experience breaches, incidents, and attacks
compromising or otherwise impacting their products, and their
products may contain security vulnerabilities, each of which could
impact our systems. Data security breaches and incidents may also
result from non-technical means, including, for example,
intentional malfeasance or negligence by an employee or contractor.
Any data security breach or incident or theft, misuse, loss,
unavailability or other unauthorized processing of this
information, or the perception that any of these matters has
occurred, could result in, among other things, damage to our
reputation, allegations by our customers that we have not performed
our contractual obligations, regulatory investigations and other
proceedings, litigation by affected parties and possible penalties,
damages, and other liabilities, any of which could have a material
adverse effect on our business, financial condition, our
reputation, and our relationships with our customers and partners.
We may also encounter errors resulting in corruption or loss of
data, an inability to accurately process or record transactions,
and security or technical reliability issues. All of these could
harm our ability to conduct core operating functions such as
processing purchase orders and invoices, product distribution,
recording and reporting financial and management information on a
timely and accurate basis, and could impact our internal control
compliance efforts. Due to political uncertainty and military
actions associated with the ongoing hostility between Russia and
Ukraine, we and our vendors, contractors, and other third parties
we work with are vulnerable to a heightened risk of cybersecurity
attacks, phishing attacks, viruses, malware, ransomware, hacking or
similar breaches and incidents from nation-state and affiliated
actors, including attacks that could materially disrupt our supply
chain and our systems and operations.
We also rely on a number of third-party “cloud-based” service
providers of corporate infrastructure services relating to, among
other things, human resources, electronic communication services
and some finance functions, and we are, of necessity, dependent on
the security systems of these providers. These third-party service
providers also are subject to similar, and in certain cases
greater, security threats. Any unauthorized access by third parties
to the systems of our cloud-based service providers, any other
security breaches or incidents impacting such systems, or the
existence of computer viruses, ransomware or other malicious code
in their data or software could expose us to a risk of loss,
misappropriation, unavailability and other unauthorized processing
of information.
Additionally, we cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will
be adequate or otherwise protect us with respect to claims,
expenses, fines, penalties, business loss, data loss, litigation,
regulatory actions, or other impacts arising from security breaches
or incidents, or that such coverage will continue to be available
on acceptable terms or at all. Any of these results could adversely
affect our business, financial condition, and operating
results.
26
While we intend to continue to invest in research and development,
we may be unable to make the substantial investments that are
required to remain competitive in our business.
The semiconductor industry requires substantial investment in
research and development in order to bring to market new and
enhanced solutions. Our research and development expense was $204.9
million, $167.3 million and $140.8 million in fiscal years 2023,
2022 and 2021, respectively. We expect to increase our research and
development expenditures as compared to prior periods as part of
our strategy of focusing on the development of innovative computer
vision, video and image processing solutions with increased
functionality, and as we target new markets, such as the automotive
OEM and robotics markets. We are unable to predict whether we will
have sufficient resources to achieve the level of investment in
research and development required to remain competitive. For
example, development in the latest process nodes, such as 5
nanometer, or nm, or smaller, costs significantly more than
required to develop in larger process nodes, such as 14 or 10nm.
This added cost could prevent us from being able to maintain a
technology advantage over larger competitors that have
significantly more resources to invest in research and development.
In addition, we cannot assure you that the technologies which are
the focus of our research and development expenditures will become
commercially successful or generate any revenue.
The loss of any of our key personnel could seriously harm our
business.
We believe our future success depends in large part upon the
continuing services of the members of our senior management team
and various engineering and other technical personnel. If one or
more of our senior executives or other key personnel are unable or
unwilling to continue in their present positions, we may not be
able to replace them easily or at all, our business may be
disrupted, and our financial condition and results of operations
may be materially and adversely affected. In addition, if any
member of our senior management team or any of our other key
personnel joins a competitor or forms a competing company, we may
experience material disruption of our operations and development
plans and lose customers, know-how and key professionals and staff
members, and we may incur increased operating expenses as the
attention of other senior executives is diverted to recruit
replacements for key personnel.
We rely on highly skilled personnel and, if we are unable to hire,
retain or motivate key personnel, we may not be able to grow
effectively.
Our performance largely depends on the talents and efforts of
highly skilled individuals. Our future success depends on our
continuing ability to identify, hire, develop, motivate, and retain
highly skilled personnel for all areas of our organization. Our
industry is characterized by high demand and intense competition
for talent, particularly for engineering personnel. The pool of
qualified candidates is limited, particularly in Silicon Valley and
parts of Asia for very-large-scale integration, or VLSI, and
artificial intelligence and computer vision engineers, and certain
of our competitors and potential competitors with greater resources
have directly targeted our employees. In addition, we also face
competition in hiring artificial intelligence engineers, including
from companies with which we do not directly compete. Our
compensation arrangements, such as our equity award programs, may
not always be successful in attracting new employees and retaining
and motivating our existing employees. Our continued ability to
compete effectively, and to grow our business, depends on our
ability to attract new employees and to retain and motivate our
existing employees.
The average selling prices of semiconductor solutions in our target
markets have typically decreased over time and will likely do so in
the future, which could harm our revenue and gross
margins.
Average selling prices of semiconductor products in the markets we
serve have historically decreased over time, and we expect such
declines to occur for our solutions over time. Our gross margins
and financial results will suffer if we are unable to offset
reductions in our average selling prices by reducing our costs,
developing new or enhanced SoC solutions, such as our new AI
computer vision-based solutions, on a timely basis with higher
selling prices or gross margins, or increasing our sales volumes.
Additionally, because we do not operate our own manufacturing,
assembly or testing facilities, we may not be able to reduce our
costs as rapidly as companies that operate their own facilities,
and our costs may even increase, which could also reduce our gross
margins. In the past, we have reduced the prices of our SoC
solutions in anticipation of future competitive pricing pressures,
new product introductions by us or our competitors and other
factors. We expect that we will have to address pricing pressures
again in the future, particularly in markets experiencing
consolidation, which could require us to reduce the prices of our
SoC solutions and harm our operating results.
27
If we are unable to manage any future growth, we may not be able to
execute our business plan and our operating results could
suffer.
Our business has grown rapidly in the past. Our future operating
results depend to a large extent on our ability to successfully
manage any expansion and growth, including the challenges of
managing a company with an executive management team in the United
States and the majority of its employees in Asia. We are increasing
our investment in research and development and other functions to
grow our business and address new markets, such as the OEM
automotive and robotics markets. To manage growth successfully, we
believe we must effectively, among other things:
•
recruit, hire, train and manage additional qualified engineers for
our research and development activities, particularly for the
positions of semiconductor design and systems, AI computer vision
development and applications engineering;
•
add additional sales and business development
personnel;
•
maintain and improve our administrative, financial and operational
systems, procedures and controls;
•
enhance our information technology support for enterprise resource
planning and design engineering by adapting and expanding our
systems and tool capabilities, and properly training new hires as
to their use; and
•
be able to secure sufficient manufacturing capacity.
We are likely to incur the costs associated with these increased
investments earlier than some of the anticipated benefits, and the
return on these investments, if any, may be lower, may develop more
slowly than we expect or may not materialize. If we are unable to
manage growth effectively, we may not be able to take advantage of
market opportunities or develop new solutions, and we may fail to
satisfy customer product or support requirements, maintain product
quality, execute our business plan or respond to competitive
pressures.
Deterioration of the financial conditions of our customers could
adversely affect our operating results.
Deterioration of the financial condition of our distributors or
customers could adversely impact our collection of accounts
receivable. For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2023, the
customers representing 10% or more of revenue were WT and Chicony,
which accounted for approximately 57% and 12% of total revenue,
respectively. As of January 31, 2023, accounts receivable with WT
and Chicony were approximately $21.0 million and $9.4 million,
respectively. We regularly review the collectability and
creditworthiness of our distributors and customers to determine an
appropriate allowance for credit losses. Based on our review of our
distributors and customers, we currently have only immaterial
reserves for uncollectible accounts. If our uncollectible accounts,
however, were to exceed our current or future allowance for credit
losses, our operating results would be negatively
impacted.
We are subject to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor
industry.
The semiconductor industry is highly cyclical and is characterized
by constant and rapid technological change, rapid product
obsolescence, price erosion, evolving standards, short product life
cycles and wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. Cyclical
downturns have been characterized by diminished product demand,
production overcapacity, high inventory levels and accelerated
erosion of average selling prices, which could harm our business
and operating results. We are dependent on the availability of
third-party foundry and assembly capacity to manufacture and
assemble our SoC solutions. None of our third-party foundry or
assembly contractors has provided assurances that adequate capacity
will be available to us in the future. The semiconductor industry
recently experienced significant shortages of capacity, which
resulted in a lengthening of the manufacturing lead time for our
products. Such capacity shortages could negatively impact our
ability to meet our customers’ demand for our products and have an
adverse impact on our revenue, results of operations and customer
relationships. We have also experienced, during times of supply
chain capacity shortage, customers placing orders for our products
that exceed their actual demand, which may lead to us manufacturing
a surplus of products and could have a negative impact on our
results of operations and cash reserves. Most recently, some
customers have indicated their intent to reduce their inventory
levels as capacity shortages improve, which may decrease such
customers’ demand for our solutions in future periods and, in turn,
harm our financial results.
28
The complexity of our solutions could result in unforeseen delays
or expenses from undetected defects, errors or bugs in hardware or
software which could reduce the market adoption of our new
solutions, damage our reputation with current or prospective
customers and adversely affect our operating costs.
Highly complex SoC solutions such as ours frequently contain
defects, errors and bugs when they are first introduced or as new
versions are released. We have in the past and may in the future
experience these defects, errors and bugs. If any of our solutions
have reliability, quality or compatibility problems, we may not be
able to successfully correct these problems in a timely manner or
at all. In addition, if any of our proprietary features contain
defects, errors or bugs when first introduced or as new versions of
our solutions are released, we may be unable to timely correct
these problems. Consequently, our reputation may be damaged and
customers may be reluctant to buy our solutions, which could harm
our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers,
and could adversely affect our financial results. In addition,
these defects, errors or bugs could interrupt or delay sales to our
customers. If any of these problems are not found until after we
have commenced commercial production of a new product, we may incur
significant additional development costs and product recall, repair
or replacement costs. These problems may also result in claims
against us by our customers or others.
We may experience difficulties in transitioning to new wafer
fabrication process technologies or in achieving higher levels of
design integration, which may result in reduced manufacturing
yields, delays in product deliveries and increased
costs.
We aim to use the most advanced manufacturing process technology
appropriate for our products that is available from our third-party
foundries. As a result, we periodically evaluate the benefits of
migrating our solutions to smaller geometry process technologies in
order to improve performance and reduce costs. We believe this
strategy will help us remain competitive. We may face difficulties,
delays and increased expense as we transition our products to new
processes, such as the 4nm or 3nm process nodes, and potentially to
new foundries. We currently depend on Samsung, as the principal
foundry for our products, to transition to new processes
successfully. We cannot assure you that Samsung will be able to
effectively manage such transitions or that we will be able to
maintain our relationship with Samsung or develop relationships
with new foundries. Moreover, as we utilize more advanced process
nodes beyond 5nm, we are increasingly dependent upon a very small
number of foundries currently available for certain advanced
process technologies. If we or our foundry vendors experience
significant delays in transitioning to smaller geometries or fail
to efficiently implement transitions, we could experience reduced
manufacturing yields, delays in product deliveries and increased
costs, all of which could harm our relationships with our customers
and our operating results.
29
Rapidly changing industry standards could make our video and image
processing solutions obsolete, which would cause our operating
results to suffer.
We design our video and image processing solutions to conform to
video compression standards, including MPEG-2, H.264 Advanced Video
Coding (AVC) and H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), set by
industry standards setting bodies such as ITU-T Video Coding
Experts Group and the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group.
Generally, our solutions comprise only a part of a camera device.
All components of these devices must uniformly comply with industry
standards in order to operate efficiently together. We depend on
companies that provide other components of the devices to support
prevailing industry standards. Many of these companies are
significantly larger and more influential in driving industry
standards than we are. Some industry standards may not be widely
adopted or implemented uniformly, and competing standards may
emerge that may be preferred by our customers or by consumers. If
our customers or the suppliers that provide other device components
adopt new or competing industry standards with which our solutions
are not compatible, or if the industry groups fail to adopt
standards with which our solutions are compatible, our existing
solutions would become less desirable to our customers. If our
solutions are not in compliance with prevailing industry standards
for a significant period of time, we could miss opportunities to
achieve crucial design wins, which could harm our business. As a
result, our sales would suffer, and we could be required to make
significant expenditures to develop new SoC solutions to ensure
compliance with relevant standards.
Some of our operations and a significant portion of our customers
and our subcontractors are located outside of the United States,
which subjects us to additional risks, including increased
complexity and costs of managing international operations and
geopolitical instability.
We have research and development design centers and business
development offices in China, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea
and Taiwan, and we expect to continue to conduct business with
companies that are located outside the United States, particularly
in Asia. We purchase wafers from foreign foundries, have our
solutions assembled and tested by subcontractors located in Asia,
and supply our solutions to customers located outside of the United
States. Even customers of ours that are based in the United States
often use contract manufacturers based in Asia to manufacture their
products, and these contract manufacturers typically purchase
products directly from us. As a result of our international focus,
we face numerous challenges and risks, including:
•
increased complexity and costs of managing international
operations;
•
longer and more difficult collection of receivables from
customers;
•
difficulties in enforcing contracts generally;
•
regional economic instability;
•
geopolitical instability and military conflicts, including the
ongoing conflict in Ukraine;
•
limited protection of our intellectual property and other
assets;
•
compliance with local laws and regulations and unanticipated
changes in local laws and regulations, including tax laws and
regulations;
•
trade and foreign exchange restrictions and higher
tariffs;
•
timing and availability of import and export licenses and other
governmental approvals, permits and licenses, including export
classification requirements;
•
foreign currency exchange fluctuations relating to our
international operating activities;
•
restrictions imposed by the U.S. government on our ability to do
business with certain companies or in certain countries as a result
of international political conflicts;
•
transportation delays and other consequences of limited local
infrastructure, and disruptions, such as large-scale outages or
interruptions of service from utilities or telecommunications
providers;
•
heightened risk of terrorist acts;
•
local business and cultural factors that differ from standards and
practices in the U.S.;
•
differing employment practices and labor relations;
•
regional health issues, pandemics, and natural disasters;
and
30
We face integration risks relating to our acquisition of Oculii
Corp.
In November 2021, we completed our acquisition of Oculii Corp. The
benefits we expect to realize from this acquisition will depend, in
part, on our ability to integrate the businesses successfully and
efficiently.
We acquired Oculii with the expectation that the merger will result
in various benefits to us, including certain technology and
operational efficiencies or synergies. To realize these anticipated
benefits, the businesses and certain technologies of Ambarella and
Oculii must be successfully integrated. This integration has been
complex and time consuming and requires substantial resources and
effort. If the businesses or technology are not successfully
integrated, the anticipated benefits of the merger may not be
realized fully or at all or may take longer to realize than
expected. In addition, the acquisition may also result in
significant charges or other liabilities, including taxes, that
could adversely affect our results of operations.
Any acquisitions we may make in the future could disrupt our
business, cause dilution to our shareholders, reduce our financial
resources and harm our business.
Prior to our acquisition of Oculii in 2021, we had not made any
acquisitions since our acquisition of VisLab S.r.l. in 2015. Our
ability to make and successfully integrate acquisitions is largely
unproven. Any future acquisitions may not strengthen our
competitive position and may be viewed negatively by our customers,
financial markets or investors, and we may not achieve our goals in
a timely manner, or at all. In addition, any acquisitions we make
could lead to difficulties in integrating personnel, technologies
and operations from the acquired businesses and in retaining and
motivating key personnel from these businesses. Acquisitions may
disrupt our ongoing operations, divert management from their
primary responsibilities, subject us to additional liabilities,
increase our expenses and adversely impact our business, operating
results, financial condition and cash flows. Acquisitions may also
reduce our cash available for operations and other uses, and could
also result in an increase in amortization expense related to
identifiable assets acquired, potentially dilutive issuances of
equity securities or the incurrence of debt, any of which could
harm our business.
The complexity of calculating our tax provision may result in
errors that could result in restatements of our financial
statements.
We are incorporated in the Cayman Islands and our operations are
subject to income and transaction taxes in the United States,
China, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and
other jurisdictions in which we do business. Due to the complexity
associated with the calculation of our tax provision, we have hired
independent tax advisors to assist us. If we or our independent tax
advisors fail to resolve or fully understand certain issues, there
may be errors that could result in us having to restate our
financial statements. The risk of errors may be exacerbated by the
significant number of tax law changes recently enacted in the
United States and other jurisdictions. Restatements are generally
costly and could adversely impact our results of operations or have
a negative impact on the trading price of our ordinary
shares.
Risks Related to Our Financial Performance or Results
Fluctuations in our operating results on a quarterly and annual
basis could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to
decline.
Our revenue and operating results have fluctuated significantly
from period to period in the past and are likely to do so in the
future. As a result, you should not rely on period-to-period
comparisons of our operating results as an indication of our future
performance. It is also possible that our normal seasonal patterns
will be impacted by ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, effects of
the COVID-19 pandemic, recent supply chain disruptions and
semiconductor capacity shortages, and high inflation. In future
periods, our forecasted or actual revenue and results of operations
may be below the expectations of analysts and investors, which
could cause the market price of our ordinary shares to
decline.
Factors that may affect our operating results include:
•
fluctuations in demand, sales cycles, product mix, and prices for
our products;
•
the forecasting, scheduling, rescheduling or cancellation of orders
by our customers;
•
shifts in consumer or manufacturer preferences and any resultant
change in demand for our customers’ products;
•
changes in the competitive dynamics of our markets, including new
entrants or pricing pressures;
•
delays in our customers’ ability to manufacture and ship products
that incorporate our solutions caused by internal and external
factors beyond our control;
31
•
our ability to successfully define, design and release new
solutions in a timely manner that meet our customers’
needs;
•
timely availability of adequate manufacturing capacity from our
manufacturing subcontractors;
•
changes in manufacturing costs, including wafer, test and assembly
costs, mask costs, manufacturing yields and product quality and
reliability;
•
the timing of product announcements by our competitors or by
us;
•
incurrence of research and development and related new products
expenditures;
•
write-downs of inventory for excess quantities and technological
obsolescence;
•
impairment of investment or other asset values;
•
future accounting pronouncements and changes in accounting
policies;
•
volatility in our share price, which may lead to higher stock-based
compensation expense;
•
volatility in our effective tax rate;
•
general socioeconomic and political conditions in the countries
where we operate or where our products are sold or used, including
recent macroeconomic volatility, the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S.-China
relations and the conditions in Hong Kong; and
•
costs associated with litigation, especially related to
intellectual property.
Moreover, the semiconductor industry has historically been cyclical
in nature, reflecting overall economic conditions as well as
budgeting and buying patterns of consumers. For example, the
semiconductor industry recently experienced significant shortages
of capacity, which resulted in a lengthening of the manufacturing
lead time for our products and could be impacting the normal
forecasting and ordering patterns of our customers. Most recently,
some customers have indicated their intent to reduce their
inventory levels as capacity shortages improve, which may decrease
such customers’ demand for our products in future periods, which
could harm our financial results. We expect these cyclical
conditions to continue. As a result, our quarterly operating
results are difficult to predict, even in the near term. Our
expense levels are relatively fixed in the short term and are
based, in part, on our expectations of future revenue. If revenue
levels are below our expectations, we may experience material
adverse impacts on our business, including declines in margins and
profitability, or incur losses.
If we do not generate revenue growth, we may not be able to execute
our business plan and our operating results could
suffer.
We believe that our future revenue growth, if any, will
significantly depend on our ability to expand within our existing
IoT camera markets, such as the existing professional and home
security and monitoring camera markets, and successfully penetrate
new markets, such as the OEM automotive, robotics and industrial
markets, with our new AI computer vision-based SoC solutions. We
believe that executing upon our business plan requires us to
continue to develop new SoCs and new software to address the
particular requirements of these markets. Accordingly, we continue
to invest in the development of new technology and solutions and
expect our research and development expenditures to increase
compared to prior periods. If we are unable to generate or maintain
adequate revenue growth, our financial results could suffer and we
may not be able to continue to invest in the development of new
technology and solutions required to be successful.
We may have difficulty accurately predicting our future revenue and
appropriately budgeting our expenses.
The rapidly evolving nature of the markets in which we sell our
solutions, combined with substantial uncertainty concerning how
these markets may develop, the considerable amount of time our
customers generally take to evaluate our solutions, and other
factors beyond our control, limits our ability to accurately
forecast quarterly or annual revenue. In the recent years, we
expanded our staffing and increased our expenditures in
anticipation of future revenue growth. If our revenue does not
increase as anticipated, we could incur significant losses due to
our higher expense levels if we are not able to decrease our
expenses in a timely manner to offset any shortfall in future
revenue. Continued or persistent losses may require us to obtain
additional capital that may not be available on reasonable terms or
at all.
Changes to financial accounting standards may affect our results of
operations and could cause us to change our business
practices.
32
We prepare our consolidated financial statements to conform to
generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, in the United
States. These accounting principles are subject to interpretation
by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the SEC
and various bodies formed to interpret and create accounting rules
and regulations. Changes in those accounting rules could have a
significant effect on our financial results, require significant
resources, pose challenges in forecasting revenue and may affect
our reporting of transactions completed before a change is
announced. Changes to those rules or the questioning of current
practices may adversely affect our reported financial results or
the way we conduct our business.
Fluctuations in exchange rates between and among the currencies of
the countries in which we do business may adversely affect our
operating results.
Our sales have been historically denominated in U.S. dollars. An
increase in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the currencies
of the countries in which our end customers operate could impair
the ability of our end customers to cost-effectively integrate our
SoCs into their devices which may materially affect the demand for
our solutions and cause these end customers to reduce their orders,
which would adversely affect our revenue and business. We may
experience foreign exchange gains or losses due to the volatility
of other currencies compared to the U.S. dollar. A significant
portion of our solutions are sold to customers located outside the
United States, primarily in Asia. Sales to customers in Asia
accounted for approximately 82%, 88% and 88% of our total revenue
in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Because most of
our end customers or their ODM manufacturers are located in Asia,
we anticipate that a majority of our future revenue will continue
to come from sales to that region. Although a large percentage of
our sales are made to customers in Asia, we believe that a
significant number of the products designed by these customers and
incorporating our SoCs are then sold to consumers globally. In
addition, if in the future we sell products or purchase inventory
in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, our exposure to foreign
currency risk could become more significant.
A significant number of our employees are located in Asia,
principally Taiwan and China, and Europe. Therefore, a portion of
our payroll as well as certain other operating expenses are paid in
currencies other than the U.S. dollar, such as the New Taiwan
Dollar, the Chinese Yuan Renminbi and the Eurozone Euro. Our
operating results are denominated in U.S. dollars and the
difference in exchange rates in one period compared to another may
directly impact period-to-period comparisons of our operating
results. Furthermore, currency exchange rates, particularly the
exchange rates between the Chinese Yuan Renminbi and the U.S.
dollar, between the New Taiwan Dollar and the U.S. dollar, and
between the Eurozone Euro and the U.S. dollar, have been volatile
in the recent past and these currency fluctuations may make it
difficult for us to predict our operating results.
We have not implemented any hedging strategies to mitigate risks
related to the impact of fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
Even if we were to implement hedging strategies, not every exposure
can be hedged and, where hedges are put in place based on expected
foreign exchange exposure, they are based on forecasts which may
vary or which may later prove to have been inaccurate. Failure to
hedge successfully or anticipate currency risks accurately could
adversely affect our operating results.
We cannot predict our future capital needs, and we may not be able
to obtain additional financing to fund our operations.
We may need to raise additional funds in the future. Any required
additional financing may not be available on terms acceptable to
us, or at all. If we raise additional funds by issuing equity
securities or convertible debt, investors may experience
significant dilution of their ownership interest, and the
newly-issued securities may have rights senior to those of the
holders of our ordinary shares. If we raise additional funds by
obtaining loans from third parties, the terms of those financing
arrangements may include negative covenants or other restrictions
on our business that could impair our operational flexibility and
would also require us to incur interest expense. If additional
financing is not available when required or is not available on
acceptable terms, we may have to scale back our operations or limit
our production activities, and we may not be able to expand our
business, develop or enhance our products, take advantage of
business opportunities or respond to competitive pressures which
could result in lower revenue and reduce the competitiveness of our
products.
Our marketable securities portfolio could experience a decline in
market value or otherwise become illiquid, which could materially
and adversely affect our financial results.
33
As of January 31, 2023, we had approximately $101.2 million in
money market funds and debt security investments. The debt security
investments consisted of commercial paper, debt securities of
corporations or corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and U.S.
government securities. We currently do not use derivative financial
instruments to adjust our investment portfolio risk or income
profile. These investments, as well as any cash deposited in bank
accounts, are subject to general credit, liquidity, market and
interest rate risks, which may be exacerbated by unusual events,
such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Eurozone crisis and the U.S.
debt ceiling crisis, which affected various sectors of the
financial markets and led to global credit and liquidity issues.
For example, in March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was closed
and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed
as receiver. At the time of closing on March 10, 2023, we had cash
deposits with SVB of approximately $17.0 million. We also had cash
equivalents and marketable debt security investments residing in
custodial accounts held by U.S. Bank for which SVB Asset Management
was the investment advisor until March 15, 2023. While we were able
to recover all deposited amounts from SVB, there can be no
assurance that our current or future banks will not face similar
risks as SVB or that we will be able to recover in full our
deposits in the event of similar closures. We regularly maintain
cash balances that are not insured or are in excess of the FDIC’s
insurance limit. If the global financial markets continue to
experience volatility or deteriorate, our investment portfolio may
be impacted and some or all of our investments may become illiquid
or otherwise experience loss which could adversely impact our
financial results and position. To the extent that we increase the
amount of our security investments in the future, these risks would
be exacerbated.
Risks Related to Our Dependence on Third Parties
We do not have long-term supply contracts with our third-party
manufacturing vendors, and they may not allocate sufficient
capacity to us at reasonable prices to meet future demands for our
solutions.
The semiconductor industry is subject to intense competitive
pricing pressure from customers and competitors. Accordingly, any
increase in the cost of our solutions, whether by adverse purchase
price variances or adverse manufacturing cost variances, will
reduce our gross margins and operating profit. We currently do not
have long-term supply contracts with most of our primary
third-party vendors, and we negotiate pricing with our main vendors
on a purchase order-by-purchase order basis. Therefore, they are
not obligated to perform services or supply product to us for any
specific period, in any specific quantities, or at any specific
price, except as may be provided in a particular purchase order.
The ability of our foundry vendors to provide us with a product,
which is solely sourced at each foundry, is limited by their
available capacity, existing obligations and technological
capabilities. Foundry capacity may not be available when we need it
or at reasonable prices. None of our third-party foundry or
assembly and test vendors have provided contractual assurances to
us that adequate capacity will be available to us to meet our
anticipated future demand for our solutions. Moreover, availability
of foundry capacity at our primary foundry vendor has tightened
recently, which could limit the volume of products we can produce
and/or delay production of new products, both of which would
negatively impact our business and operations. Similarly, our
assembly vendors have recently experienced shortages of certain
substrates necessary for the production of our solutions due in
part to COVID-19, which has negatively impacted the production time
of our devices. If these conditions continue for a substantial
period or worsen, our ability to meet our anticipated demand for
our solutions could be impacted which, in turn, could negatively
impact our operations and financial results.
Our foundry and assembly and test vendors may allocate capacity to
the production of other companies’ products while reducing
deliveries to us on short notice. In particular, other companies
that are larger and better financed than we are or that have
long-term agreements with our foundry or assembly and test vendors
may cause our foundry or assembly and test vendors to reallocate
capacity to them, decreasing the capacity available to us.
Converting or transferring manufacturing from a primary location or
supplier to a backup provider could be expensive and would likely
take at least two or more quarters. There are only a few foundries,
including Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd.,
or TSMC, that are currently available for certain advanced process
technologies that we utilize or may utilize, such as 10nm or 5nm.
Accordingly, as we continue to develop solutions in advanced
process nodes, we will be increasingly dependent upon such
foundries. The unavailability of one or both of these foundries
could significantly impact our ability to produce our new products
or delay production, which would negatively impact our
business.
Our customers incorporate components supplied by multiple third
parties, and a supply shortage or delay in delivery of these
components could delay orders for our solutions by our
customers.
34
Our customers purchase components used in the manufacture of their
products from various sources of supply, often involving several
specialized components, including lenses, sensors,
microcontrollers, power management integrated circuits (PMICs),
Wi-Fi chips, and memory chips. Any supply shortage or delay in
delivery by third-party component suppliers, or a third-party
supplier’s cessation or shut down of its business, may prevent or
delay production of our customers’ products. As a result of delays
in delivery or supply shortages of third-party components, orders
for our solutions may be delayed or canceled and our business may
be harmed. For example, the semiconductor industry recently
experienced shortages of certain devices, including
microcontrollers, PMICs, Wi-Fi chips, which impacted our customers’
ability to build their products and negatively impact our
customers’ demand for our solutions. We believe these shortages
were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, our ability
to generate design wins in some markets, such as the automotive OEM
market, requires us to collaborate with third-party software
suppliers in order to offer a complete solution to customers. Our
inability to successfully collaborate with such third-party
suppliers, or such suppliers’ inability to develop and deliver
software, could harm our ability to achieve design wins and harm
our business.
We outsource our wafer fabrication, assembly and testing operations
to third parties, and if these parties fail to produce and deliver
our products according to requested demands in specification,
quantity, cost and time, our reputation, customer relationships and
operating results could suffer.
We rely on third parties for substantially all of our manufacturing
operations, including wafer fabrication, assembly and testing.
Currently, the majority of our SoCs are supplied by Samsung in
facilities located in Austin, Texas and South Korea, from whom we
have the option to purchase both fully assembled and tested
products as well as tested die in wafer form for assembly. Samsung
subcontracts the assembly and initial testing of the assembled
chips it supplies to us to Signetics Corporation and STATS ChipPAC
Ltd. In the case of purchases of tested die from Samsung, we
contract the assembly to Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.,
or ASE. Final testing of all of our products is handled by Sigurd
Corporation or King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd. under the
supervision of our engineers. We depend on these third parties to
supply us with material of a requested quantity in a timely manner
that meets our standards for yield, cost and manufacturing quality.
Availability of capacity within our supply chain tightened during
fiscal year 2023, which at times limited the volume of products we
can produce, negatively impacting our business and operations, and
similar capacity constraints may adversely affect our business in
the future. Moreover, because each SoC is fabricated in only one
manufacturing facility, or single sourced, any disruption to a
facility could cause significant delays in the production or
shipment of the products produced in that facility that could not
be easily offset by having such product(s) produced in another
facility. We do not have any long-term supply agreements with any
of our manufacturing suppliers. If one or more of these vendors
terminates its relationship with us, or if we encounter any
problems with our manufacturing supply chain, including available
capacity constraints, our ability to ship our solutions to our
customers on time and in the quantity required would be adversely
affected, which in turn could cause an unanticipated decline in our
sales and damage our customer relationships.
If, in the future, we enter into arrangements with suppliers that
include additional fees to expedite delivery, nonrefundable
deposits or loans in exchange for capacity commitments or
commitments to purchase specified quantities over extended periods,
such arrangements may be costly, reduce our financial flexibility
and be on terms unfavorable to us, if we are able to secure such
arrangements at all. To date, we have not entered into any such
arrangements with our suppliers. If we need additional foundry or
assembly and test subcontractors because of increased demand or the
inability to obtain timely and adequate deliveries from our current
vendors, we may not be able to do so cost-effectively, if at
all.
A substantial portion of our revenue is processed through a single
distributor and the loss of this distributor may cause disruptions
in our shipments, which may adversely affect our operations and
financial condition.
We sell a significant percentage of our solutions through a single
distributor, WT, which serves as our non-exclusive sales
representative in Asia, other than Japan. Approximately 57%, 62%
and 63% of our revenue was derived from sales through WT for the
fiscal years ended January 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.
We anticipate that a significant portion of our revenue will
continue to be derived from sales through WT in the foreseeable
future. Our current agreement with WT is effective until January
2026, unless it is terminated earlier by either party for any or no
reason with 60 days written notice or by failure of the breaching
party to cure a material breach within 30 days following written
notice of such material breach by the non-breaching party. Our
agreement with WT will automatically renew for additional
successive 12-month terms unless at least 60 days before the end of
the then-current term either party provides written notice to the
other party that it elects not to renew the agreement. Termination
of the relationship with WT, either by us or by WT, could result in
a temporary or permanent loss of revenue. We may not be successful
in finding suitable alternative distributors on satisfactory terms,
or at all, and this could adversely affect our ability to
effectively sell our solutions in certain geographical locations or
to certain end customers. Furthermore, WT, or any successor or
other distributors we do business with, may face issues obtaining
credit, which could impair their ability to make timely payments to
us.
We are subject to risks associated with our distributors' product
inventories.
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We sell many of our products to customers through distributors who
maintain their own inventory of our products for sale to ODMs and
end customers. We allow limited price adjustments on sales to
distributors. Price adjustments may be effected by way of credits
for future product or by cash payments to the distributor, either
in arrears or in advance, using estimates based on historical
transactions. In accordance with ASC 606, we recognize revenue on
sales to distributors upon shipment and transfer of control (known
as “sell-in” revenue recognition) based on the amount of
consideration expected to be received. To the extent that the
actual consideration received is materially different from
estimated variable consideration recognized, we may be required to
adjust revenue in subsequent periods.
If our distributors are unable to sell an adequate amount of their
inventory of our products in a given quarter to ODMs and end
customers, or if they decide to decrease their inventories for any
reason, such as adverse global economic conditions or a downturn in
technology spending, our sales to these distributors and our
revenues may decline. We also face the risk that our distributors
may purchase, or for other reasons accumulate, inventory levels of
our products in any particular quarter in excess of future
anticipated sales to end customers. If such sales do not occur in
the time frame anticipated by these distributors for any reason,
these distributors may substantially decrease the amount of product
they order from us in subsequent periods until their inventory
levels realign with end-customer demand, which would harm our
business and could adversely affect our revenues in such subsequent
periods. Recently, some end customers have indicated they are
seeking to reduce their inventory levels, which may reduce such
customers’ demand for our products, including products purchased
through our distributors, in future periods and harm our financial
results.
If our foundry vendors do not achieve satisfactory yields or
quality, our reputation and customer relationships could be
harmed.
The fabrication of our video and image processing SoC solutions is
a complex and technically demanding process. Minor deviations in
the manufacturing process can cause substantial decreases in
yields, and in some cases, cause production to be suspended. Our
foundry vendors, from time to time, experience manufacturing
defects and reduced manufacturing yields, including in the
fabrication of our SoCs. Changes in manufacturing processes or the
inadvertent use of defective or contaminated materials by our
foundry vendors could result in lower than anticipated
manufacturing yields or unacceptable performance of our SoCs. Many
of these problems are difficult to detect at an early stage of the
manufacturing process and may be time consuming and expensive to
correct. Poor yields from our foundry vendors, or defects,
integration issues or other performance problems in our solutions,
could cause us significant customer relations and business
reputation problems, harm our financial results and give rise to
financial or other damages to our customers. Our customers might
consequently seek damages from us for their losses. A product
liability claim brought against us, even if unsuccessful, would
likely be time consuming and costly to defend.
Each of our SoC solutions is manufactured at a single location. If
we experience manufacturing problems at a particular location, we
would be required to transfer manufacturing to a new location or
supplier. Converting or transferring manufacturing from a primary
location or supplier to a backup fabrication facility could be
expensive and could take two or more quarters. During such a
transition, we would be required to meet customer demand from our
then-existing inventory, as well as any partially finished goods
that could be modified to the required product specifications. We
do not seek to maintain sufficient inventory to address a lengthy
transition period because we believe it is uneconomical. As a
result, we may not be able to meet customer needs during such a
transition, which could delay shipments, cause production delays,
result in a decline in our sales and damage our customer
relationships.
We rely on third-party vendors to supply software development tools
to us for the development of our new products, and we may be unable
to obtain the tools necessary to develop or enhance new or existing
products.
We rely on third-party software development tools to assist us in
the design, simulation and verification of new products or product
enhancements. To bring new products or product enhancements to
market in a timely manner, or at all, we need software development
tools that are sophisticated enough or technologically advanced
enough to complete our design, simulations and verifications. In
the future, the design requirements necessary to meet consumer
demands for more features and greater functionality from our
solutions may exceed the capabilities of available software
development tools. Unavailability of software development tools may
result in our missing design cycles or losing design wins, either
of which could result in a loss of market share or negatively
impact our operating results.
Because of the importance of software development tools to the
development and enhancement of our solutions, our relationships
with leaders in the computer-aided design industry, including
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation and
Synopsys, Inc., are critical to us. If these relationships are not
successful, we may be unable to develop new products or product
enhancements in a timely manner, which could result in a loss of
market share, a decrease in revenue or negatively impact our
operating results.
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We rely on third parties to provide services and technology
necessary for the operation of our business. Any failure of one or
more of our vendors, suppliers or licensors to provide such
services or technology could harm our business.
We rely on third-party vendors to provide critical services,
including, among other things, services related to accounting,
human resources, information technology and network monitoring that
we cannot or do not create or provide ourselves. We depend on these
vendors to ensure that our corporate infrastructure will
consistently meet our business requirements. The ability of these
third-party vendors to successfully provide reliable and
high-quality services is subject to technical and operational
uncertainties that are beyond our control. While we may be entitled
to damages if our vendors fail to perform under their agreements
with us, our agreements with these vendors limit the amount of
damages we may receive. In addition, we do not know whether we will
be able to collect on any award of damages or that these damages
would be sufficient to cover the actual costs we would incur as a
result of any vendor’s failure to perform under its agreement with
us. Upon expiration or termination of any of our agreements with
third-party vendors, we may not be able to replace the services
provided to us in a timely manner or on terms and conditions,
including service levels and cost, that are favorable to us, and a
transition from one vendor to another vendor could subject us to
operational delays and inefficiencies until the transition is
complete.
Any disruption to the operations of our third-party contractors and
their suppliers could cause significant delays in the production or
shipment of our products.
Our operations could be harmed if manufacturing, logistics or other
operations of our third-party contractors or their suppliers are
disrupted for any reason, including natural disasters, high heat
events or water shortages, severe storms, other negative impacts
from climate change, information technology system failures,
military actions or environmental, public health or regulatory
issues. The majority of our products are manufactured by or receive
components from third-party contractors located in South Korea,
Taiwan and Japan. The risk of an earthquake or tsunami in South
Korea, Taiwan, Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim region is
significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines. A
disruption in the availability of image sensors from Sony
Corporation as a result of the 2016 Kumamoto, Japan earthquake
impacted our customers’ ability to build or launch cameras and, as
a result, negatively impacted the timing and scope of demand for
our SoCs in fiscal year 2017. Similarly, a severe cold storm in
Texas in February 2021 disrupted the manufacturing of some of our
products at Samsung’s Texas facility for several weeks. Any
disruption resulting from such events could cause significant
delays in the production or shipment of our products until we are
able to shift our manufacturing, assembling or testing from the
affected contractor to another third-party vendor. We may not be
able to obtain alternate capacity on favorable terms, or at
all.
Risks Related to Our Legal and Regulatory Environment
Global economic and political conditions, including high inflation,
recessionary concerns and trade restrictions, may have an impact on
our business and financial condition in ways that we currently
cannot predict.
Our operations and performance depend significantly on global,
regional and U.S. economic and geopolitical conditions. Customer
demand for our solutions may be negatively impacted by weak
economic conditions, high inflation or recessionary environments in
the US and other nations. Inflation or other deteriorations in
global economic conditions may impact our operating expenses and
third parties may demand pricing accommodations, which could harm
our ability to meet customer demands or collect revenue or
otherwise harm our business and financial results.
General trade tensions between the United States and China have
been escalating, which has, in our view, created and will
perpetuate an uncertain business environment. Additionally, the
U.S. government announced new controls restricting the ability to
send certain products and technology related to semiconductors,
semiconductor manufacturing, advanced computing, and supercomputing
to China without an export license. In many cases, these licenses
are subject to a policy of denial and will not be issued. While our
current products are not restricted by these controls, such
controls could impact our ability to export products to China in
the future. It also is possible that the Chinese government will
retaliate in ways that could impact our business.
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If additional tariffs or trade restrictions are imposed on our SoC
solutions or the products of our customers, or trade restrictions
are imposed on our ability to conduct business with certain
customers, there could be a negative impact on our operations and
financial performance. Even in the absence of new restrictions,
tariffs or changes in export classifications, it is possible that
foreign customers could take actions to reduce dependence on the
supply of components, including our solutions, that could be
subject to new export classifications or trade restrictions. There
are also risks that the Chinese government may, among other things,
require the use of local suppliers, compel companies that do
business in China to partner with local companies to conduct
business and provide incentives to government-backed local
customers to buy from local suppliers. A large portion of our
employee base is in China and impacts to our China offices could
significantly harm our operations, make it difficult to support
customers and negatively impact product development. The
materialization of these risks could have a material adverse effect
on our business and financial condition. Further, our business and
performance are subject to economic conditions, and our suppliers,
distributors, and customers may suffer their own financial and
economic challenges.
Russia’s ongoing conflict with Ukraine has triggered significant
sanctions from U.S. and European leaders. Resulting changes in U.S.
trade policy could trigger retaliatory actions by Russia, its
allies and other affected countries, including China, resulting in
a trade war. For example, in addition to controls imposed on China
discussed above, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United
States and other countries imposed certain economic sanctions and
severe export control restrictions against Russia and Belarus, as
well as certain Russian nationals, which caused us to terminate
certain business relationships in those countries. These sanctions
and restrictions have continued to increase as the conflict has
further escalated, and the United States and other countries could
impose wider sanctions and export restrictions and take other
actions in the future that could impact our business. Furthermore,
if the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues for a long
period of time, or if other countries, including the U.S., become
further involved in the conflict, we could face significant adverse
effects to our business and financial condition. In addition, some
of our customers and third-party partners have engineering teams
located in Russian and/or Ukraine, whose operations have been and
may continue to be disrupted by the ongoing conflict between the
countries. If such disruption were to continue for an extended
period, our customers could face delays in the launch of new
products containing our solutions, resulting in delayed or
decreased demand for our solutions.
We have significant business operations in Taiwan, including
approximately 360 employees, and many of our third-party
manufacturing suppliers are located in Taiwan. Accordingly, our
business, financial condition and results of operations may be
affected by changes in governmental and economic policies in
Taiwan, social instability and diplomatic and social developments
in or affecting Taiwan due to its international political status.
Although significant economic and cultural relations have been
established between Taiwan and China, we cannot assure that
relations between Taiwan and China will not face political or
economic uncertainties in the future. Any deterioration in the
relations between Taiwan and China, and other factors affecting
military, political or economic conditions in Taiwan, could disrupt
our business operations and materially and adversely affect our
results of operations.
Our ability to sell our products to several China customers has
been restricted.
Several of our customers, including Hangzhou Hikvision Digital
Technology Co., Ltd, or Hikvision, Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co.,
Ltd., or Dahua, and affiliates of Shenzhen Dajiang Baiwang
Technology Co., Ltd., have been added to the Entity List of the
Bureau of Industry and Security, or BIS, of the U.S. Department of
Commerce, or Commerce, which imposes limitations on the supply of
certain U.S. items to the listed entities. In October 2022, BIS
imposed additional restrictions on transactions with Dahua
involving items subject to BIS export regulations. These export
regulations negatively impact our ability to ship items subject to
BIS regulations to these listed entities. Notwithstanding our
ability to continue to supply some SoC products to some affiliates
of the listed entities, these customers may seek to obtain similar
or substitute products from our competitors that are not subject to
these limitations, or to develop similar or substitute products
themselves. We also cannot be certain what additional actions the
U.S. government may take with respect to any of our China
customers, including changes to the Entity List restrictions,
export regulations, tariffs or other trade restrictions, or whether
the Chinese government may take any actions in response to U.S.
government action that may adversely affect our ability to do
business with our China customers. Even in the absence of new
restrictions, tariffs or trade actions imposed by the U.S. or
Chinese government, our China customers may take actions to reduce
dependence on the supply of components subject to U.S. trade
regulations, including our SoC solutions, which could have a
material adverse effect on our operating results. We are unable to
predict the duration of the restrictions imposed by the U.S.
government or of any additional governmental actions, any of which
could have a long-term adverse effect on our business, operating
results and financial condition.
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that
could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in
international markets.
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The U.S. and various foreign governments have imposed controls,
export license requirements and restrictions on the import or
export of certain products, technologies and software. We must
export our products in compliance with U.S. export controls,
including the Commerce’s Export Administration Regulations. We may
not always be successful in obtaining necessary export licenses,
and our failure to obtain required import or export approval for
our products or limitations on our ability to export or sell our
products imposed by these laws may harm both our international and
domestic sales and adversely affect our revenue. Noncompliance with
these laws could have negative consequences, including government
investigations, penalties and reputational harm.
Changes in our products or changes in export, import and economic
sanctions laws and regulations may delay our introduction of new
products in international markets, prevent our customers from
deploying our products internationally or, in some cases, prevent
the export or import of our products to or from certain countries
altogether. Any change in export or import regulations or
legislation, shift or change in enforcement, or change in the
countries, persons or technologies targeted by these regulations,
could result in decreased use of our products by, or in our
decreased ability to export or sell our products to, existing or
potential customers with international operations. In such event,
our business and results of operations could be adversely
affected.
We are subject to warranty and product liability claims and to
product recalls.
From time to time, we are subject to warranty claims that may
require us to make significant expenditures to defend these claims
or pay damage awards. In the future, we may also be subject to
product liability claims resulting from failure of our solutions or
if products we design, manufacture, or sell, cause personal injury
or property damage, even where the cause is unrelated to product
defects. These risks will likely increase as our products are
introduced into new devices, markets, or applications, including
autonomous and semi-autonomous automotive, drone and robotic
applications. In the event of a warranty claim, we may also incur
costs if we compensate the affected customer. We maintain product
liability insurance, but this insurance is limited in amount and
subject to significant deductibles. There is no guarantee that our
insurance will be available or adequate to protect against all
claims. We also may incur costs and expenses relating to a recall
of one of our customers’ products containing one of our devices.
The process of identifying a recalled product in consumer devices
that have been widely distributed may be lengthy and require
significant resources, and we may incur significant replacement
costs, contract damage claims from our customers and reputational
harm. Costs or payments made in connection with warranty and
product liability claims and product recalls could harm our
financial condition and results of operations, as well as harm our
reputation and cause the market value of our ordinary shares to
decline.
We are subject to governmental laws, regulations and other legal
obligations related to privacy, data protection and
cybersecurity.
The legislative and regulatory framework for privacy, data
protection and cybersecurity issues worldwide is rapidly evolving
and is likely to remain uncertain for the foreseeable future. We
collect and otherwise process personal information and other data
as part of our business processes and activities. This data is
subject to a variety of U.S. and international laws and
regulations, including oversight by various regulatory or other
governmental bodies. Many foreign countries and governmental
bodies, including China, the European Union and other relevant
jurisdictions where we conduct business, have laws and regulations
concerning the collection, use and other processing of personal
information and other data obtained from their residents or by
businesses operating within their jurisdictions that are more
restrictive than those in the U.S. For example, the European Union
has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, which
imposed stringent data protection requirements and provided for
substantial penalties for noncompliance, including the potential
for fines of up to €20 million or 4% of the annual global revenues
of the noncompliant entity, whichever is greater. The United
Kingdom has adopted legislation that substantially implements the
GDPR and provides for a similar penalty structure. Similarly,
California has adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018,
or CCPA, which took effect in 2020. California has adopted a new
law, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, or CPRA, that
substantially expanded the CCPA as of January 1, 2023. The CCPA, as
amended and modified by the CPRA, gives California residents the
right to access, delete and opt out of certain sharing of their
information, and imposes penalties for failure to comply. Other
U.S. states have proposed, and in certain cases enacted, similar
general privacy legislation.
In 2021, the National People’s Congress passed the Data Security
Law of the People’s Republic of China (Data Security Law) and
China’s Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL). The Data
Security Law is the first comprehensive data security legislation
in China and aims to regulate a wide range of issues in relation to
the collection, storage, processing, use, provision, transaction
and publication of any kind of data. The PIPL is the first
national-level law comprehensively regulating issues in relation to
personal information protection in China. Significant uncertainty
remains regarding how regulators will interpret and enforce these
laws, but the Data Security Law contains provisions that allow
substantial government oversight and include fines for failure to
obtain required approval from China’s cyber and data protection
regulators for cross-border personal information-related data
transfers. PIPL authorizes enforcement by cybersecurity authorities
and other regulators, and provides for fines and other remedies for
noncompliance.
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Aspects of these laws remain unclear, resulting in further
uncertainty and potentially requiring us to modify our data
practices and policies and to incur substantial additional costs
and expenses in an effort to comply. Because the interpretation and
application of many laws and regulations relating to privacy, data
protection, and data security, along with industry standards, are
uncertain, it is possible that these laws and regulations may be
interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our
data management practices or the features of our products or
solutions, and we could face fines, lawsuits, regulatory
investigations, and other claims and penalties, and we could be
required to fundamentally change our products or our business
practices, which could have an adverse effect on our business. Any
inability, or perceived inability, to adequately address privacy
and data protection concerns, or to comply with applicable laws,
regulations, policies, industry standards, contractual obligations
or other legal obligations, even if unfounded, could result in
additional cost and liability to us, inhibit sales, damage our
reputation and adversely affect our business.
Failure to comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or
FCPA, and similar laws associated with our activities outside of
the United States could subject us to penalties and other adverse
consequences.
We face significant risks if we fail to comply with the FCPA and
other anti-corruption laws that prohibit improper payments or
offers of payment to foreign governments and political parties by
us for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business. In many
foreign countries, particularly in countries with developing
economies, it may be a local custom that businesses operating in
such countries engage in business practices that are prohibited by
the FCPA or other applicable laws and regulations. Although we
implemented an FCPA compliance program, we cannot assure you that
all of our employees and agents, as well as those companies to
which we outsource certain of our business operations, will not
take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for
which we may be ultimately held responsible. Any violation of the
FCPA or other applicable anti-corruption laws could result in
severe criminal or civil sanctions and, in the case of the FCPA,
suspension or debarment from U.S. government contracting, which
could have a material and adverse effect on our reputation,
business, financial condition, operating results and cash
flows.
We, our customers and third-party contractors are subject to
increasingly complex environmental regulations and compliance with
these regulations may delay or interrupt our operations and
adversely affect our business.
We face increasing complexity in our procurement, design, and
research and development operations as a result of requirements
relating to the materials composition of our products, including
the European Union’s, or EU’s, Restriction on the Use of Certain
Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment, or
RoHS, directive, which restricts the content of lead and certain
other hazardous substances in specified electronic products put on
the market in the EU and similar Chinese legislation relating to
marking of electronic products which became effective in March
2007. Failure to comply with these and similar laws and regulations
could subject us to fines, penalties, civil or criminal sanctions,
contract damage claims, and take-back of non-compliant products,
which could harm our business, reputation and operating results.
The passage of similar requirements in additional jurisdictions or
the tightening of these standards in jurisdictions where our
products are already subject to such requirements could cause us to
incur significant expenditures to make our products compliant with
new requirements, or could limit the markets into which we may sell
our products.
Our failure to comply with present and future environmental, health
and safety laws could cause us to incur substantial costs, result
in civil or criminal fines and penalties and decreased revenue,
which could adversely affect our operating results. Failure by our
foundry vendors or other suppliers to comply with applicable
environmental laws and requirements could cause disruptions and
delays in our product shipments, which could adversely affect our
relations with our ODMs and OEMs and adversely affect our business
and results of operations.
Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may force us to incur
additional expenses, may make our supply chain more complex and may
result in damage to our reputation with customers.
Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer
Protection Act of 2010, or the Dodd-Frank Act, the Securities and
Exchange Commission, or the SEC, has adopted requirements for
companies that use certain minerals and metals, known as conflict
minerals, in their products, whether or not these products are
manufactured by third parties. These requirements require companies
to perform due diligence, disclose and report whether or not such
minerals originate from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
adjoining countries. These requirements could adversely affect the
sourcing, availability and pricing of minerals used in the
manufacture of semiconductor devices, including our products. While
these requirements continue to be subject to administrative
uncertainty, we have incurred, and may continue to incur, costs to
comply with the disclosure requirements, including costs related to
determining the source of any of the relevant minerals and metals
used in our products. Since our supply chain is complex, we may not
be able to sufficiently verify the origins for these minerals and
metals used in our products through the due diligence procedures
that we implement, which may harm our reputation. In such event, we
may also face difficulties in satisfying customers who require that
all of the components of our products are certified as conflict
mineral free.
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We are subject to regulatory compliance requirements, including
Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which are costly to
comply with, and our failure to comply with these requirements
could harm our business and operating results.
We are subject to disclosure and compliance requirements associated
with being a public company, including but not limited to
compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. For
example, Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that our
management report on, and our independent auditors attest to, the
effectiveness of our internal control structure and procedures for
financial reporting. Compliance with Section 404 requires a
significant amount of time, expenses and diversion of internal
resources. If we or our auditors discover a material weakness in
our internal controls, the disclosure of that fact, even if quickly
remedied, could reduce the market’s confidence in our financial
statements and harm our stock price. In addition, if we fail to
maintain effective controls over financial reporting, we could be
subject to sanctions or investigations by The NASDAQ Stock Market,
the SEC, or other regulatory authorities. Irrespective of
compliance with Section 404, any failure of our internal controls
could have a material adverse effect on our stated results of
operations and harm our reputation. Furthermore, investor
perceptions of our company may suffer, and this could cause a
decline in the market price of our ordinary shares.
Changes in effective tax rates or adverse outcomes resulting from
examination of our income tax returns could adversely affect our
results.
Our future effective tax rates could be adversely affected if our
earnings are lower than anticipated in countries where we have
lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries
where we have higher statutory rates, by changes in the valuation
of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, transfer pricing
adjustments, re-organization or restructuring of our businesses,
changes in our corporate structure, including the effect of
acquisitions on our legal structure, by tax costs related to
intercompany realignments, tax effects of share-based compensation,
expiration of or lapses in tax incentives, or by changes in tax
laws, regulations, accounting principles or interpretations
thereof. For example, changes in tax laws, including the U.S.
federal tax legislation commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and
Jobs Act of 2017, or Tax Act, as well as other factors, could cause
us to experience fluctuations in our tax obligations and effective
tax rates and otherwise adversely affect our tax positions and/or
our tax liabilities. The Tax Act requires complex computations not
previously provided in U.S. tax law. The U.S. Department of
Treasury has broad authority to issue regulations and
interpretative guidance that may significantly impact how we will
apply the law and impact our results of operations in the period
issued. In August 2022, the U.S. enacted the Inflation Reduction
Act of 2022 (IRA) which includes a new 15% corporate minimum tax as
well as a 1% excise tax on the fair value of corporate stock
repurchases made by U.S. corporations and certain foreign
corporations after December 31, 2022. We do not expect the IRA to
have a material impact on our financial statements.
In addition, our income tax returns are subject to continuous
examination by the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, and other tax
authorities. We regularly assess the likelihood of adverse outcomes
resulting from these examinations to determine the adequacy of our
provision for income taxes. We cannot assure you that the outcomes
from these continuous examinations will not have an adverse effect
on our operating results and financial condition.
Unfavorable tax law changes, an unfavorable governmental review of
our tax returns, changes in our geographical earnings mix or
imposition of withholding taxes on repatriated earnings could
adversely affect our effective tax rate and our operating
results.
Our operations are subject to certain taxes, such as income and
transaction taxes, in the Cayman Islands, the United States, China,
Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and other
jurisdictions in which we do business. A change in the tax laws in
the jurisdictions in which we do business, including an increase in
tax rates or an adverse change in the treatment of an item of
income or expense, possibly with retroactive effect, could result
in a material increase in the amount of taxes we incur. In
particular, past proposals have been made to change certain U.S.
tax laws relating to foreign entities with U.S. connections, which
may include us. For example, previously proposed legislation has
considered treating certain foreign corporations as U.S. domestic
corporations (and therefore taxable on all of their worldwide
income) if the management and control of the foreign corporation
occurs, directly or indirectly, primarily within the United States.
If such legislation were enacted, we could, depending on the
precise form, be subject to U.S. taxation notwithstanding our
domicile outside the United States. In addition, over the last
several years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit
Shifting Project and has been issuing guidelines and proposals
covering a number of issues, including country-by-country
reporting, permanent establishment rules, transfer pricing rules
and tax treaties. Many of these changes have been or are in the
process of being adopted by numerous countries and could materially
and adversely affect our provision for income taxes. In 2021, more
than 140 countries tentatively signed on to a framework that
imposes a global minimum tax of 15%. The Council of the European
Union has adopted this initiative for enactment by European Union
member states by December 31, 2023, with implementation into the
domestic laws of those states by the end of 2023, with the rules to
be applicable for fiscal years starting on or after December 31,
2023 for multinationals that meet the annual threshold of at least
EUR 750 million of consolidated revenues. Additional changes to
global tax laws are likely to occur, and such changes may adversely
affect our effective tax rate, operating results, and cash
flow.
41
In December 2018, the Cayman Islands passed the International Tax
Co-Operation (Economic Substance) Law, 2018, which requires Cayman
Islands companies carrying on one or more relevant activities to
maintain a substantial economic presence in the Cayman Islands.
Effective from December 31, 2019, we have structured our activities
to comply with the new law. However, the legislation remains
subject to further clarification and interpretation and
accordingly, there is no guarantee that we will be deemed to be
compliant. Furthermore, this legislation may require us to make
additional changes to the activities we carry on in the Cayman
Islands, which could increase our cost of operations, and we could
be subject to penalties for lack of compliance. As a result, we are
not able to determine the impact on our operations and net income
as of the current period.
We are subject to periodic audits or other reviews by tax
authorities in the jurisdictions in which we conduct our
activities. Any such audit, examination or review requires
management’s time, diverts internal resources and, in the event of
an unfavorable outcome, may result in additional tax liabilities or
other adjustments to our historical results.
Because we conduct operations in multiple jurisdictions, our
effective tax rate is influenced by the amounts of income and
expense attributed to each such jurisdiction. If such amounts were
to change so as to increase the amounts of our net income subject
to taxation in higher-tax jurisdictions, or if we were to commence
operations in jurisdictions assessing relatively higher tax rates,
our effective tax rate could be adversely affected. In addition, we
may determine that it is advisable from time to time to repatriate
earnings from subsidiaries under circumstances that could give rise
to imposition of potentially significant withholding taxes by the
jurisdictions in which such amounts were earned, without our
receiving the benefit of any offsetting tax credits, which could
also adversely impact our effective tax rate.
We may be classified as a passive foreign investment company which
could result in adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences for
U.S. holders of our ordinary shares.
Based on the current and anticipated valuation of our assets and
the composition of our income and assets, we do not expect to be
considered a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for U.S.
federal income tax purposes for our 2023 fiscal year or the
foreseeable future. However, a separate determination must be made
at the close of each taxable year as to whether we are a PFIC for
that taxable year, and we cannot assure you that we will not be a
PFIC for our 2024 fiscal year or any future taxable year. Under
current law, a non-U.S. corporation will be considered a PFIC for
any taxable year if either (a) at least 75% of its gross income is
passive income or (b) at least 50% of the value of its assets,
generally based on an average of the quarterly values of the assets
during a taxable year, is attributable to assets that produce or
are held for the production of passive income. PFIC status depends
on the composition of our assets and income and the value of our
assets (which may be based in part on the value of our ordinary
shares which may fluctuate), including, among others, a pro rata
portion of the income and assets of each subsidiary in which we
own, directly or indirectly, at least 25% by value of the
subsidiary’s equity interests, from time to time. Because we
currently hold, and expect to continue to hold, a substantial
amount of cash or cash equivalents, and because the calculation of
the value of our assets may be based in part on the value of our
ordinary shares which may fluctuate and may fluctuate considerably
given that market prices of technology companies historically often
have been volatile, we may be a PFIC for any taxable year. If we
were treated as a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S.
holder held ordinary shares, certain adverse U.S. federal income
tax consequences could apply for such U.S. holder.
Changes in our United States federal income tax classification, or
that of our subsidiaries, could result in adverse tax consequences
to our 10% or greater U.S. shareholders.
The Tax Act may have changed the consequences to U.S. shareholders
that own, or are considered to own, as a result of the attribution
rules, 10% or more of the voting power or value of the stock of a
non-U.S. corporation (a 10% U.S. shareholder) under the U.S.
federal income tax law applicable to owners of U.S. controlled
foreign corporations, or CFCs.
Prior to the Tax Act, we did not believe that we, or any of our
non-U.S. subsidiaries, were considered a CFC, which is a
determination made daily based on whether the 10% U.S. shareholders
together own, or are considered to own under the attribution rules,
more than 50% of the voting power or value of a non-U.S.
corporation. Under the Tax Act, however, because our group includes
one or more U.S. subsidiaries, certain of our non-U.S. subsidiaries
may be classified as CFCs with respect to any single 10% U.S.
shareholder, even without regard to whether 10% U.S. shareholders
together own, directly or indirectly, more than 50% of the voting
power or value of the Company. Our 10% or greater U.S. shareholders
should consult their individual tax advisors for advice regarding
the 2017 Act revision to the U.S. federal income tax law applicable
to owners of CFCs.
42
Risks Related to Our Intellectual Property
Our failure to adequately protect our intellectual property rights
could impair our ability to compete effectively or defend ourselves
from litigation, which could harm our business, financial condition
and results of operations.
Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our
intellectual property. We rely primarily on patent, copyright,
trademark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality and
non-disclosure agreements and other contractual protections, to
protect our proprietary technologies and know-how, all of which
offer only limited protection. The steps we have taken to protect
our intellectual property rights may not be adequate to prevent
misappropriation of our proprietary information or infringement of
our intellectual property rights, and our ability to prevent such
misappropriation or infringement is uncertain, particularly in
countries outside of the United States. The failure of our patents
to adequately protect our technology might make it easier for our
competitors to offer similar products or technologies, which would
harm our business. For example, our patents and patent applications
could be opposed, contested, circumvented, designed around by our
competitors or be declared invalid or unenforceable in judicial or
administrative proceedings. Our foreign patent protection is
generally not as comprehensive as our U.S. patent protection and
may not protect our intellectual property in some countries where
our products are sold or may be sold in the future. Many U.S.-based
companies have encountered substantial intellectual property
infringement in foreign countries, including countries where we
sell products. Even if foreign patents are granted, effective
enforcement in foreign countries may not be available. For example,
the legal environment relating to intellectual property protection
in certain emerging market countries where we operate is relatively
weaker, often making it difficult to create and enforce such
rights. We may not be able to effectively protect our intellectual
property rights in these emerging markets or elsewhere. If such an
impermissible use of our intellectual property or trade secrets
were to occur, our ability to sell our solutions at competitive
prices may be adversely affected and our business, financial
condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially and
adversely affected.
We may in the future need to initiate infringement claims or
litigation in order to try to protect our intellectual property
rights. Litigation, whether we are a plaintiff or a defendant, can
be expensive, time-consuming and may divert the efforts of our
technical staff and management, which could harm our business,
whether or not such litigation results in a determination favorable
to us. Litigation also puts our patents at risk of being
invalidated or interpreted narrowly and our patent applications at
risk of not being issued. Additionally, any enforcement of our
patents or other intellectual property may provoke third parties to
assert counterclaims against us. If we are unable to protect our
proprietary rights or if third parties independently develop or
gain access to our or similar technologies, our business, revenue,
reputation and competitive position could be harmed.
Third parties’ assertions of infringement of their intellectual
property rights could result in our having to incur significant
costs and cause our operating results to suffer.
The semiconductor industry is characterized by vigorous protection
and pursuit of intellectual property rights and positions, which
has resulted in protracted and expensive litigation for many
companies. We and certain of our customers have received, and in
the future may receive, communications from others alleging our
infringement of their patents, trade secrets or other intellectual
property rights. In addition, we and certain of our end customers
have been the subject of lawsuits alleging infringement of
intellectual property rights by our solutions or products
incorporating our solutions, including the assertion that the
alleged infringement may be attributable, at least in part, to our
technology. Such lawsuits could subject us to significant liability
for damages and invalidate our proprietary rights, though this has
not occurred to date. Any potential intellectual property
litigation also could force us to do one or more of the
following:
•
stop selling products or using technology that contain the
allegedly infringing intellectual property;
•
incur significant legal expenses;
•
pay substantial damages to the party whose intellectual property
rights we may be found to be infringing;
•
redesign those products that contain the allegedly infringing
intellectual property;
•
attempt to obtain a license to the relevant intellectual property
from third parties, which may not be available on reasonable terms
or at all; or
•
lose the opportunity to license our technology to others or to
collect royalty payments based upon successful protection and
assertion of our intellectual property against others.
Any significant impairment of our intellectual property rights from
any litigation we face could harm our business and our ability to
compete.
43
Any potential dispute involving our patents or other intellectual
property could affect our customers, which could trigger our
indemnification obligations to them and result in substantial
expense to us.
In any potential dispute involving our patents or other
intellectual property, our customers could also become the target
of litigation. Certain of our customers have received notices from
third parties claiming to have patent rights in certain technology
and inviting our customers to license this technology, and certain
of our end customers have been the subject of lawsuits alleging
infringement of patents by products incorporating our solutions,
including the assertion that the alleged infringement may be
attributable, at least in part, to our technology. Because we
generally indemnify our customers for intellectual property claims
made against them for products incorporating our technology, any
litigation could trigger technical support and indemnification
obligations under some of our license agreements, which could
result in substantial expense to us. Because some of our ODMs and
OEMs are larger than we are and have greater resources than we do,
they may be more likely to be the target of an infringement claim
by third parties than we would be, which could increase our chances
of becoming involved in a future lawsuit. If any such claims were
to succeed, we might be forced to pay damages on behalf of our ODMs
or OEMs that could increase our expenses, disrupt our ability to
sell our solutions and reduce our revenue. In addition to the time
and expense required for us to supply support or indemnification to
our customers, any such litigation could severely disrupt or shut
down the business of our customers, which in turn could hurt our
relations with our customers and cause the sale of our products to
decrease.
The use of open source software in our products, processes and
technology may expose us to additional risks and compromise our
proprietary intellectual property.
Our products, processes and technology sometimes utilize and
incorporate software that is subject to an open source license.
Open source software is typically freely accessible, usable and
modifiable. Certain open source software licenses, such as the GNU
General Public License, require a user who intends to distribute
the open source software as a component of the user’s software to
disclose publicly part or all of the source code to the user’s
software. In addition, certain open source software licenses
require the user of such software to make any derivative works of
the open source code available to others on terms unfavorable to us
or at no cost. This can subject previously proprietary software to
open source license terms.
While we monitor the use of open source software in our products,
processes and technology and try to ensure that no open source
software is used in such a way as to require us to disclose the
source code to the related product, processes or technology when we
do not wish to do so, such use could inadvertently occur.
Additionally, if a third-party software provider has incorporated
certain types of open source software into software we license from
such third-party for our products, processes or technology, we
could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the
source code to our products, processes or technology. This could
harm our intellectual property position and our business, results
of operations and financial condition.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Ordinary Shares
The market price of our ordinary shares may be volatile, which
could cause the value of your investment to decline.
The market price of our ordinary shares has historically been
highly volatile, and has been particularly volatile in recent
years. For example, since February 1, 2020, the trading price of
our common stock ranged from a low of $36.02 to a high of $227.59
and was $89.84 at the close of trading on January 31, 2023. The
trading price of our ordinary shares is likely to remain volatile
and could be subject to wide fluctuations in price in response to
various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These
factors include:
•
changes in financial estimates, including our ability to meet our
future revenue and operating profit or loss
projections;
•
fluctuations in our operating results or those of other
semiconductor or comparable companies;
•
fluctuations in the economic performance or market valuations of
companies perceived by investors to be comparable to
us;
•
economic developments in the semiconductor industry as a
whole;
•
general economic conditions, including conditions related to the
banking industry or caused by pandemics and high inflation, and
slow or negative market growth;
•
trade and other geopolitical activities affecting markets we
address;
•
announcements by us or our competitors of acquisitions, new
products, significant contracts or orders, commercial relationships
or capital commitments;
•
our ability to develop and market new and enhanced solutions on a
timely basis;
44
•
changes in the demand for our customers’ products;
•
commencement of or our involvement in litigation;
•
disruption to our operations;
•
any major change in our board of directors or
management;
•
political or social conditions in the markets where we sell our
products;
•
changes in governmental regulations; and
•
changes in earnings estimates or recommendations by securities
analysts.
In addition, the stock market in general, and the market for
semiconductor and other technology companies in particular, have
experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often
been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of
those companies. These broad market and industry factors may cause
the market price of our ordinary shares to decrease, regardless of
our actual operating performance. These trading price fluctuations
may also make it more difficult for us to use our ordinary shares
as a means to make acquisitions or to use options to purchase our
ordinary shares to attract and retain employees. If the market
price of our ordinary shares declines, you may not realize any
return on your investment in us and may lose some or all of your
investment. In addition, in the past, following periods of
volatility in the overall market and the market price of a
company’s securities, securities class action litigation has often
been instituted against these companies. This litigation, if
instituted against us, could result in substantial costs and a
diversion of our management’s attention and resources.
Our actual operating results may not meet or exceed our guidance
and investor expectations, which would likely cause our stock price
to decline.
From time to time, we may release guidance in our earnings
releases, earnings conference calls or otherwise, regarding our
future performance that represent our management’s estimates as of
the date of release. If given, this guidance, which will include
forward-looking statements, will be based on projections prepared
by our management. Projections are based upon a number of
assumptions and estimates that, while presented with numerical
specificity, are inherently subject to significant business,
economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of
which are beyond our control. The principal reason that we expect
to release guidance is to provide a basis for our management to
discuss our business outlook with analysts and investors. With or
without our guidance, analysts and other investors may publish
expectations regarding our business, financial performance and
results of operations. We do not accept any responsibility for any
projections or reports published by any such third
persons.
Guidance is necessarily speculative in nature, and it can be
expected that some or all of the assumptions of the guidance
furnished by us will not materialize or will vary significantly
from actual results. If our actual performance does not meet or
exceed our guidance or investor expectations, the trading price of
our ordinary shares is likely to decline. Similarly, if our
guidance does not meet or exceed expectations of investors or
securities analysts, the trading price of our ordinary shares is
likely to decline.
The price of our ordinary shares could decrease as a result of
shares being sold in the market.
Sales of a substantial number of our ordinary shares in the public
market, or the perception that these sales might occur, could cause
the market price of our ordinary shares to decline. In the past, we
have issued stock options to employees and we regularly issue
restricted stock units (RSUs) to employees, which settle as
ordinary shares upon vesting. These shares can be freely sold in
the public market upon issuance and vesting, subject to
restrictions provided under the terms of the applicable plan and/or
the option agreements entered into with option holders. We may also
issue ordinary shares or securities convertible into ordinary
shares from time to time in connection with a financing,
acquisition or otherwise. Any such issuance could result in
substantial dilution to our existing shareholders and cause the
trading price of our stock to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends on our ordinary shares and,
consequently, a shareholder’s ability to achieve a return on its
investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our ordinary
shares.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our ordinary
shares and do not currently intend to do so for the foreseeable
future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings, if any,
to fund our growth. Therefore, shareholders are not likely to
receive any dividends on their ordinary shares for the foreseeable
future and the success of an investment in our ordinary shares will
depend upon any future appreciation in their value. There is no
guarantee that our ordinary shares will appreciate in value or even
maintain the price at which our shareholders have purchased their
shares. Investors seeking cash dividends should not purchase our
ordinary shares.
45
Provisions of our memorandum and articles of association and Cayman
Islands corporate law may discourage or prevent an acquisition of
us which could adversely affect the value of our ordinary
shares.
Provisions of our memorandum and articles of association and Cayman
Islands law may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change
of control or changes in our management. These provisions include
the following:
•
the division of our board of directors into three
classes;
•
the right of our board of directors to elect a director to fill a
vacancy created by the expansion of our board of directors or due
to the resignation or departure of an existing board
member;
•
prohibition of cumulative voting in the election of directors which
would otherwise allow less than a majority of shareholders to elect
director candidates;
•
the requirement for the advance notice of nominations for election
to our board of directors or for proposing matters that can be
acted upon at a shareholders’ meeting;
•
the ability of our board of directors to issue, without shareholder
approval, such amounts of preference shares as the board of
directors deems necessary and appropriate with terms set by our
board of directors, which rights could be senior to those of our
ordinary shares;
•
the elimination of the rights of shareholders to call a special
meeting of shareholders and to take action by written consent in
lieu of a meeting; and
•
the required approval of a special resolution of the shareholders,
being a two-thirds vote of shares held by shareholders present and
voting at a shareholder meeting, to alter or amend the provisions
of our post-offering memorandum and articles of
association.
Holders of our ordinary shares may face difficulties in protecting
their interests because we are incorporated under Cayman Islands
law.
Our corporate affairs are governed by our amended and restated
memorandum and articles of association, by the Companies Law (as
the same may be supplemented or amended from time to time) of the
Cayman Islands and by the common law of the Cayman Islands. The
rights of our shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of
our directors under Cayman Islands law are not as clearly
established as under statutes or judicial precedent in existence in
jurisdictions in the United States. In particular, the Cayman
Islands has a less developed body of securities laws than the
United States and provides significantly less protection to
investors. There is no legislation specifically dedicated to the
rights of investors in securities and thus no statutorily defined
private cause of action specific to investors such as those
provided under the Securities Act or the Securities Exchange Act of
1934, as amended. In addition, shareholders of Cayman Islands
companies may not have standing to initiate shareholder derivative
actions in U.S. federal courts. Therefore, you may have more
difficulty in protecting your interests in the face of actions by
our management, directors or controlling shareholders than would
shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a jurisdiction in the
United States due to the comparatively less developed nature of
Cayman Islands law in this area.
Shareholders of Cayman Islands exempted companies, such as our
company, have no general rights under Cayman Islands law to inspect
corporate records and accounts or to obtain copies of lists of
shareholders of the company. Our directors have discretion under
our articles of association to determine whether or not, and under
what conditions, our corporate records may be inspected by our
shareholders, but are not obliged to make them available to our
shareholders. This may make it more difficult for you to obtain the
information needed to establish any facts necessary for a
shareholder motion or to solicit proxies from other shareholders in
connection with a proxy contest.
Subject to limited exceptions, under Cayman Islands law, a minority
shareholder may not bring a derivative action against the board of
directors.
46
Holders of our ordinary shares may have difficulty obtaining or
enforcing a judgment against us because we are incorporated under
the laws of the Cayman Islands.
It may be difficult or impossible for you to bring an action
against us in the Cayman Islands if you believe your rights have
been infringed under U.S. securities laws. There is no statutory
recognition in the Cayman Islands of judgments obtained in the
United States, although the courts of the Cayman Islands will in
certain circumstances recognize and enforce a non-penal judgment of
a foreign court of competent jurisdiction without retrial on the
merits. While there is no binding authority on this point, this is
likely to include, in certain circumstances, a non-penal judgment
of a United States court imposing a monetary award based on the
civil liability provisions of the U.S. federal securities laws. The
Grand Court of the Cayman Islands may stay proceedings if
concurrent proceedings are being brought elsewhere. There is
uncertainty as to whether the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands
would recognize or enforce judgments of United States courts
obtained against us predicated upon the civil liability provisions
of the securities laws of the United States or any state thereof
and whether the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands would hear
original actions brought in the Cayman Islands against us
predicated upon the securities laws of the United States or any
state thereof.
General Risk Factors
If our operations are interrupted, our business and reputation
could suffer.
Our operations and those of our manufacturers are vulnerable to
interruption caused by technical breakdowns, computer hardware and
software malfunctions, software viruses, infrastructure failures,
pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic and regional health
issues, earthquakes, fires, severe storms, floods and other
negative impacts from climate change, power losses,
telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks, wars, Internet
failures and other events beyond our control. Our operations could
also be disrupted by geopolitical conditions, particularly in
Taiwan or China, where the majority of our employees are located.
Any disruption in our services or operations could result in a
reduction in revenue, delay product development and R&D, or
result in a claim for substantial damages against us, regardless of
whether we are responsible for that failure. If remote or work from
home conditions were to continue for an extended period of time, we
may experience delays in product development, a decreased ability
to support our customers, reduced design win activity, and overall
lack of productivity. We rely on our computer equipment, database
storage facilities and other office equipment, which are located
primarily in the seismically active San Francisco Bay Area and
Taiwan. If we suffer a significant database or network facility
outage, our business could experience disruption until we fully
implement our back-up systems.
If securities analysts or industry analysts downgrade our ordinary
shares, publish negative research or reports or fail to publish
reports about our business, our stock price and trading volume
could decline.
The trading market for our ordinary shares will be influenced by
the research and reports that industry or securities analysts
publish about us, our business and our market. If one or more
analysts adversely changes their recommendation regarding our stock
or our competitors’ stock, our stock price would likely decline. If
one or more analysts cease coverage of us or fail to regularly
publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial
markets which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume
to decline.
None.
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Our corporate headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California.
These facilities accommodate our sales, marketing, research and
development, finance, and administration activities. Outside of
Santa Clara, California, we lease some facilities in other U.S.
locations that are used for research and development and marketing
activities. Outside of the United States, we also lease facilities
in various international locations that are used for research and
development, sales, business development, operations and
administrative support. These international facilities are mainly
located in Taiwan, China and Italy. Our lease obligations primarily
consist of operating leases with lease periods expiring between
fiscal years 2024 to 2028.
47
We believe that our existing facilities are well maintained and in
good operating condition, and are sufficient for our needs for the
foreseeable future. The following table lists our major locations
and primary usage as of January 31, 2023:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Approximate
|
|
|
|
|
|
Square
|
|
|
|
Major Locations
|
|
Footage
|
|
|
Usage
|
United States:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Santa Clara, California
|
|
|
61,700
|
|
|
Corporate Headquarters; Sales; Marketing; Research and Development;
Finance;
Administration
|
Wixom, Michigan
|
|
|
2,700
|
|
|
Business Development
|
Beavercreek, Ohio
|
|
|
16,000
|
|
|
Research and Development
|
Asia Pacific:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hsinchu, Taiwan
|
|
|
85,700
|
|
|
Research and Development; Business Development; Operations;
Administration
|
Shanghai, China
|
|
|
31,600
|
|
|
Research and Development; Business Development
|
Shenzhen, China
|
|
|
19,200
|
|
|
Research and Development; Business Development
|
Kowloon, Hong Kong
|
|
|
9,000
|
|
|
Sales; Warehousing
|
Shin-Yokohama, Japan
|
|
|
1,300
|
|
|
Business Development
|
SeongNam, South Korea
|
|
|
1,500
|
|
|
Business Development
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Europe:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Parma, Italy
|
|
|
12,100
|
|
|
Research and Development
|
ITEM 3. LEGAL
PROCEEDINGS
We are not engaged in any material legal proceedings at this time.
However, from time to time, we may be subject to commercial
disputes, employment issues, intellectual property claims and
litigation, in the ordinary course of our business. Refer to Note
15, Commitments and Contingencies within Notes to Consolidated
Financial Statements for further information.
ITEM 4. MINE
SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
48
PART
II
ITEM 5. MARKET
FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND
ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Market Information
Our ordinary shares are traded on the NASDAQ Global Market under
the symbol “AMBA”. On March 24, 2023, there were 29 shareholders of
record holding our ordinary shares. We cannot estimate the number
of beneficial owners since many brokers and other institutions hold
our shares on behalf of shareholders.
Share Performance Graph
This performance graph shall not be deemed to be “soliciting
material” or “filed” or incorporated by reference in future filings
with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or subject to the
liabilities of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
as amended, or the Exchange Act, except as shall be expressly set
forth by specific reference in such filing.
The following graph shows a comparison from February 1, 2018
through January 31, 2023 of the cumulative total return for our
ordinary shares, the NASDAQ Composite Index and the Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index. The comparisons in the graph are historical
and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of possible
future performance of our ordinary shares.
Comparison of 5 year Cumulative Total Return
Dividends
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our ordinary
shares and do not currently intend to do so in the foreseeable
future.
Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation
Plans
For information about our equity compensation plans, see Note 12,
“Employee Benefits and Stock-based Compensation” of the Notes to
Consolidated Financial Statements included in this
report.
49
Purchases of Equity Securities by the Issuer
On March 16, 2020, we repurchased a total of 25,719 of our ordinary
shares for approximately $1.0 million in cash under an authorized
repurchase program up to $50.0 million. Our Board of Directors has
approved extensions of the repurchase program through June 30,
2023. There were no shares repurchased in fiscal years 2023 and
2022. As of January 31, 2023, there was approximately $49.0 million
available for repurchases through June 30, 2023. Repurchases under
the program may be made from time-to-time through open market
purchases, 10b5-1 plans or privately negotiated transactions
subject to market conditions, applicable legal requirements and
other relevant factors. The repurchase program does not obligate us
to acquire any particular amount of ordinary shares, and it may be
suspended at any time at the company's discretion. Repurchases are
funded using working capital and any repurchased shares are
recorded as authorized but unissued shares.
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
None.
50
ITEM 6.
[RESERVED]
51
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF
OPERATIONS
Overview
We are a leading developer of low-power system-on-a-chip, or SoC,
semiconductors providing powerful artificial intelligence, or AI,
processing, advanced image signal processing and high-resolution
video compression. Since inception, we have primarily served human
viewing applications with video and image processors for
enterprise, public infrastructure and home applications, such as
internet protocol, or IP, security cameras, sports cameras,
wearables, aerial drones, and aftermarket automotive video
recorders. Our recent development efforts have focused on creating
advanced AI technology that enables edge devices to visually
perceive the environment and make decisions based on the data
collected from cameras and, most recently, other types of sensors.
This category of AI technology is known as computer vision, or CV,
and our CV SoCs integrate our state-of-the-art video processor
technology together with our deep learning neural network
processing technology, which we refer to as CVflow™. The
CVflow-architecture supports a variety of CV algorithms, including
object detection, classification and tracking, semantic and
instance segmentation, image processing, stereo object detection,
terrain mapping, and face recognition. CVflow can process other
sensor modalities including lidar and radar, and allows customers
to differentiate their products by porting their own, or third
party, neural networks and/or classical CV algorithms to our
CVflow-based SoCs. Our SoC designs fully integrate AI, computer
vision functionality, high-definition, or HD, video processing,
image processing, audio processing, and system functions onto a
single chip, delivering exceptional video and image quality at high
compression rates, differentiated functionality and low power
consumption. These CV-based technologies are allowing us to address
a broader range of markets and applications requiring AI video
features, including IP security cameras, a variety of automotive
cameras, consumer cameras, and industrial and robotic applications.
We anticipate that our CV technology will also enable us to capture
more content per electronic system and increase our average selling
price.
Our development efforts are focused on SoCs that provide human
viewing, computer vision and radar detection functionalities. As a
result, we believe that our future revenue growth, if any, will
significantly depend upon our ability to expand within camera
markets with our AI and computer vision technology, particularly in
the Internet of Things, or IoT, markets, as well as emerging
markets such as AI-enabled security cameras, AI-based driving
applications, including driver monitoring systems, advanced blind
spot detection, object detection, and deep learning algorithms for
HD mapping solutions, automotive advanced driver assistance
systems, or ADAS, applications, and industrial and robotics
markets. We expect our research and development expenditures to
increase in comparison to prior periods as we devote additional
resources to the development of innovative video and image
processing solutions with increased functionality, such as AI and
CV capabilities, and as we target new markets.
We sell our SoC solutions to leading original design manufacturers,
or ODMs, and original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, globally,
and in the automotive market, we also sell to Tier-1 suppliers. We
refer to ODMs and Tier-1 automotive suppliers as our customers and
OEMs as our end customers, except as otherwise indicated or as the
context otherwise requires.
Our sales cycles typically require a significant investment of time
and a substantial expenditure of resources before we can realize
revenue from the sale of our solutions, if any. Our typical sales
cycle consists of a multi-month sales and development process
involving our customers’ system designers and management and our
sales personnel and software engineers. If successful, this process
culminates in a customer’s decision to use our solutions in its
system, which we refer to as a design win. Our sales efforts are
typically directed to the OEM of the product that will incorporate
our video and image processing solution, but the eventual design
and incorporation of our SoC into the product may be handled by an
ODM or Tier-1 supplier on behalf of the OEM.
Volume production may begin within 9 to 18 months after a design
win, but could be longer in certain markets, depending on the
complexity of our customer’s product and other factors upon which
we may have little or no influence. In general, design cycles will
be longer in the OEM automotive and industrial and robotics markets
than in the IoT markets. Once our solutions have been incorporated
into a customer’s design, they are likely to be used for the life
cycle of the customer’s product. Conversely, a design loss to a
competitor will likely preclude any opportunity for future revenue
from such customer’s product. Even if we obtain a design win and
our SoC remains a component through the life cycle of a customer’s
product, the volume and timing of actual sales of our SoCs to the
customer depend upon the production, release and market acceptance
of that product, none of which are within our control. An IoT
product typically has a life cycle of 6 to 24 months. We anticipate
that product lifecycles will typically be longer than 24 months in
the OEM automotive and industrial and robotics markets, as new
product introductions occur less frequently in these
markets.
52
Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Highlights and Trends
•
We recorded revenue of $337.6 million in fiscal year 2023, an
increase of 1.7% as compared to fiscal year 2022. The increase in
revenue was primarily due to continued adoption of our CV-based
solutions, which have higher average selling prices, and increased
non-recurring engineering (NRE) project services, partially offset
by lower product unit shipments driven by customer inventory level
reductions as a result of improved supply chain lead times across
the semiconductor industry.
•
We recorded an operating loss of $74.3 million in fiscal year 2023,
as compared to an operating loss of $29.6 million in fiscal year
2022. The higher operating loss was primarily due to higher
operating expenses, partially offset by increased revenue and gross
profit. The increased operating expenses primarily related to
higher personnel costs, including stock-based compensation, as a
result of the acquisition of Oculii Corporation, or Oculii, in late
fiscal year 2022 and benefit programs. The increases were also
attributable to higher chip tape-out costs due to the timing and
number of chips in development and increased engineering-related
expenses for supporting automotive, robotic and industrial
applications of our CV-based vision and radar solutions. The
increased operating expenses were partially offset by decreased
acquisition-related costs associated with the acquisition of Oculii
in the prior fiscal year.
•
We generated cash flows from operating activities of $44.1 million
in fiscal year 2023, as compared to $38.8 million in fiscal year
2022. The higher cash flows from operating activities were
primarily attributable to higher collections of accounts receivable
associated with the timing of sales and lower inventory purchases
due to customer inventory level reductions as a result of improved
supply chain lead times across the semiconductor industry,
partially offset by increased net loss adjusted for certain
non-cash items and decreased liabilities associated with employee
benefit payments and the timing of payments to our
suppliers.
•
In the second quarter of fiscal year 2023, we resumed our
investments in money market funds and debt securities after a full
liquidation of our investments to finance the Oculii acquisition in
fiscal year 2022. The debt security investment portfolio consists
of commercial paper, debt securities of corporations or corporate
bonds, asset-backed securities and U.S. government securities. All
of the investments are denominated in United States dollars and are
reported at a fair value of approximately $101.2 million with
unrealized losses of $0.5 million in our consolidated balance
sheets.
Factors Affecting Our Performance
Impact of Global Supply Shortages on Our Business.
Global supply shortages, and uncertainty in customer demand as well
as the worldwide economy, in general, have continued as a result of
the COVID-19 pandemic, and may be further exacerbated by the
impacts of high inflation. Supply chain issues impact our business
as they relate to both our suppliers and our customers. With
respect to our suppliers, we have in the past experienced supply
constraints for certain chips from Samsung Electronics Corporation
and we may in the future experience similar issues. With respect to
our customers, to the extent customers face supply chain issues
with other components needed to pair with our products in order to
produce their end products, such customers may delay future orders
of our products or hold inventory of our products for longer
periods of time. As a result, we may experience increased
volatility in our sales and revenues in the near future, primarily
owing to uncertainty around demand for semiconductor products, in
general. In addition, recently, some customers have indicated they
are reducing their inventory levels, as some component lead times
contract toward normal levels. This may reduce such customers’
demand for our products. The magnitude and duration of such
volatility is uncertain and thus its impact on our business cannot
be reasonably estimated at this time.
53
Ability to Capitalize on AI and Computer Vision
Trends.
We expect that AI and computer vision functionality will become an
increasingly important requirement in many of our current and
future markets, including IoT, automotive, industrial and robotics
markets. As a result, we believe that our ability to develop
advanced AI computer vision technology, enable and support customer
product development in emerging applications, such as ADAS,
advanced blind spot detection, object detection, classification and
tracking, people recognition, retail analytics, and machine
learning, and gain customer acceptance of our technology platform
and solutions will be critical to our future success. Moreover,
achieving design wins, particularly for computer vision-centric
applications in the IoT, automotive, industrial and robotics
markets, is vital to our ability to generate revenue growth. As
such, we closely monitor design wins by our customers. However, a
design win may not successfully materialize into revenue, and even
if it does result in revenue, the amount generated by each design
win can vary significantly.
Ability to Develop and Introduce New or Enhanced
Solutions.
We operate in a dynamic environment characterized by rapidly
changing technologies and technological obsolescence. To compete
successfully, we must design, develop, market and sell enhanced
solutions with increased levels of performance and functionality
that meet the expectations of our customers. As such, we
continuously invest in our research and development projects,
especially AI and computer vision technologies. However, failure to
anticipate or timely develop new or enhanced solutions in response
to technology shifts and trends could result in decreased revenue
and our competitors achieving design wins we sought. Moreover, any
reliability or quality problems with our solutions could harm our
reputation, increase additional development and replacement costs,
and prevent us from retaining existing customers and attracting new
customers.
Pricing, Product Cost and Margin.
Our pricing and margins depend on the volumes and features of the
solutions we provide to our customers. Additionally, we make
significant investments in new solutions for both cost improvements
and new features that we expect to drive revenue and maintain
margins. In general, solutions incorporated into more complex
configurations, such as those used in high-performance camera
applications or, in the future, advanced driver assistance systems,
have higher prices and higher gross margins as compared to
solutions sold into lower-performing, more competitive camera
applications. Our average selling price can vary by market and
application due to market-specific supply and demand, the
maturation of products launched in previous years and the launch of
new products by us or our competitors.
We continually monitor the cost of our solutions. As we rely on
third-party manufacturers for the manufacture of our products, we
maintain a close relationship with these suppliers to continually
monitor production yields, component costs and design
efficiencies.
Continued Concentration of Revenue by End Market.
Historically, our revenue has been significantly concentrated in a
small number of end markets and we developed technologies to
provide solutions for new markets as they emerged. Since fiscal
year 2018, the IoT markets and automotive markets have been our
largest end markets and sales into these markets collectively
generated the majority of our revenue. We believe, however, that
continued expansion into new markets is required to facilitate
revenue growth and customer diversification. We have recently
introduced solutions to address emerging applications and markets,
such as the incorporation of AI and computer vision functionalities
for AI-enabled security cameras, AI-based driving applications and
industrial and robotics markets. While we will continue to seek to
expand our end market exposure, we anticipate that sales to a
limited number of markets will continue to account for a
significant percentage of our total revenue for the foreseeable
future. Our limited market concentration may cause our financial
performance to fluctuate significantly from period to period based
on the success or failure of products that our SoCs are designed
into as well as the overall growth or decline in the video capture
markets in which we compete. In addition, we derive a significant
portion of our revenue from a limited number of ODMs who build
products on behalf of a limited number of OEMs and from a limited
number of OEMs to whom we ship directly. We believe that our
operating results for the foreseeable future will continue to
depend on sales to a relatively small number of
customers.
Ability to Capitalize on Connectivity Trends.
Mobile connected devices are ubiquitous today and play an
increasingly prominent role in consumers’ lives. The constant
connectivity provided by these devices has created a demand for
connected electronic peripherals such as video and image capture
devices. Our ability to capitalize on these trends by supporting
our end customers in the development of connected peripherals that
seamlessly cooperate with other connected devices and allow
consumers to distribute and share video and images with online
media platforms is critical for our success. We incorporate
wireless communication functionality into our solutions for
wearable, IP security, aerial drone and automotive video recorder
cameras. The combination of our compression technology with
wireless connectivity enables wireless video streaming and
uploading of videos and images to the Internet. Our solutions
enable IP security camera systems to stream video content to either
cloud infrastructure or connected mobile devices, and our solutions
for wearable and aerial drone cameras allow consumers to quickly
stream or upload video and images to social media
platforms.
54
Sales Volume.
A typical design win that successfully launches into the
marketplace can generate a wide range of sales volumes for our
solutions, depending on the end market demand for our customers’
products. Our ability to accurately forecast demand can be
adversely affected by a number of factors, including the reputation
of the end customer, market penetration, product capabilities, size
of the end market that the product addresses, our end customers’
ability to sell their products, miscalculations by our customers of
their inventory requirements, changes in market conditions, adverse
changes in our product order mix and fluctuating demand for our
customers’ products. In certain cases, we may provide volume
discounts on sales of our solutions, which may be offset by lower
manufacturing costs related to higher volumes. In general, our
customers with greater market penetration and better branding tend
to develop products that generate larger volumes over the product
life cycle.
Customer Product Life Cycle.
We estimate our customers’ product life cycles based on the
customer, type of product and end market. We typically commence
commercial shipments from 9 to 18 months following a design win;
however, in some markets, lengthier product and development cycles
are possible, depending on the scope and nature of the project,
such as in the automotive market. An IoT product typically has a
product life cycle of 6 to 24 months. We anticipate that product
development and product life cycles will typically be longer than
24 months in the OEM automotive, Tier-1 automotive suppliers and
robotics markets, as new product introductions typically occur less
frequently in these markets.
Results of Operations
The following table sets forth our historical operating results for
the periods indicated:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Year Ended January 31,
|
|
|
|
2023
|
|
|
2022
|
|
|
2021
|
|
|
|
(dollars in thousands)
|
|
Revenue
|
|
$
|
337,606
|
|
|
$
|
331,856
|
|
|
$
|
222,990
|
|
Cost of revenue
|
|
|
128,672
|
|
|
|
123,724
|
|
|
|
87,417
|
|
Gross profit
|
|
|
208,934
|
|
|
|
208,132
|
|
|
|
135,573
|
|
Operating expenses:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Research and development
|
|
|
204,946
|
|
|
|
167,337
|
|
|
|
140,759
|
|
Selling, general and administrative
|
|
|
78,244
|
|
|
|
70,438
|
|
|
|
55,980
|
|
Total operating expenses
|
|
|
283,190
|
|
|
|
237,775
|
|
|
|
196,739
|
|
Loss from operations
|
|
|
(74,256
|
)
|
|
|
(29,643
|
)
|
|
|
(61,166
|
)
|
Other income, net
|
|
|
3,318
|
|
|
|
1,002
|
|
|
|
3,863
|
|
Loss before income taxes
|
|
|
(70,938
|
)
|
|
|
(28,641
|
)
|
|
|
(57,303
|
)
|
Provision (benefit) for income taxes
|
|
|
(5,552
|
)
|
|
|
(2,230
|
)
|
|
|
2,483
|
|
Net loss
|
|
$
|
(65,386
|
)
|
|
$
|
(26,411
|
)
|
|
$
|
(59,786
|
)
|
The following table sets forth our historical operating results as
a percentage of revenue of each line item for the periods
indicated:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Year Ended January 31,
|
|
|
|
|
2023
|
|
|
2022
|
|
|
2021
|
|
|
Revenue
|
|
|
100
|
|
%
|
|
100
|
|
%
|
|
100
|
|
%
|
Cost of revenue
|
|
|
38
|
|
|
|
37
|
|
|
|
39
|
|
|
Gross profit
|
|
|
62
|
|
|
|
63
|
|
|
|
61
|
|
|
Operating expenses:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Research and development
|
|
|
61
|
|
|
|
50
|
|
|
|
63
|
|
|
Selling, general and administrative
|
|
|
23
|
|
|
|
21
|
|
|
|
25
|
|
|
Total operating expenses
|
|
|
84
|
|
|
|
71
|
|
|
|
88
|
|
|
Loss from operations
|
|
|
(22
|
)
|
|
|
(8
|
)
|
|
|
(27
|
)
|
|
Other income, net
|
|
|
1
|
|
|
|
—
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
Loss before income taxes
|
|
|
(21
|
)
|
|
|
(8
|
)
|
|
|
(25
|
)
|
|
Provision (benefit) for income taxes
|
|
|
(2
|
)
|
|
|
—
|
|
|
|
2
|
|
|
Net loss
|
|
|
(19
|
)
|
%
|
|
(8
|
)
|
%
|
|
(27
|
)
|
%
|
55
Revenue
We derive substantially all of our revenue from the sale of HD and
Ultra HD video and image processing SoC solutions to IoT OEMs, IoT
ODMs, OEM or Tier-1 automotive suppliers, either directly or
through our distributors. In recent years, our SoC solutions have
been primarily used in IoT camera markets, such as IP security,
automotive video recorder, drone and wearable cameras. Although we
expect these human viewing camera markets to continue to generate
revenue for the foreseeable future, we have recently introduced new
SoCs targeting emerging AI and computer vision applications in the
IoT, automotive, industrial and robotics markets. We derive a
substantial portion of our revenue from sales made indirectly
through one of our distributors, WT Microelectronics Co., Ltd.,
formerly Wintech Microelectronics Co., Ltd., or WT, and directly to
one of our ODM customers, Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd., or
Chicony.
The continued effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent
supply chain challenges have negatively affected our business
performance and revenues this year, and may continue in the next
fiscal year. Our average selling prices fluctuate based on the mix
of our solutions sold in a period which reflects the impact of both
changes in unit sales of existing solutions as well as the
introduction and sales of new solutions. Our CV-based solutions
generally have higher selling prices than our traditional video and
image processing SoC solutions that do not enable CV functionality.
Our solutions are typically characterized by a life cycle that
begins with higher average selling prices and lower volumes,
followed by broader market adoption, higher volumes and average
selling prices that are lower than initial levels.
The end markets into which we sell our products have seen
significant changes as consumer preferences have evolved in
response to new technologies. As a result, the composition and
timing of our revenue may differ meaningfully during periods of
technology or consumer preference changes. We expect shifts in
consumer use of video capture to continue to change over time, as
AI and computer vision specialized use cases emerge and video
capture continues to proliferate.
Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin
Cost of revenue includes the cost of materials, such as wafers
processed by third-party foundries, costs associated with
packaging, assembly, testing and manufacturing support operations,
such as logistics, planning and quality assurance, as well as
personnel costs (including stock-based compensation) related to
project service agreements. Cost of revenue also includes indirect
costs, such as inventory valuation reserves, adverse purchase
commitments, allocation of facility costs, amortization of
developed technology, warranty and other general overhead
costs.
We expect that our gross margin may fluctuate from period to period
as a result of changes in customer mix, average selling price,
product mix and the introduction of new products by us or our
competitors. In general, solutions incorporated into more complex
configurations, such as those used in high-performance cameras, and
in future advanced automotive OEM applications, have had or are
expected to have higher prices and higher gross margins, as
compared to solutions sold into the lower-performance, more
competitive camera applications. As semiconductor products mature
and unit volumes sold to customers increase, their average selling
prices typically decline. These declines may be paired with
improvements in manufacturing yields and lower wafer, packaging and
test costs, which offset some of the margin reduction that could
result from lower selling prices.
Research and Development
Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel
costs, including salaries, stock-based compensation and employee
benefits. The expense also includes costs of development incurred
in connection with our collaborations with our foundry vendors,
costs and amortization of licensing intellectual property from
third parties for product development, costs of development for
software and hardware tools, costs of fabrication of mask sets for
prototype products, equipment expenses, outside services as well as
allocated depreciation and facility expenses. All research and
development costs are expensed as incurred. We expect our research
and development expense to increase in absolute dollars as we
continue to enhance and expand our product features and offerings
and increase headcount for new SoC development and development of
computer vision technology.
Selling, General and Administrative
Selling, general and administrative expense consists primarily of
personnel costs, including salaries, stock-based compensation and
employee benefits for our sales, marketing, finance, human
resources, information technology and administrative personnel. The
expense also includes amortization of trade name and customer
relationships, professional service costs related to accounting,
tax, legal services, and allocated depreciation and facility
expenses. We expect our selling, general and administrative expense
to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to maintain the
infrastructure and expand the size of our sales and marketing
organization to support our business strategy of addressing new
opportunities with our computer vision technology.
56
Other Income, Net
Other income, net, consists primarily of interest income and
realized gains and losses from our cash deposits and debt security
investments, subsidies granted by a foreign government as well as
gains and losses from foreign currency transactions and
remeasurements.
Provision (Benefit) for Income Taxes
We are incorporated and domiciled in the Cayman Islands and also
conduct business in several countries such as the United States,
China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Italy, South Korea, Germany, and Japan,
and we are subject to taxation in those jurisdictions. Our
worldwide operating income is subject to varying tax rates, and our
effective tax rate is highly dependent upon the geographic
distribution of our earnings or losses and the tax laws and
regulations in each geographical region. It is also subject to
fluctuation from changes in the valuation of our deferred tax
assets and liabilities; tax benefits from excess stock-based
compensation deductions; transfer pricing adjustments and the tax
effects of nondeductible compensation. We have historically had
lower effective tax rates as a substantial percentage of our
operations are conducted in lower-tax jurisdictions. If our
operational structure were to change in such a manner that would
increase the amount of operating income subject to taxation in
higher-tax jurisdictions, or if we were to commence operations in
jurisdictions assessing relatively higher tax rates, our effective
tax rate could fluctuate significantly on a quarterly basis and/or
be adversely affected.
Significant judgment is required in evaluating our uncertain tax
positions and determining our provision for income taxes. Although
we believe our reserves are reasonable, no assurance can be given
that the final tax outcome of these matters will not be different
from that which is reflected in our historical provision for income
taxes and accruals. We adjust these reserves in light of changing
facts and circumstances, such as the closing of a tax audit or the
refinement of an estimate. To the extent that the final tax outcome
of these matters is different than the amounts recorded, such
differences will impact the provision for income taxes in the
period in which such determination is made. The provision for
income taxes includes the impact of uncertain tax position reserves
and changes to reserves that are considered appropriate, as well as
the related net interest and penalties.
Significant judgment is also required in determining any valuation
allowance recorded against deferred tax assets. In assessing the
need for a valuation allowance, we consider all available evidence,
including past operating results, estimates of future taxable
income, and the feasibility of tax planning strategies. In the
event that we change our determination as to the amount of deferred
tax assets that can be realized, we will adjust our valuation
allowance with a corresponding impact to the provision for income
taxes in the period in which such determination is made.
Comparison of the Fiscal Years Ended January 31, 2023, 2022 and
2021
Revenue
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change
|
|
|
|
Year Ended January 31,
|
|
|
2023
|
|
|
2022
|
|
|
|
2023
|
|
|
2022
|
|
|
2021
|
|
|
Amount
|
|
|
%
|
|
|
Amount
|
|
|
%
|
|
|
|
(dollars in thousands)
|
|
Revenue
|
|
$
|
337,606
|
|
|
$
|
331,856
|
|
|
$
|
222,990
|
|
|
$
|
5,750
|
|
|
|
1.7
|
%
|
|
$
|
108,866
|
|
|
|
48.8
|
%
|
Revenue increased for fiscal year 2023, as compared to fiscal year
2022, primarily due to continued adoption of our CV-based
solutions, which have higher average selling prices, and increased
NRE project services, partially offset by lower product unit
shipments driven by customer inventory level reductions as a result
of improved supply chain lead times across the semiconductor
industry.
Revenue increased for fiscal year 2022, as compared to fiscal year
2021, primarily due to higher product unit shipments driven by
higher customer inventory levels as a result of supply chain
constraints across the semiconductor industry. The increased
revenue was also attributable to continued adoption of our CV-based
solutions which have higher average selling prices.
Cost of Revenue and Gross Margin
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change
|
|
|
|
Year Ended January 31,
|
|
|
2023
|
|
|
|