NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) 10-K2021 FY Annual report

We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements and disclaim any obligation to update our view of any risks or uncertainties described herein or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to the forward-looking statements made in this Annual Report, except as required by law.

In addition, this Annual Report contains information concerning the semiconductor industry and business segments generally, which is forward-looking in nature and is based on a variety of assumptions regarding the ways in which the semiconductor industry, our market and business segments will develop. We have based these assumptions on information currently available to us, including through the market research and industry reports referred to in this Annual Report. If any one or more of these assumptions turn out to be incorrect, actual market results may differ from those predicted. While we do not know what impact any such differences may have on our business, if there are such differences, they could have a material adverse effect on our future results of operations and financial condition, and the trading price of our common stock.

The financial information included in this Annual Report is based on United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (U.S. GAAP), unless otherwise indicated.

Unless otherwise required, all references herein to “we”, “our”, “us”, “NXP” and the “Company” are to NXP Semiconductors N.V. and its consolidated subsidiaries.

This Annual Report includes market data and certain other statistical information and estimates that are based on reports and other publications from industry analysts, market research firms, and other independent sources, as well as management’s own good faith estimates and analyses. NXP believes these third-party reports to be reputable, but has not independently verified the underlying data sources, methodologies or assumptions. The reports and other publications referenced are generally available to the public and were not commissioned by NXP. Information that is based on estimates, forecasts, projections, market research or similar methodologies is inherently subject to uncertainties and actual events or circumstances may differ materially from events and circumstances reflected in this information.

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a global semiconductor company and a long-standing supplier in the industry, with over 50 years of innovation and operating history. For the year ended December 31, 2021, we generated revenue of $11,063 million, compared to $8,612 million for the year ended December 31, 2020.

Our legal name is NXP Semiconductors N.V. and our commercial name is “NXP” or “NXP Semiconductors.” We were incorporated in the Netherlands in 2006 as a Dutch public company with limited liability (naamloze vennootschap).

Our corporate seat is in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Our principal executive office is at High Tech Campus 60, 5656 AG Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and our telephone number is +31 40 2729999. Our registered agent in the United States is NXP USA, Inc., 6501 William Cannon Dr. West, Austin, Texas 78735, United States of America, phone number +1 512 9338214.

Semiconductors perform a broad variety of functions within electronic products and systems, including processing data, sensing, storing information and converting or controlling electronic signals. Semiconductors vary significantly depending upon the specific function or application of the end product in which the semiconductor is used and the customer who is deploying it. Semiconductors also vary on a number of technical characteristics including the degree of integration, level of customization, programmability and the process technology utilized to manufacture the semiconductor. Advances in semiconductor technology have increased the functionality and performance of semiconductors, improving their features and power consumption characteristics while reducing their size and cost. These advances have resulted in growth of semiconductors and electronic content across a diverse array of products. The semiconductor market totaled $555.9 billion in 2021.

NXP has one reportable segment representing the entity as a whole, which reflects the way in which our chief operating decision maker executes operating decisions, allocates resources, and manages the growth and profitability of the Company.

Our product groups are focused on four primary end markets that we believe are characterized by long-term, attractive growth opportunities and where we believe we enjoy sustained, competitive differentiation through our technology leadership. The four end markets are Automotive, Industrial & IoT, Mobile, and Communication Infrastructure & Other.

Growth in automotive semiconductor sales relies on global vehicle sales and production trends and the increase in semiconductor content per vehicle, which is being driven by the proliferation of electronic features throughout the vehicle. Despite the decline in vehicles sales and production in 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 and the very low growth in 2021 due to the global supply crisis, the increase in semiconductor content per vehicle continued.

We believe three mega-trends will drive the semiconductor content increase in the future: Autonomous driving, electrification and the service oriented car. Each of the megatrends involve new functions and each new function requires new technologies. The path to full autonomy is driving the increase of driver assistance systems in the car already today. In the same way, strict emissions regulations as well as consumer willingness for energy efficient cars are accelerating the penetration of electrification, which has been even more intensified during the pandemic, with OEMs prioritizing investments in this area. Last but not least, many consumers want their cars to be service oriented, hyper-connected, configurable and upgradeable, in the same way as they are used to with their smartphones.

Semiconductor content per vehicle continues to increase due to government regulation of safety and emissions, standardization of higher-end options across a greater number of vehicle classes as well as consumer demand for greater fuel efficiency, advanced safety, multimedia applications and connectivity. Automotive safety features are evolving from passive safety systems to active safety systems with Advanced Driving Assisted Systems (ADAS) such as radar and vision systems. Semiconductor content is also increasing in engine management and fuel economy applications, like Battery Management Systems (BMS). Comfort and convenience systems and user interface applications, as well as infotainment features such as digital audio broadcasting are also areas with high semiconductor content increases. In addition, the use of networking in automotive applications continues to increase as various subsystems communicate within the automobile and with external devices and networks. Furthermore, we believe networking will play a key role in the electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture transformation towards domain and zonal architectures. Smart car access, automotive Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and Near-Field Communication (NFC) are gaining ground in automotive as well, enabling the connection of vehicles and car keys to portable devices and the infrastructure. Data integrity and security hardware features for safeguarding memory, communication and system data are also increasing in importance. 

Due to the high degree of regulatory scrutiny and safety requirements, the automotive semiconductor market is characterized by stringent qualification processes, zero defect quality processes, functionally safe design architecture, high reliability, extensive design-in timeframes and long product life cycles, which results in significant barriers to entry.

The world is becoming smarter, more connected and more data driven, and the Industrial & IoT market sits at the center of this global digital transformation. The Industrial & IoT market is highly fragmented with a diverse collection of products and applications such as factory automation, smart home, smart appliances, home entertainment, smart retail, power and energy and medical electronics.

Growth in the Industrial market is driven by the replacement of traditional mechanical equipment by smart and connected electronic equipment using various sensors, processors, connectivity and security chipsets that align well with NXP’s ability to provide a complete range of processing, connectivity and secure solutions. In IoT, growth is driven by the increasing use of high-performance edge and media devices (e.g., home entertainment, connected home assistants, home control and security) and low power IoT nodes (e.g. smart home, hearables, health trackers) where NXP scalable solutions across the entire embedded processing spectrum are ideally suited. Working and learning from home significantly increased in the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in strong demand for smart home devices, computing peripherals, home entertainment and gaming consoles within our Industrial & IoT business.

The increase in productivity with real-time insights and efficient processes for factory automation, the enhancement in consumer convenience, security and comfort for smart homes, the reduction of resource consumption and better energy efficiency for smart appliances, the increase in performance of rich media content in smart consumer devices and the need for better health prevention and monitoring solutions (wearables, smart patches and smart drug delivery devices) to help ensure the future health of millions of people are some of the key use-cases driving growth in Industrial & IoT.

Finally, with the growing number of connected devices, latency, privacy and bandwidth have become critical limiting factors and Edge computing solves this by bringing the intelligence closer to the source. Security and tamper-detection capabilities are also becoming essential features of these Industrial & IoT solutions.

Mobile includes applications such as smartphones, feature phones, tablets, wearables and mobile accessories. NXP has a strong focus on mobile wallet, Ultra-Wideband (UWB) and specialty custom analog solutions. The demand for faster speeds, improved battery life, fast charging, mobile wallets, highly secure localization and sensing technology, mobile transit and authentication is driving increased semiconductor content for NXP. The growth in this market is mainly driven by the increasing attach rate of these features across devices, vendors and regions, from flagship smartphones down to feature phones, from developed countries to emerging regions. UWB, thanks to its unique precision, robustness, and reliability, is emerging as a secure, fine-ranging technology capable of enabling a wide range of innovative location-based user experiences. The technology is gaining momentum thanks to wider chipset availability, adoption across various devices by multiple brands, and the formation of a strong UWB ecosystem across the whole supply chain and NXP is well positioned in this market.

The Communication Infrastructure & Other end market is a combination of three different application markets, namely 5G networks, digital network communications and secure edge identification solutions.

The transition to 5G and the cloudification of the network present a significant opportunity for NXP. More base stations are needed and massive MIMO radio technology - which provides better throughput and better spectrum efficiency - is greatly expanding the number of antennas and power amplifiers needed. Small cells are also deployed to improve coverage and capacity of wireless networks. In power amplification, as more bandwidth and higher frequencies are needed, we observe an increasing adoption of GaN technology because of its higher power output and efficiency.

Workplaces are evolving from offices to homes, and consumers and enterprises need to adapt to changing working conditions, leading to increasing demand for better digital communication capabilities and digital content. This creates strong growth in the network communications market. Meanwhile, billions of connected devices exchange more and more data, leading to strong demand for device edge and cloud processing solutions.

Finally, in secure edge identification solutions, NXP has extensive experience providing customers with solutions for applications demanding the highest security and reliability (ePassports, eID credentials, transportation & payment cards and RFID solutions). Further digitalization of governmental services, the trend

We offer customers a broad portfolio of semiconductor products, including microcontrollers, application processors, communication processors, connectivity chipsets, analog and interface devices, RF power amplifiers, security controllers and sensors. A key element of our strategy is to offer highly integrated and secure solutions that are increasingly sought by our customers to simplify their development efforts and shorten their time to market. We believe we have the broadest ARM processor portfolio in the industry, from microcontrollers to crossover processors and from application processors to communication processors.

We have been a provider of MCU solutions for more than 40 years. MCUs integrate all of the major components of a computing system onto a single semiconductor device. Typically, this includes a programmable processor core, memory, interface circuitry and other components. MCUs provide the digital logic, or intelligence, for electronic applications, controlling electronic equipment or analyzing sensor inputs. We are a trusted, long-term supplier of MCUs to many of our customers, especially in the automotive, smartcards, industrial and consumer markets. Our MCU product portfolio ranges from 8-bit products to higher performance 16-bit and 32-bit products with on-board flash memory. Our portfolio is highly scalable, and is coupled with our extensive software and design tools. This enables our customers to design-in and deploy our MCU families, leveraging a consistent software development environment. Due to the scalability of our portfolio we are able to help future-proof our customer’s products as their systems evolve, becoming more complex or requiring greater processing capabilities over time. For automotive applications, our microcontrollers deliver the required reliability, security and functional safety to address current and future automotive challenges. In an increasingly connected and networked society, where security is playing a more important role, our MCU families are equipped with varying security features (such as remote authentication, system/data integrity, secure communication and anomaly detection) to address different type of security risks. Our new i.MX RT crossover processors are built using applications processors chassis, delivering a high level of integration, high speed peripherals, enhanced security, and engines for enhanced user experience (for example, 2D/3D graphics), but powered by a low-power MCU core running a real-time operating system like Amazon Free RTOS or Zephyr RTOS. The i.MX RT series offers the high performing Arm Cortex-M core, real-time functionality, and MCU usability at an affordable price. Our S32x Automotive Processing Platform offers scalability across products and multiple application domains with S32K MCU’s based on Arm Cortex-M cores with Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL-D) capabilities.

Application processors consist of a computing core with embedded memory and special-purpose hardware and software for secure multimedia applications such as graphics and video. Our products focus on consumer devices, industrial applications and automotive applications, like driver information systems, ADAS and vehicle networking that require processing and multimedia capabilities. We provide highly integrated ARM-based i.MX application processors with integrated audio, video and graphics capability that are optimized for low-power and high-performance applications. Our i.MX family of processors are designed in conjunction with a broad suite of additional products including power management solutions, audio codecs, touch sensors and accelerometers to provide full systems solutions across a wide range of operating systems and applications. Our i.MX 8 and 9 families are the latest generations of our general purpose application processors. Our i.MX 8 family is a feature and performance scalable multi-core platform that includes single, dual and quad-core families based on the Arm Cortex architecture for advanced graphics, imaging, machine vision, audio, voice, video, and safety-critical applications. Together, these products provide a family of applications processors featuring software, power and pin compatibility across single, dual and quad core implementations. Software support includes Linux and Android implementations. Our i.MX 9 series of application processors integrates hardware neural processing units across the entire series for acceleration of machine learning applications at the edge. In Automotive, our S32x Automotive Processing Platform offers scalability across products and multiple application domains based on Arm Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M cores with Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL-D) capabilities with software compatibility from the MCU’s to SoC’s.

Communication processors combine a computing core, caches and other memories, with high-speed networking and input/output interfaces, such as Ethernet and PCI Express. Our portfolio includes 64-bit Arm-based Layerscape processors with up to 16 CPUs and Ethernet ports running at up to 100Gbps. Software support includes Linux and commercial real-time operating systems. Within enterprise and data-center communications infrastructure, our processors are used in switches, routers, SD-WAN access devices, Wi-Fi access points, and network security systems. Within service-provider communications infrastructure, our processors are used in cellular base stations, fixed wireless access Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), residential gateways, broadband aggregation systems, and core networking equipment. Although designed for use in communications infrastructure, these processors also find widespread use in other types of equipment, including industrial automation for control, edge computing nodes, cloud computing servers for offloading networking functions, and automobiles for communications and some ADAS functions. We also offer Layerscape Access processors, which implement baseband functions, principally for wireless systems such as 5G fixed wireless access, using programmable vector signal processors.

We offer a broad portfolio of connectivity solutions, including Near Field Communications (NFC), Ultra-wideband (UWB), Bluetooth low-energy (BLE), Zigbee as well as Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth integrated SoCs. These products are integrated into a wide variety of end devices, such as mobile phones, wearables, enterprise access points, home gateways, voice assistants, multimedia devices, gaming consoles, printers, automotive infotainment and smart industrial devices.

We have a very broad portfolio of Analog and Interface products that are used in many markets, particularly automotive, industrial/IoT and mobile. In automotive we are the market leader in most of the applications, with integrated 77Ghz Radar solution for ADAS, battery management products for Electrification, audio processing solutions and amplifiers for car entertainment, Controller Area Network (CAN), Local Interconnect Network (LIN), FlexRay and Ethernet solutions for in-vehicle networking and two-way secure products for secure car access. In Industrial/IoT and mobile, we are a major supplier in interface, power and high-performance analog products. Our product portfolios includes I2C/I³C, General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO), LED controllers, real-time clocks, signal and load switches, signal integrity products, wired charging solutions, fast charging solutions, DC-DC, AC-DC converters and high-performance RF amplifiers. We have also successfully engaged with leading OEMs to drive custom and semi-custom products which in turn allow us to refine and accelerate our innovation and product roadmaps.

NXP is the market leader in High-Performance Radio Frequency (HPRF) power amplifiers. We have an extensive portfolio of LDMOS, GaN and GaAs RF transistors. NXP’s solutions range from sub-6GHz to 40GHz and from milliwatts to kilowatts. For base stations, NXP offers a full range of solutions addressing 5G RF power amplification needs from MIMO to massive MIMO based active antenna systems for cellular and millimeter Wave (mmWave) spectrum bands. We are engaged with the majority of the largest customers in mobile base stations and in several other application areas. In low and medium Power Amplification, NXPs low noise amplifier (LNA) portfolio offers solutions to meet future design needs in a wide range of applications. Two technologies serve the LNA portfolio, each with distinct advantages for their applications. Wireless infrastructure applications and many general wireless applications are served with III-V technology LNAs. Advanced SiGe technology is utilized in LNAs designed for wireless communication, cellular, consumer, automotive and industrial applications.

NXP is the market leader in security controller ICs. Our security controller ICs are embedded in smart cards (ePassports, electronic ID credentials, payment cards and transportation cards), as well as in consumer electronic and smart devices, for example in smartphones, tablets and wearables. These security controller ICs are suited for applications demanding the highest security and reliability. Nearly all of our security products consist of multi-functional solutions comprised of passive RF connectivity devices facilitating information transfer from the user document to reader infrastructure; secure, tamper-proof microcontroller devices in which

Sensors serve as a primary interface in embedded systems for advanced human interface and contextual awareness that mimic the human “5 senses” interaction with the external environment. We provide several categories of semiconductor-based environmental and inertial sensors for the Automotive market, including pressure, inertial, magnetic and gyroscopic sensors that provide orientation detection, gesture recognition, tilt to scroll functionality and position detection.

We manufacture integrated circuits and discrete semiconductors through a combination of wholly owned manufacturing facilities, a manufacturing facility operated jointly with another semiconductor company and third-party foundries and assembly and test subcontractors. We manage our manufacturing assets together through one centralized organization to ensure we realize scale benefits in asset utilization, purchasing volumes and overhead leverage across businesses.

In the future, we expect to outsource an increased part of our internal demand for wafer foundry and packaging services to third-party manufacturing sources in order to increase our flexibility to accommodate increased demand.

The manufacturing of a semiconductor involves several phases of production, which can be broadly divided into “front-end” and “back-end” processes. Front-end processes take place at highly complex wafer manufacturing facilities (called fabrication plants or “wafer fabs”), and involve the imprinting of substrate silicon wafers with the precise circuitry required for semiconductors to function. The front-end production cycle requires high levels of precision and involves as many as 300 process steps. Back-end processes involve the assembly, test and packaging of semiconductors in a form suitable for distribution. In contrast to the highly complex front-end process, back-end processing is generally less complicated, and as a result we tend to determine the location of our back-end facilities based more on cost factors than on technical considerations.

We primarily focus our internal and joint venture wafer manufacturing operations on running proprietary specialty process technologies that enable us to differentiate our products on key performance features, and we generally outsource wafer manufacturing in process technologies that are available at third-party wafer foundries when it is economical to do so. In addition, we increasingly focus our in-house manufacturing on our competitive 8-inch wafer facilities, which predominantly run manufacturing processes in the 140 nanometer, 180 nanometer and 250 nanometer process nodes. This focus increases our return on invested capital and reduces capital expenditures.

Our front-end manufacturing facilities use a broad range of production processes and proprietary design methods, including complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), bipolar, bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) and double-diffused metal on silicon oxide semiconductor (DMOS) technologies. Our wafer fabs produce semiconductors with line widths ranging from 90 nanometers to 3 microns for integrated circuits and 0.5 microns to greater than 4 microns for discretes. This broad technology portfolio enables us to meet increasing demand from customers for system solutions, which require a variety of technologies.

Our back-end manufacturing facilities test and package many different types of products using a wide variety of processes. To optimize flexibility, we use shared technology platforms for our back-end assembly operations. Most of our assembly and test activities are maintained in-house.

The following table shows selected key information with respect to our major front-end and back-end facilities:

We use a large number of raw materials in our front- and back-end manufacturing processes, including silicon wafers, chemicals, gases, lead frames, substrates, molding compounds and various types of precious and other metals. Our most important raw materials are the raw, or substrate, silicon wafers we use to make our semiconductors. We purchase these wafers, which must meet exacting specifications, from a limited number of suppliers in the geographic region in which our fabrication facilities are located. At our wholly owned fabrication plants, we use raw wafers ranging from 6 inches to 8 inches in size. Our SSMC wafer fab facility, which produces 8 inch wafers, is jointly owned by TSMC and ourselves. Emerging fabrication technologies employ larger wafer sizes and, accordingly, we expect that our production requirements will in the future shift towards larger substrate wafers.

We typically source our other raw materials in a similar fashion as our wafers, although our portfolio of suppliers is more diverse. Some of our suppliers provide us with materials on a just-in-time basis, which permits us to reduce our procurement costs and the negative cash flow consequences of maintaining inventories, but exposes us to potential supply chain interruptions. We purchase most of our raw materials on the basis of fixed price contracts.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, semiconductor supply chains have been under significant pressure. As a result, there has been a tendency towards longer term contracts with suppliers in exchange for capacity. From an operational perspective, all of our manufacturing facilities continue to operate around the world in accordance with guidance issued by local and national government authorities.

We market our products and solutions worldwide to a variety of OEMs, contract manufacturers and distributors. We generate demand for our products by delivering product solutions to our customers, and supporting their system design-in activities by providing application architecture expertise and local field application engineering support.

Our sales and marketing teams are organized into five regions, which are EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), the Americas, Japan, South Korea, and Greater China and Asia Pacific). These sales regions are responsible for managing customer relationships and creating demand for our solutions through the full ecosystem development. In addition, our sales and marketing teams in the regions partner with our distributors and our large number of mass market customers.

Our sales and marketing strategy focuses on key defined verticals in Automotive, Mobile, Industrial & IoT and Communication Infrastructure, deepening our relationship with our top OEMs and electronic manufacturing service customers, expanding our reach to our mass market customers, startups and our distribution partners and becoming their preferred supplier, which we believe assists us in reducing sales volatility in challenging markets. We have long-standing customer relationships with most of our customers. Our 10 largest OEM end customers, some of whom are supplied by distributors, in alphabetical order, are Apple, Aptiv, Bosch, Continental, Denso, Harman Auto, LGE, Samsung, Visteon, and Vitesco. We also have a strong position with our distribution partners, including our three largest, Arrow, Avnet and WT Micro.

Our revenue is primarily the sum of our direct sales to OEMs plus our distributors’ resale of NXP products. Avnet accounted for 18% of our revenue in 2021 and 17% in 2020. No other distributor accounted for greater than 10% of our revenue. No OEM for which we had direct sales to accounted for more than 10% of our revenue in 2021 or 2020.

We believe that our future success depends on our ability to both improve our existing products and to develop new products for both existing and new markets. We direct our research and development efforts largely to the development of new semiconductor solutions where we see significant opportunities for growth. We target applications that require stringent overall system and subsystem performance. As new and challenging applications proliferate, we believe that many of these applications will benefit from our solutions. We have assembled a global team of highly skilled semiconductor and embedded software design engineers with expertise in RF, analog, power management, interface, security and digital processing.

To outpace market growth we invest in research and development to extend or create leading market positions, with an emphasis on fast growing sizable market segments, such as ADAS, in-vehicle networks and power management, as well as Edge computing to support the successful deployment in the IoT with our cross-over processing technology, but also in emerging markets, such as massive MIMO in RF Power and mmWave for 5G. In addition, we invest a few percent of our total research and development expenditures in research activities that develop fundamental new technologies or product categories that could contribute significantly to our company's growth in the future.

We annually perform a fundamental review of our business portfolio and our related new product and technology development opportunities in order to decide on changes in the allocation of our research and development resources. For products targeting established markets, we evaluate our research and development expenditures based on clear business need and risk assessments. For break-through technologies and new market opportunities, we look at the strategic fit and synergies with the rest of our portfolio and the size of the potential addressable market. Overall, we allocate our research and development to maintain a healthy mix of emerging growth and mature businesses.

The creation and use of intellectual property is a key aspect of our strategy to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. We seek to protect our proprietary technologies by obtaining patents, trademarks, domain names, retaining trade secrets and defending, enforcing and utilizing our intellectual property rights, where appropriate. We believe this strategy allows us to preserve the advantages of our products and technologies, and helps us to improve the return on our investment in research and development. We have a broad portfolio of approximately 9,500 patent families (each patent family includes all patents and patent applications originating from the same invention). To protect confidential technical information and software, we rely on copyright and trade secret law and enter into confidentiality agreements as applicable. In situations where we believe that a third party has infringed on our intellectual property, we enforce our rights through all available legal means to the extent that we determine the benefits of such actions to outweigh the costs and risks involved.

We own a number of trademarks that are used in the conduct of our business. Where we consider it desirable, we develop names for our new products and secure trademark protection. Our trademarks allow us to further distinguish our company and our products and are important in our relationships with customers, suppliers, partners and end-users.

While our patents, trademarks, trade secrets and other intellectual property rights constitute valuable assets, we do not view any individual right or asset as material to our operations as a whole. We believe it is the combination of our proprietary technology, patents, know-how and other intellectual property rights and assets that creates an advantage for our business.

In addition to obtaining our own patents and other intellectual property rights, we have entered into licensing agreements and other arrangements authorizing us to use intellectual property rights, confidential technical information, software and other technology owned by third parties. We also engage, in certain instances, in licensing and selling of certain of our technology, patents and other intellectual property rights.

We compete with many different semiconductor companies on a global basis, including with both integrated device manufacturers (“IDMs”) as well as fabless companies. Nearly all our competitors invest extensively in research and development, manufacturing, sales and marketing capabilities across a broad spectrum of product lines. Many of our competitors are focused on single applications or market segments. Most of our competitors compete with us with respect to some, but not all, of our product lines.

Our primary key public competitors in alphabetical order include, but are not limited to, Analog Devices Inc., Infineon Technologies AG, Intel Corp., Marvell Technology, Mediatek Inc., Microchip Technology Inc., NVIDIA Corp., Qualcomm Incorporated, Renesas Electronics Corp., STMicroelectronics NV and Texas Instruments Incorporated.

The basis on which we compete varies across end markets and geographic regions. This includes competing on the basis of our ability to develop new products and the underlying intellectual property in a timely manner to meet customer requirements in terms of product features, quality, performance, warranty, availability and cost. In addition, we are asked to deliver full system capabilities which include multiple NXP devices and enabling software. This requires in-depth knowledge of specific applications in target markets in order to develop robust system solutions and qualified customer support resources.

Historically, our net revenue does not display consistent or predictable seasonal patterns.

The information set forth under the “Environmental remediation” caption of Note 15 of our notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report is incorporated herein by

At NXP, our diverse and talented employees drive the innovation that sets our company apart and fuels our success in the market. Across the globe, we have policies and programs to attract and maintain the best talent possible. We focus on driving employee engagement; building thought leadership; embracing diversity, equity and inclusion; providing competitive and fair compensation and benefits; enabling talent development and growth opportunities; investing in future talent; focusing on employee retention; and giving back to our communities.

NXP’s workforce includes direct labor (DL) and indirect labor (IDL). DL are those employees directly involved in manufacturing our products, while IDL consists of individual contributors, managers and executives in other functions such as research and development (R&D) and selling, general and administrative (SG&A). At December 31, 2021, we had approximately 31,000 employees, which includes approximately 1,500 employees in our joint venture. Our NXP global workforce spans three regions encompassing 30+ countries and includes approximately 9,300 employees dedicated to research and development of our products and solutions.

We monitor voluntary attrition closely as a key indicator of employee engagement. This attrition is also compared to industry norms to ensure we are effectively retaining our employees throughout the world. During calendar 2021, our voluntary attrition rate was 7.9% for IDL, 18.4% for our DL population and 12.1% of the combined employee population. In 2021, NXP saw a year-over-year increase in employee turnover. To mitigate voluntary turnover, we launched several initiatives centered around retention for strategic roles and top-performing talent, as well as broad-based programs targeting all employees.

NXP Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) enable our culture and inclusive work environment, as we work to ensure diversity of thought throughout our company and bring unique perspectives and skills to help those in our communities. Today, we have eight primary ERGs, with representation in Asia, Europe, Mexico and the United States. Membership and participation in ERGs is open to all employees, and global engagement is encouraged. To track the progress of our growing ERGs, we measure membership, programming and employee engagement for each group.

To support our diversity, equality and inclusion approach and demonstrate our commitment to transparency and accountability, we have established the following aspirational 2025 diversity, equality and inclusion stretch goals to improve global gender representation and minority race and ethnicity representation in the United States.

NXP’s values are the foundation of what makes us an extraordinary company. Engaging, developing, and caring for our team members is how we create long-term value for our stakeholders. Our values guide our decision making and speak to how we operate, our inherent beliefs and how we engage and respect each employee’s contribution, and push the boundaries of creativity and innovation. We hold ourselves accountable to our values by including them in our performance evaluation process.

To assess and improve employee engagement, NXP regularly conducts our global Winning Culture Survey. We invite employees to share their level of agreement on a variety of factors, including engagement, strategy, culture, leadership, continuous improvement, collaboration, execution, accountability, work environment and support.

NXP is committed to continuous learning, including mechanisms for learning from others, on-the-job development experiences, and formal training. Using a blend of internally designed and externally sourced courses and learning resources, we offer our employees around the globe a variety of training programs that provide real-time learning opportunities in support of key business processes, requirements and initiatives. We also provide a library of on-demand skills development and microlearning resources to all our employees.

We work to create developmental opportunities for our employees through stretch assignments, project roles, cross-functional interactions, cross-geography engagements, and both temporary and longer-term job rotations – all of which are used to stimulate core skill and leadership competency development, provide on-the-job learning experience, and fuel employee career growth. We also believe that our commitment to our internship programs and university partnerships are a key contributor to developing the new generation of talent, including engineers in our industry and company, and provide a pipeline of recent college graduates into our talent pool.

We provide total rewards packages that include market competitive base salary, as well as opportunities to earn short-term cash incentives and equity-based incentives. In addition, in an effort to meet the specific needs of our employees and their families, we offer benefits programs, which vary by country/region, and include an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, retirement programs, healthcare and insurance benefits, allowances, paid time off, family leave, flexible work arrangements, and other employee assistance programs.

NXP’s compensation programs are designed to attract the best talent and drive performance across all areas of our diverse workforce. NXP is committed to managing all reward-based compensation programs, including merit increases, incentive program payouts and long-term incentive awards, to deliver on our pay-for-performance philosophy. Rewarding performance is a critical foundation for our overall compensation program.

We also have developed a proactive process to evaluate each reward-based compensation program in real time and provide leaders with feedback to ensure fair and equitable compensation while decisions are being made. NXP relies on third-party data to establish fair, equitable and competitive compensation and benefits programs. We then empower leaders to recognize both individual and team accomplishments through a variety of compensation programs.

We are committed to the safety of our employees, and we continuously assess safety risks globally to ensure workplace risks are mitigated. We are certified to ISO 45001, the occupational health and safety management system, and have developed robust safety programs and initiatives to safeguard our workforce.

With the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic ongoing over the last two years, the health and safety of our employees has continued to be of utmost importance, and we have effectively managed our safety programs over this period. For example, employees who are required to be physically at one of our locations are protected with increased safety and site entry requirements, many of which exceed local requirements. We have hosted several successful vaccination drives in some countries where our employees live and work. During this period we have also transitioned many of our employees to remote working partially or full-time to protect those who must be on-site to do their jobs. Additionally, as external conditions improve, we have developed a global flexible work arrangement program which offers eligible employees the ability to work a combination of on-site and remotely. These remote work arrangements reduce the individual site population to further protect employees who must work on-site. We believe the combination of our remote work transitions and our robust on-site safety programs and initiatives has significantly mitigated the safety risks for all our workforce.

A number of our employees are members of a labor union and in various countries, local law requires us to inform and consult with employee representatives on matters relating to labor conditions. We have not experienced any material strikes or labor disputes in the past and consider our employee relations to be good.

We also have employee-lead worker’s councils in various countries that provide input and oversight to many of the decisions made on behalf of employees.

As part of our commitment to reducing emissions and conserving the earth’s natural resources, environment is a key pillar in our Sustainability Policy and strategy. We set company-wide environmental targets to optimize our resource use and consumption, minimize waste and continuously improve. Our targets are set periodically, and we currently are in the process of evaluating and updating focused mid- and long-term targets on carbon footprint reduction, renewable energy consumption, and water and waste recycling.

See Part I, Item 1A. Risk Factors for a discussion of potential global environmental risks that may adversely affect our business operations, such as climate change or natural disasters.

Our commitment to enable a smarter, more sustainable world goes beyond our operations, and includes innovating product solutions that support the sustainability goals and objectives of our stakeholders. We monitor developments of global legislation by tracking current discussions, timelines, and the likelihood of new implementations. During the design and development phase of our new product solutions, we emphasize these potential requirements to coincide with new product introductions. This proactively timed approach supports the success of sustainable green technology for long- and short-term impact of NXP and our customers.

Our main corporate website address is www.nxp.com. Copies of our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), are available free of charge on our website within the "Investors Relations" section as soon as reasonably practicable after having been electronically filed or furnished to the SEC. All SEC filings are also available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. The information contained on these websites as referenced is not incorporated by reference into this filing. Further, the Company’s references to website URLs are intended to be inactive textual references only.

The novel strain of the coronavirus identified in China in late 2019 has globally spread throughout other areas such as Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America and has resulted in authorities implementing numerous measures to try to contain the virus, such as travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter in place orders, and shutdowns. These measures have adversely impacted and may further impact our workforce and operations, the operations of our customers, and those of our respective vendors and suppliers. We have significant manufacturing operations in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, The Netherlands and the U.S., and each of these countries has been affected by the outbreak and taken measures to try to contain it. There is considerable uncertainty regarding such measures and potential future measures, and restrictions on our access to our manufacturing facilities or on our support operations or workforce, or similar limitations for our vendors and suppliers, and restrictions or disruptions of transportation, such as reduced availability of air transport, port closures, and increased border controls or closures, could limit our capacity to meet customer demand and have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations.

The outbreak has significantly increased economic and demand uncertainty. We experienced a significant decline in revenue in the first half of 2020 related to the COVID-19 outbreak and then a swift rebound in demand beginning in the third quarter of 2020 and accelerating through the fourth quarter of 2021. The situation remains uncertain and the continued spread of COVID-19 or variants of COVID-19 may result in another economic

The spread of COVID-19 caused us to modify our business practices (including employee travel, employee work locations, and cancellation of physical participation in meetings, events and conferences), and we may reinstitute these and additional measures as may be required by government authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, partners, and suppliers as we continue to respond to the COVID-19 situation in the communities in which we operate. There is no certainty that such measures will be sufficient to mitigate the risks posed by the virus, and our ability to perform critical functions could be harmed.

The degree to which COVID-19 adversely impacts our future results will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including, but not limited to, the duration and spread of the outbreak, its severity, the actions to contain the virus or treat its impact, and how quickly and to what extent normal economic and operating conditions can resume. Even after the COVID-19 outbreak has subsided, we may experience material adverse impacts to our business as a result of the global economic impact and any recession that has occurred or may occur in the future. To the extent the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affects our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows, it may also heighten many of the other risks described below. There are no comparable recent events that provide guidance as to the effect the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic may have, and, as a result, the ultimate impact of the outbreak on our operations and financial results is highly uncertain and subject to change.

Historically, the relationship between supply and demand in the semiconductor industry has caused a high degree of cyclicality in the semiconductor market. Semiconductor supply is partly driven by manufacturing capacity, which in the past has demonstrated alternating periods of substantial capacity additions and periods in which no or limited capacity was added. As a general matter, semiconductor companies are more likely to add capacity in periods when current or expected future demand is strong and margins are, or are expected to be, high. Investments in new capacity can result in overcapacity, which can lead to a reduction in prices and margins. In response, companies typically limit further capacity additions, eventually causing the market to be relatively undersupplied. In addition, demand for semiconductors varies, which can exacerbate the effect of supply fluctuations. As a result of this cyclicality, the semiconductor industry has in the past experienced significant downturns, such as in 1997/1998, 2001/2002 and in 2008/2009, often in connection with, or in anticipation of, maturing life cycles of semiconductor companies’ products and declines in general economic conditions. These downturns have been characterized by diminishing demand for end-user products, high inventory levels, under-utilization of manufacturing capacity and accelerated erosion of average selling prices. The foregoing risks have historically had, and may continue to have, a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

It is difficult for us, our customers and suppliers to forecast demand trends. We may be unable to accurately predict the extent or duration of cycles or their effect on our financial condition or result of operations and can give no assurance as to the timing, extent or duration of the current or future business cycles generally, or specific to the markets in which we participate. In the first half of 2020, demand in the automotive market steeply declined as a result of manufacturing shutdowns by automotive OEMs due to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in an unforeseen negative impact to our results of operations. Beginning in the third quarter of 2020, demand rebounded more quickly than anticipated and accelerated through the fourth quarter of 2021, resulting in our inability to fully satisfy customer demand. In 2008 and 2009, Europe, the United States and international markets experienced increased volatility and instability related to the global financial crisis. In the event of a future decline in global economic conditions, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected, and the resulting economic decline might disproportionately affect the markets in which we participate, further exacerbating a decline in our results of operations.

The semiconductor industry is highly competitive and characterized by constant and rapid technological change, short product lifecycles, significant price erosion and evolving standards. Accordingly, the success of our business depends to a significant extent on our ability to develop new technologies and products that are ultimately successful in the market. The costs related to the research and development necessary to develop new technologies and products are significant and any reduction of our research and development budget could harm our competitiveness. Meeting evolving industry requirements and introducing new products to the market in a timely manner and at prices that are acceptable to our customers are significant factors in determining our competitiveness and success. Commitments to develop new products must be made well in advance of any resulting sales, and technologies and standards may change during development, potentially rendering our products outdated or noncompetitive before their introduction. If we are unable to successfully develop new products, our revenue may decline substantially. Moreover, some of our competitors are well-established entities, are larger than us and have greater resources than we do. If these competitors increase the resources they devote to developing and marketing their products, we may not be able to compete effectively. Any consolidation among our competitors could enhance their product offerings and financial resources, further strengthening their competitive position. In addition, some of our competitors operate in narrow business areas relative to us, allowing them to concentrate their research and development efforts directly on products and services for those areas, which may give them a competitive advantage. As a result of these competitive pressures, we may face declining sales volumes or lower prevailing prices for our products, and we may not be able to reduce our total costs in line with this declining revenue. If any of these risks materialize, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The vast majority of our revenue is derived from sales to manufacturers in the automotive, industrial & IoT, mobile, and communication infrastructure. Demand in these markets fluctuates significantly, driven by consumer spending, consumer preferences, the development of new technologies and prevailing economic conditions. In addition, the specific products in which our semiconductors are incorporated may not be successful, or may experience price erosion or other competitive factors that affect the price manufacturers are willing to pay us. Such customers have in the past, and may in the future, vary order levels significantly from period to period, request postponements to scheduled delivery dates, modify their orders or reduce lead times. This is particularly common during periods of low demand. This can make managing our business difficult, as it limits the predictability of future revenue. It can also affect the accuracy of our financial forecasts. Furthermore, developing industry trends, including customers’ use of outsourcing and new and revised supply chain models, may affect our revenue, costs and working capital requirements.

If customers do not purchase products made specifically for them, we may not be able to resell such products to other customers or may not be able to require the customers who have ordered these products to pay a cancellation fee. The foregoing risks could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

One of the results of the rapid innovation in the semiconductor industry is that pricing pressure, especially on products containing older technology, can be intense. Product life cycles are relatively short, and as a result, products tend to be replaced by more technologically advanced substitutes on a regular basis.

In turn, demand for older technology falls, causing the price at which such products can be sold to drop, in some cases precipitously. In order to continue profitably supplying these products, we must reduce our production costs in line with the lower revenue we can expect to generate per unit. Usually, this must be accomplished through improvements in process technology and production efficiencies. If we cannot advance our process technologies or improve our efficiencies to a degree sufficient to maintain required margins, we will no longer be able to make a profit from the sale of these products. Moreover, we may not be able to cease production of such products, either due to contractual obligations or for customer relationship reasons, and as a result may be required to bear a loss on such products. We cannot guarantee that competition in our core product markets will not lead to price erosion, lower revenue or lower margins in the future. Should reductions in our

One of our business strategies is to participate in and win competitive bid selection processes to develop products for use in our customers’ equipment and products. These selection processes can be lengthy and require us to incur significant design and development expenditures, with no guarantee of winning a contract or generating revenue. Failure to win new design projects and delays in developing new products with anticipated technological advances or in commencing volume shipments of these products may have an adverse effect on our business. This risk is particularly pronounced in markets where there are only a few potential customers and in the automotive market, where, due to the longer design cycles involved, failure to win a design-in could prevent access to a customer for several years. Our failure to win a sufficient number of these bids could result in reduced revenue and hurt our competitive position in future selection processes because we may not be perceived as being a technology or industry leader, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If any of the following international business risks were to materialize or become worse, they could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations:

Goodwill and other identifiable intangible assets are recorded at fair value on the date of an acquisition. As a result of our acquisition of Marvell’s Wireless WiFi Connectivity Business Unit, Bluetooth technology portfolio and related assets in 2019, we recognized goodwill of $1.1 billion and intangible assets of $0.5 billion. We review our goodwill and other intangible assets balance for impairment upon any indication of a potential impairment, and in the case of goodwill, at a minimum of once a year. Impairment may result from, among other things, a sustained decrease in share price, deterioration in performance, adverse market conditions, adverse changes in applicable laws or regulations, including changes that restrict the activities of or affect the products and services we sell, challenges to the validity of certain registered intellectual property, reduced sales of certain products incorporating intellectual property and a variety of other factors. The amount of any quantified impairment must be expensed immediately as a charge to results of operations. Depending on future circumstances, it is possible that we may never realize the full value of our intangible assets. Any future determination of impairment of goodwill or other identifiable intangible assets could have a material adverse effect on our financial position, results of operations and stockholders’ equity.

The semiconductor industry is characterized by high fixed costs and, notwithstanding our utilization of third-party manufacturing capacity, our production requirements are in part met by our own manufacturing facilities. In less favorable industry environments, like we faced in the first half of 2020, we are generally faced with a decline in the utilization rates of our manufacturing facilities due to decreases in demand for our products. During such periods, our fabrication plants could operate at lower loading level, while the fixed costs associated with the full capacity continue to be incurred, resulting in lower gross profit.

We have previously executed restructuring initiatives and continue to assess, restructure and make changes to parts of the processes in our organization. If the global economy remains volatile, our revenues could decline and we may be forced to take cost savings steps that could result in additional charges and materially affect our business. The costs of implementing any restructurings, changes or cost savings steps may differ from our estimates and any negative impacts on our revenues or otherwise of such restructurings, changes or steps, such as situations in which customer satisfaction is negatively impacted, may be larger than originally estimated.

We are a party to collective bargaining agreements and social plans with our labor unions. We are also required to consult with our employee representatives, such as works councils, on items such as restructurings, acquisitions and divestitures. Although we believe that our relations with our employees, employee representatives and unions are satisfactory, no assurance can be given that we will be able to successfully extend or renegotiate these agreements as they expire from time to time or to conclude the consultation processes in a timely and favorable way. The impact of future negotiations and consultation processes with employee representatives could have a material impact on our financial results. Also, if we fail to extend or renegotiate our labor agreements and social plans, if significant disputes with our unions arise, or if our unionized workers engage in a strike or other work stoppage, we could incur higher ongoing labor costs or experience a significant disruption of operations, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Our working capital needs are difficult to predict and may fluctuate. The comparatively long period between the time at which we commence development of a product and the time at which it may be delivered to a customer leads to high inventory and work-in-progress levels. The volatility of our customers’ own businesses and the time required to manufacture products also makes it difficult to manage inventory levels and requires us to stockpile products across many different specifications.

We make highly complex electronic components and, accordingly, there is a risk that defects may occur in any of our products. Such defects can give rise to significant costs, including expenses relating to recalling products, replacing defective items, writing down defective inventory and loss of potential sales. In addition, the occurrence of such defects may give rise to product liability and warranty claims, including liability for damages caused by such defects. If we release defective products into the market, our reputation could suffer and we may lose sales opportunities and incur liability for damages. Moreover, since the cost of replacing defective semiconductor devices is often much higher than the value of the devices themselves, we may at times face damage claims from customers in excess of the amounts they pay us for our products, including consequential damages. We also face exposure to potential liability resulting from the fact that our customers typically integrate the semiconductors we sell into numerous consumer products, which are then sold into the marketplace. We are exposed to product liability claims if our semiconductors or the consumer products based on them malfunction and result in personal injury or death. We may be named in product liability claims even if there is no evidence that our products caused the damage in question, and such claims could result in significant costs

We and third parties regularly identify security vulnerabilities with respect to our products and services. The same holds for the operating systems and workloads that run on them and the components that interact with them. Components and IP we purchase or license from third parties for use in our products, as well as industry-standard specifications we implement in our products, are also regularly subject to security vulnerabilities. As we have become a more data-centric company, our processors and other products are being used in additional and new and critical application areas that create new or increased cybersecurity, privacy or safety risks. This includes applications that gather and process large amounts of data, such as the cloud or Internet of Things, and critical infrastructure and automotive applications. We, our customers, and the users of our products do not always promptly learn of or have the ability to fully assess the magnitude or effects of a vulnerability, including the extent, if any, to which a vulnerability has been exploited. Additionally, new information can subsequently develop that may impact our assessment of a security vulnerability, including additional information learned as we develop and deploy mitigations or updates, become aware of additional variants and evaluate the competitiveness of existing and new products.

We manufacture, in our own factories as well as with third parties, our products using processes that are highly complex, require advanced and costly equipment and must continuously be modified to improve yields and performance. Difficulties in the production process can reduce yields or interrupt production, and, as a result of such problems, we may on occasion not be able to deliver products or do so in a timely or cost-effective or competitive manner. As the complexity of both our products and our fabrication processes has become more advanced, manufacturing tolerances have been reduced and requirements for precision have become more demanding. As is common in the semiconductor industry, we have in the past experienced manufacturing difficulties that have given rise to delays in delivery and quality control problems. There can be no assurance that any such occurrence in the future would not materially harm our results of operations. Further, we may suffer disruptions in our manufacturing operations, either due to production difficulties such as those described above or as a result of external factors beyond our control, such as the disruption to our Austin, Texas manufacturing facilities caused by the February 2021 winter storm. We may, in the future, experience manufacturing difficulties or permanent or temporary loss of manufacturing capacity due to the preceding or other risks. Any such event could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our manufacturing operations depend on deliveries of equipment and materials in a timely manner and, in some cases, on a just-in-time basis. From time to time, suppliers may extend lead times, limit the amounts supplied to us or increase prices due to capacity constraints or other factors. Supply disruptions may also occur due to shortages in critical materials, such as silicon wafers or specialized chemicals. Because the equipment that

We currently use outside suppliers for a portion of our manufacturing capacity. Outsourcing our production presents a number of risks. If our outside suppliers are unable to satisfy our demand, or experience manufacturing difficulties, delays or reduced yields, our results of operations and ability to satisfy customer demand could suffer. In addition, purchasing rather than manufacturing these products may adversely affect our gross profit margin if the purchase costs of these products are higher than our own manufacturing costs would have been. Prices for foundry products also vary depending on capacity utilization rates at our suppliers, quantities demanded, product technology and geometry. Furthermore, these outsourcing costs can vary materially from quarter to quarter and, in cases of industry shortages, they can increase significantly, negatively affecting our gross profit. In addition, we have entered into long term supply agreements with certain key manufacturing partners. The failure of these suppliers to perform under these agreements or an unexpected reduction in demand for these products could result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

A substantial portion of our revenue is derived from our top customers, including our distributors. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to generate similar levels of revenue from our largest customers in the future. If one or more of these customers substantially reduce their purchases from us, this could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As is the case with other large semiconductor companies, we receive subsidies and grants from governments in some countries. These programs are subject to periodic review by the relevant governments, and if any of these programs are curtailed or discontinued, this could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. As the availability of government funding is outside our control, we cannot guarantee that we will continue to benefit from government support or that sufficient alternative funding will be available if we lose such support. Moreover, if we terminate any activities or operations, including strategic alliances or joint ventures, we may face adverse actions from the local governmental agencies providing such subsidies to us. In particular, such government agencies could seek to recover such subsidies from us and they could cancel or reduce other subsidies we receive from them. This could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Environmental and other disasters, such as flooding, large earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or nuclear or other disasters, or a combination thereof may negatively impact our business. If flooding, a large earthquake, volcanic eruption or, extreme weather event or other natural disaster were to directly damage, destroy or disrupt our manufacturing facilities, it could disrupt our operations, delay new production and shipments of existing inventory or result in costly repairs, replacements or other costs, all of which would negatively impact our business. Even if our manufacturing facilities are not directly damaged, a large natural disaster may result in disruptions in distribution channels, supply chains, movement of goods and significant increases in the prices of raw materials used for our manufacturing process. For instance, the nuclear incident following the tsunami in Japan in 2011 impacted the supply chains of our customers and suppliers. Furthermore, any disaster affecting our customers (or their respective customers) may significantly negatively impact the demand for our products and our revenues. In addition, climate change could cause certain natural disasters, such as drought, wildfires, storms, flooding or rising sea levels, to occur more frequently or with greater intensity, which could pose

The impact of any such natural disasters depends on the specific geographic circumstances but could be significant, as some of our factories are located in areas with known earthquake fault zones, flood or storm risks, including but not limited to Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia or Thailand. There is increasing concern that climate change is occurring that may cause a rising number of natural disasters with potentially dramatic effects on human activity. We cannot predict the economic impact, if any, of natural disasters or climate change.

We operate globally, with manufacturing, assembly and testing facilities in several continents, and we market our products globally.

As a result, we are subject to environmental, data privacy, labor and health and safety laws and regulations in each jurisdiction in which we operate. We are also required to obtain environmental permits and other authorizations or licenses from governmental authorities for certain of our operations. In the jurisdictions where we operate, we need to comply with differing standards and varying practices of regulatory, tax, judicial and administrative bodies.

No assurance can be given that we have been or will be at all times in complete compliance with the laws and regulations to which we are subject or that we have obtained or will obtain the permits and other authorizations or licenses that we need. If we violate or fail to comply with laws, regulations, permits and other authorizations or licenses, we could be fined or otherwise sanctioned by regulators. Furthermore, if one or more of our customers are sanctioned by regulators for non-compliance with laws and regulations, we could experience a decrease in demand for our products. For example, import and export regulations, such as the U.S. Export Administration Regulations administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, are complex, change frequently, have generally become more stringent over time and have intensified in recent years. Our results of operations could be negatively impacted if are required to suspend activities with certain customers or suppliers due to future changes in regulations. In 2020, due to regulations imposed by the U.S. government, we ceased shipments of our products to Huawei pending approval of export licenses. Furthermore, global privacy legislation, enforcement, and policy activity, such as the EU General Data Privacy Regulation, are rapidly expanding and creating a complex regulatory compliance environment. Costs to comply with and implement these privacy-related and data protection measures could be significant. Even our inadvertent failure to comply with applicable privacy-related or data protection laws and regulations could result in proceedings against us by governmental entities or others.

We and certain of our businesses are involved as plaintiffs or defendants in legal proceedings in various matters. For example, we are involved in legal proceedings claiming personal injuries to the children of former employees as a result of employees’ alleged exposure to chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing clean room environments operated by us or our former parent companies, Philips and Motorola. Furthermore, because we continue to utilize these clean rooms, we may become subject to future claims alleging personal injury that may lead to additional liability. A judgment against us or material defense cost could harm our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We are subject to many environmental, health and safety laws and regulations in each jurisdiction in which we operate, which govern, among other things, emissions of pollutants into the air, wastewater discharges, the use and handling of hazardous substances, waste disposal, the investigation and remediation of soil and ground

As with other companies engaged in similar activities or that own or operate real property, we face inherent risks of environmental liability at our current and historical manufacturing facilities. Certain environmental laws impose strict, and in certain circumstances, joint and several liability on current or previous owners or operators of real property for the cost of investigation, removal or remediation of hazardous substances as well as liability for related damages to natural resources. Certain of these laws also assess liability on persons who arrange for hazardous substances to be sent to disposal or treatment facilities when such facilities are found to be contaminated. While we do not expect that any contamination currently known to us will have a material adverse effect on our business, we cannot assure you that this is the case or that we will not discover new facts or conditions or that environmental laws or the enforcement of such laws will not change such that our liabilities would be increased significantly. In addition, we could also be held liable for consequences arising out of human exposure to hazardous substances or other environmental damage. In summary, we cannot assure you that our costs of complying with current and future environmental and health and safety laws, or our liabilities arising from past or future releases of, or exposures to, regulated materials, will not have a material adverse effect on our business, financial conditions and results of operations.

Public and private initiatives to address climate change may result in an increase in the cost of production due to increase in the prices of energy, introduction of energy or carbon tax or the purchase of carbon offsets. A variety of regulatory developments have been introduced that focus on restricting or managing the emission of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases. Enterprises may need to purchase at higher costs new equipment or raw materials with lower carbon footprints. Environmental laws and regulations could also require us to acquire pollution abatement or remediation equipment, modify product designs, or incur expenses. New materials that we are evaluating for use in our operations may become subject to regulation. These developments and further legislation that is likely to be enacted could affect our operations negatively. Changes in environmental regulations could increase our production and operational costs, which could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

We rely on the efficient and uninterrupted operation of complex information technology applications, systems and networks to operate our business. The reliability and security of our information technology infrastructure and software, and our ability to expand and continually update technologies in response to our changing needs is critical to our business. Any significant interruption in our business applications, systems or networks, including but not limited to new system implementations, computer viruses, cyberattacks, security breaches, facility issues or energy blackouts could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We have, from time to time, experienced cyber-attacks attempting to obtain access to our computer systems and networks. Such incidents, whether or not successful, could result in the misappropriation of our proprietary information and technology, the compromise of personal and confidential information of our employees, customers or suppliers or interrupt our business. There can be no assurance that a breach or incident will not have a material impact on our operations and financial results in the future. In the current environment, there are numerous and evolving risks to cybersecurity and privacy, including criminal hackers, state-sponsored intrusions, industrial espionage, employee malfeasance, and human or technological error. Computer hackers and others routinely attempt to breach the security of technology products, services, and systems, and those of customers, suppliers, and some of those attempts may be successful. Such breaches could result in, for example, unauthorized access to, disclosure, modification, misuse, loss, or destruction of our, our customer, or other third party data or systems, theft of sensitive or confidential data including personal information (including personal data about our employees, customers or other third parties) and intellectual property, system disruptions, and

Our success and future revenue growth depends, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary technology, our products, our proprietary designs and fabrication processes, and other intellectual property against misappropriation by others. We primarily rely on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as nondisclosure agreements and other methods, to protect our intellectual property. We may have difficulty obtaining patents and other intellectual property rights to protect our proprietary products, technology and intellectual property, and the patents and other intellectual property rights we receive may be insufficient to provide us with meaningful protection or commercial advantage. We may not obtain patent protection or secure other intellectual property rights in all the countries in which we operate, and under the laws of such countries, patents and other intellectual property rights may be or become unavailable or limited in scope. Even if new patents are issued, the claims allowed may not be sufficiently broad to effectively protect our proprietary technology, processes and other intellectual property. In addition, any of our existing patents, and any future patents issued to us may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented. The protection offered by intellectual property rights may be inadequate or weakened for reasons or circumstances that are out of our control. Further, our proprietary technology, designs and processes and other intellectual property may be vulnerable to disclosure or misappropriation by employees, contractors and other persons. It is possible that competitors or other unauthorized third parties may obtain, copy, use or disclose our proprietary technologies, our products, designs, processes and other intellectual property despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property. While we hold a significant number of patents, there can be no assurances that additional patents will be issued or that any rights granted under our patents will provide meaningful protection against misappropriation of our intellectual property. Our competitors may also be able to develop similar technology independently or design around our patents. We may not have or pursue patents or pending applications in all the countries in which we operate corresponding to all of our primary patents and applications. Even if patents are granted, effective enforcement in some countries may not be available. In particular, intellectual property rights are difficult to enforce in countries where the application and enforcement of the laws governing such rights may not have reached the same level as compared to other jurisdictions where we operate. Consequently, operating in some countries may subject us to an increased risk that unauthorized parties may attempt to copy or otherwise use our intellectual property or the intellectual property of our suppliers or other parties with whom we engage. There is no assurance that we will be able to protect our intellectual property rights or have adequate legal recourse in the event that we seek legal or judicial enforcement of our intellectual property rights under the laws of such countries. Any inability on our part to adequately protect our intellectual property may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We have from time to time received, and may in the future receive, communications alleging possible infringement of patents and other intellectual property rights of others. Further, we may become involved in costly litigation brought against us regarding patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets or other intellectual property rights. If any such claims are asserted against us, we may seek to obtain a license under the third party’s intellectual property rights. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain any or all of the necessary

We depend on our key management to run our business and on our senior engineers to develop new products and technologies. Our success will depend on the continued service of these individuals. Although we have several share based compensation plans in place, we cannot be sure that these plans will help us in our ability to retain key personnel, especially considering that the stock options under some of our plans become exercisable upon a change of control (in particular, when a third party, or third parties acting in concert, obtains, whether directly or indirectly, control of us). The loss of any of our key personnel, whether due to departures, death, ill health or otherwise, could have a material adverse effect on our business. The market for qualified employees, including skilled engineers and other individuals with the required technical expertise to succeed in our business, is highly competitive and the loss of qualified employees or an inability to attract, retain and motivate the additional highly skilled employees required for the operation and expansion of our business could hinder our ability to successfully conduct research activities or develop marketable products. The foregoing risks could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We are incorporated under the laws of the Netherlands and substantial portions of our assets are located outside of the United States. In addition, certain members of our board, our officers and certain experts named herein reside outside the United States. As a result, it may be difficult for investors to effect service of process within the United States upon us or such other persons residing outside the United States, or to enforce outside the United States judgments obtained against such persons in U.S. courts in any action. In addition, it may be difficult for investors to enforce, in original actions brought in courts in jurisdictions located outside the United States, rights predicated upon the U.S. laws.

In the absence of an applicable treaty for the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments (other than arbitration awards) in civil and commercial matters to which the United States and the Netherlands are a party, a judgment obtained against the Company in the courts of the United States, whether or not predicated solely upon the U.S. federal securities laws, including a judgment predicated upon the civil liability provisions of the U.S. securities law or securities laws of any State or territory within the United States, will not be directly enforceable in the Netherlands.

In order to obtain a judgment which is enforceable in the Netherlands, the claim must be relitigated before a competent court of the Netherlands; the relevant Netherlands court has discretion to attach such weight to a judgment of the courts of the United States as it deems appropriate; based on case law, the courts of the Netherlands may be expected to recognize and grant permission for enforcement of a judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction in the United States without re-examination or relitigation of the substantive matters adjudicated thereby, provided that (i) the relevant court in the United States had jurisdiction in the matter in accordance with standards which are generally accepted internationally; (ii) the proceedings before that court complied with principles of proper procedure; (iii) recognition and/or enforcement of that judgment does not conflict with the public policy of the Netherlands; and (iv) recognition and/or enforcement of that judgment is

Based on the foregoing, there can be no assurance that U.S. investors will be able to enforce against us or members of our board of directors, officers or certain experts named herein who are residents of the Netherlands or countries other than the United States any judgments obtained in U.S. courts in civil and commercial matters.

In addition, there is doubt as to whether a Dutch court would impose civil liability on us, the members of our board of directors, our officers or certain experts named herein in an original action predicated solely upon the U.S. laws brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in the Netherlands against us or such members, officers or experts, respectively.

As of December 31, 2021, we had outstanding indebtedness with an aggregate principal amount of $10,650 million. Our substantial indebtedness could have a material adverse effect on our business by:

Despite our level of indebtedness, we may still incur significantly more debt, which could further exacerbate the risks described above and affect our ability to service and repay our debt.

The RCF Agreement and the indentures governing our unsecured notes or any other debt arrangements that we may have require us to comply with various covenants. If there were an event of default under any of our debt instruments that was not cured or waived, the holders of the defaulted debt could terminate commitments to lend and cause all amounts outstanding with respect to the debt to be due and payable immediately, which in turn could result in cross defaults under our other debt instruments. Our assets and cash flow may not be sufficient to fully repay borrowings under all of our outstanding debt instruments if some or all of these instruments are accelerated upon an event of default.

If our cash flows and capital resources are insufficient to fund our debt service obligations, we may be forced to reduce or delay investments and capital expenditures, or to sell assets, seek additional capital, restructure or refinance our indebtedness or reduce or delay capital expenditures, strategic acquisitions, investments and alliances, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to obtain enough capital to service our debt and fund our planned capital expenditures and business plan. Our ability to restructure or refinance our debt will depend on the condition of the capital markets and our financial condition at such time. Any refinancing of our debt could be at higher interest rates and may require us to comply with more onerous covenants, which could further restrict our business operations. The terms of existing or future debt instruments may restrict us from adopting some of these alternatives. In addition, any failure to make payments of interest and principal on our outstanding indebtedness on a timely basis would likely result in a reduction of our credit rating, which could harm our ability to incur additional indebtedness. These alternative measures may not be successful and may not permit us to meet our scheduled debt service obligations.

The major debt rating agencies routinely evaluate our debt. These ratings are based on current information furnished to the ratings agencies by us and information obtained by the ratings agencies from other sources. An explanation of the significance of such rating may be obtained from such rating agency. There can be no assurance that such credit ratings will remain in effect for any given period of time or that such ratings will not be lowered, suspended or withdrawn entirely by the rating agencies, if, in each rating agency’s judgment, circumstances so warrant. Actual or anticipated changes or downgrades in our credit ratings, including any announcement that our ratings are under further review for a downgrade, could affect our market value and/or increase our corporate borrowing costs.

As disclosed in Part II, Item 9A, management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2021 due to a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting associated with ineffective information technology general controls (ITGCs) in the areas of user access, change-management and IT operations over certain information technology (IT) systems that support the Company’s financial reporting processes.

We have initiated remediation plans to address the material weakness, including, but not limited to, expanding controls, applying other appropriate procedures to address the design and operation of internal controls relating to certain IT systems, and enhancing procedures for the identification of control activities and monitoring of control performance to ensure that the components of internal control relating to certain IT systems are present and functioning. While there can be no assurance that our efforts will be successful, in fiscal year 2022 we intend to fully implement these plans to remediate the material weaknesses.

If we are unable to remediate the material weakness, or are otherwise unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures, our ability to record, process and report financial information accurately, and to prepare financial statements within required time periods, could be adversely affected, which could subject us to litigation or investigations requiring management resources and

The stock market in recent years has experienced significant price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated to the operating performance of companies. The market price for our common stock has varied between a high of $239.91 on December 7, 2021 and a low of $156.02 on January 27, 2021 in the twelve-month period ending on December 31, 2021. The market price of our common stock is likely to continue to be volatile and subject to significant price and volume fluctuations for many reasons, including in response to the risks described in this section, changes in our dividend or share repurchase policies, variations between our actual financial results or guidance and expectations of securities analysts or investors or for reasons unrelated to our operations, such as reports by industry analysts, investor perceptions or negative announcements by our customers, competitors, peer companies or suppliers regarding their own performance, or announcements by our competitors of significant contracts, strategic partnerships, joint ventures, joint marketing relationships or capital commitments, the passage of legislation or other regulatory developments affecting us or our industry, as well as industry conditions and general financial, economic and political instability. In the past, following periods of market volatility, shareholders have instituted securities class action litigation. If we were involved in securities litigation, it could have a substantial cost and divert resources and the attention of executive management from our business regardless of the outcome of such litigation.

The amount, timing, and execution of our stock repurchases may fluctuate based on our priorities for the use of cash for other purposes—such as investing in our business, including operational spending, capital spending, and acquisitions, and returning cash to our stockholders as dividend payments—and because of changes in cash flows, tax laws, and the market price of our common stock.

Our board of directors has adopted a dividend policy pursuant to which we currently pay a cash dividend on our ordinary shares on a quarterly basis. The declaration and payment of any dividend is subject to the approval of our board and our dividend may be discontinued or reduced at any time. There can be no assurance that we will declare cash dividends in the future in any particular amounts, or at all.

Future dividends, if any, and their timing and amount, may be affected by, among other factors: management’s views on potential future capital requirements for strategic transactions, including acquisitions; earnings levels; contractual restrictions; cash position and overall financial condition; and changes to our business model. The payment of cash dividends is restricted by applicable law, contractual restrictions and our corporate structure.

We sponsor defined benefit pension plans in a number of countries and a significant number of our employees are covered by our defined benefit pension plans. As of December 31, 2021, we had recognized a net accrued benefit liability of $508 million, representing the unfunded benefit obligations of our defined pension plans. The funding status and the liabilities and costs of maintaining these defined benefit pension plans may be impacted by financial market developments. For example, the accounting for such plans requires determining discount rates, expected rates of compensation and expected returns on plan assets, and any changes in these variables can have a significant impact on the projected benefit obligations and net periodic pension costs. Negative performance of the financial markets could also have a material impact on funding requirements and net periodic pension costs. Our defined benefit pension plans may also be subject to demographic trends. Accordingly, our costs to meet pension liabilities going forward may be significantly higher than they are today, which could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition.

The European Commission, U.S. Congress and Treasury Department, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and other government agencies in jurisdictions where we and our affiliates do business have had an extended focus on issues related to the taxation of multinational corporations, particularly payments made between affiliates from a jurisdiction with high tax rates to a jurisdiction with lower tax rates. As a result, the tax laws in the European Union, U.S. and other countries in which we and our affiliates do business could change on a prospective or retroactive basis, and any such changes could adversely affect us and our affiliates.

Recent examples include the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s initiatives to revise profit allocation and nexus rules to allocate more taxing rights to countries where companies have their markets and to establish a minimum tax rate on a global basis. These initiatives include recommendations and proposals that, if enacted in countries in which we and our affiliates do business, could adversely affect us and our affiliates.

We are required to pay taxes in multiple jurisdictions. We determine the taxes we are required to pay based on our interpretation of the applicable tax laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate. We may be subject to unfavorable changes in the respective tax laws and regulations to which we are subject. Tax controls, audits, change in controls and changes in tax laws or regulations or the interpretation given to them may expose us to negative tax consequences, including interest payments and potentially penalties. We have issued transfer-pricing directives in the areas of goods, services and financing, which are in accordance with the Guidelines of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). As transfer pricing has a cross border effect, the focus of local tax authorities on implemented transfer pricing procedures in a country may have an impact on results in another country.

Transfer pricing uncertainties can also result from disputes with local tax authorities about transfer pricing of internal deliveries of goods and services or related to financing, acquisitions and divestments, the use of tax credits and permanent establishments, and tax losses carried forward. These uncertainties may have a significant impact on local tax results. We also have various tax assets resulting from acquisitions. Tax assets can also result from the generation of tax losses in certain legal entities. Tax authorities may challenge these tax assets. In addition, the value of the tax assets resulting from tax losses carried forward depends on having sufficient taxable profits in the future.

In 2021, the United States proposed a budget reconciliation act that could amend the Internal Revenue Code (the “Build Back Better Act”). The Build Back Better proposal contains provisions affecting the tax treatment of both U.S. companies (such as certain of our subsidiaries) and non-U.S. companies that could materially affect us. The Build Back Better proposal includes provisions that impose a minimum tax of 15% on adjusted financial statement net income, extends through the end of 2025 (set to expire on December 31, 2021) the expensing of research and experimental costs, and modifies U.S. inbound and outbound international provisions – including the global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI) on foreign earnings made by U.S. corporations’ foreign subsidiaries, the deduction for certain foreign-derived intangible income (FDII), and the base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT) levied on otherwise deductible payments made to certain foreign affiliates. Although not yet passed and not yet signed into law, the effective date for the provisions could range from January 1, 2022 to January 1, 2023.

Not applicable.

The Company's headquarters are located in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. As of February 24, 2022, the Company operates owned manufacturing facilities primarily in the United States, Netherlands, Malaysia, China, Thailand and Taiwan, as well as in Singapore (SSMC) together with our joint venture partner TSMC. The Company also owns or leases other properties in multiple countries for use as administrative, sales or research and development facilities. The Company believes its existing facilities and equipment are in good operating condition and adequate to meet our need for the near future.

Not applicable.

The Company's common stock is traded on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol NXPI. On February 16, 2022 there were 14 shareholders of record and 741,000 beneficial shareholders of our common stock.

The following table presents the quarterly dividends on our common stock for the periods indicated:

On January 31, 2022, the board of directors of NXP approved a 50 percent increase in the quarterly cash dividend to $0.845 per ordinary share to be paid in cash on April 6, 2022 to shareholders of record as of March 15, 2022. We currently expect to continue to pay dividends in the future.

In November 2019, the board of directors of NXP (the “Board”) approved the repurchase of shares up to a maximum of $2 billion (the "2019 Share Repurchase Program"). In addition, the Board approved the purchase of shares from participants in NXP's equity programs who trade shares as trade for tax and this authorization will remain in effect until terminated by the Board. In March 2021, the Board approved the repurchase of shares up to a maximum of $2 billion (the "2021 Share Repurchase Program"), and in August 2021, the Board increased the 2021 Share Repurchase Program authorization by $2 billion, for a total of $4 billion approved for the repurchase of shares under the 2021 Share Repurchase Program. In January 2022, the Board approved the repurchase of shares up to a maximum of $2 billion (the "2022 Share Repurchase Program").

The following table provides a summary of share repurchase activity during the three months ended December 31, 2021:

The following graph shows a comparison, since December 31, 2016 of cumulative total return for NXP, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, and the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index. The graph assumes $100 (not in millions) invested on December 31, 2016 in our common stock and each of the indices.

Our MD&A is provided in addition to the accompanying consolidated financial statements and notes to assist readers in understanding our results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. MD&A is organized as follows:

The following table presents the composition of operating income for the years ended December 31, 2021 and December 31, 2020.

The following table presents the split of other income (expense) for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020:

We recorded an income tax expense of $272 million for the year-ended December 31, 2021, which reflects an effective tax rate of 12.5% compared to a benefit of $83 million ((8300.0)%) for the year-ended December 31, 2020.

The effective tax rate reflects the impact of tax incentives, a portion of our earnings being taxed in foreign jurisdictions at rates different than the Netherlands statutory tax rate, changes in estimates of prior years' income taxes, change in valuation allowance and non-deductible expenses, sale of non-deductible goodwill and withholding taxes. The impact of these items results in offsetting factors that attribute to the change in the effective tax rate between the two periods, with the significant drivers outlined below:

Results relating to equity-accounted investees amounted to a loss of $2 million in 2021, whereas in 2020, results relating to equity-accounted investees amounted to a loss of $4 million.

Non-controlling interests are related to the third-party share in the results of consolidated companies, predominantly SSMC. Their share of non-controlling interests amounted to a profit of $35 million for the year-ended December 31, 2021, compared to a profit of $28 million for the year-ended December 31, 2020.

We derive our liquidity and capital resources primarily from our cash flows from operations. We continue to generate strong positive operating cash flows, and we currently use cash to fund operations, meet working capital requirements, for capital expenditures and for potential common stock repurchases, dividends and strategic investments. Based on past performance and current expectations, we believe that our current available sources of funds (including cash and cash equivalents, RCF Agreement, plus anticipated cash generated from operations) will be adequate to finance our operations, working capital requirements, capital expenditures and potential dividends for at least the next year.

As of December 31, 2021, our cash balance was $2,830 million, an increase of $555 million compared to December 31, 2020 ($2,275 million), of which $208 million (2020, $185 million) was held by SSMC, our consolidated joint venture company with TSMC. Under the terms of our joint venture agreement with TSMC, a portion of this cash can be distributed by way of a dividend to us, but 38.8% of the dividend will be paid to our joint venture partner. During 2021, no dividend (2020, $90 million) was declared. Taking into account the available undrawn amount of the RCF Agreement of $1,500 million, we had access to $4,330 million of liquidity as of December 31, 2021.

The common stock repurchase activity was as follows:

Under Dutch corporate law and our articles of association, NXP may acquire its own shares if the general meeting of shareholders has granted the board of directors the authority to effect such acquisitions. It is our standard practice to request our annual general meeting of shareholders (the “AGM”) every year to renew this authorization for a period of 18 months from the AGM. For repurchases of shares in 2020 and 2021, the board of directors made use of the authorizations renewed by the AGM on June 17, 2019, May 27, 2020 and May 26, 2021, respectively. In November 2019, the board of directors approved the additional repurchase of shares up to a maximum of $2 billion (the "2019 Share Repurchase Program") and the purchase of shares from participants in NXP's equity programs who trade shares as trade for tax. In March 2021, the board of directors approved the

Our total debt, inclusive of aggregate principal, unamortized discounts, premiums, debt issuance costs and fair value adjustments, amounted to $10,572 million as of December 31, 2021, an increase of $2,963 million compared to December 31, 2020 ($7,609 million). On May 11, 2021, NXP issued $1 billion of 2.5% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2031 and $1 billion of 3.25% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2041. On November 30, 2021, NXP issued $1 billion of 2.65% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2032, $500 million of 3.125% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2042 and $500 million of 3.25% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2051. On December 1, 2021, $1 billion of 3.875% Senior Notes due 2022 were redeemed in full.

As of December 31, 2021, the Company had outstanding fixed-rate notes with varying maturities for an aggregate principal amount of $10,650 million (collectively the “Notes”), with $0 payable within 12 months. Future interest payments associated with the Notes total $3,358 million, with $384 million payable within 12 months.

We believe our current cash and cash equivalents position, our expected cash flow generated from operations and our expected financing activities will satisfy our working and other capital requirements for at least the next 12 months based on our current business plans. Recent and expected working and other capital requirements, in addition to the above matters, also include the items described below:

On November 30, 2021, NXP B.V., together with NXP USA Inc. and NXP Funding LLC, issued $1 billion of 2.65% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2032, $500 million of 3.125% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2042 and $500 million of 3.25% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2051. The Company used a portion of the net proceeds of the offering of these notes to redeem the $1 billion aggregate principal amount of outstanding 3.875% Senior Notes due 2022. The remaining net proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, which may include capital expenditures or equity buyback transactions.

On May 11, 2021, NXP B.V., together with NXP USA Inc. and NXP Funding LLC, issued $1 billion of 2.5% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2031 and $1 billion of 3.25% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2041. The net proceeds of the 2.5% Senior Notes due 2031 ("2031 Notes") are being used to finance certain eligible green

On May 1, 2020, NXP B.V., together with NXP USA Inc. and NXP Funding LLC, issued $500 million of 2.7% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2025, $500 million of 3.15% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2027 and $1 billion of 3.4% Senior Unsecured Notes due 2030. NXP used the net proceeds of the offering of these notes to repay in full on September 28, 2020, the $1,350 million aggregate principal amount of outstanding 4.125% Senior Notes due 2021 and the $400 million aggregate principal amount of outstanding 4.625% Senior Notes due 2022.

As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, we had no short-term debt outstanding.

As of December 31, 2021 and 2020, we had outstanding debt of:

We repaid the Cash Convertible Notes upon their maturity on December 1, 2019 through a combination of available cash and payments made by the counterparties under privately negotiated convertible note hedge transactions (the “Cash Convertible Notes Hedges”), as further described in Note 13 of the notes to consolidated financial statements in this report. For a detailed description of the Warrants underlying the Cash Convertible Notes Hedge, refer to Note 13 of the notes to the consolidated financial statements included in this report.

Our cash and cash equivalents in 2021 increased by $558 million (excluding the effect of changes in exchange rates on our cash position of $(3) million) as follows:

For the year-ended December 31, 2021 our operating activities provided $3,077 million in cash. This was primarily the result of net income of $1,906 million, adjustments to reconcile the net income of $1,628 million and changes in operating assets and liabilities of $(437) million. Adjustments to net income include offsetting non-cash items, such as depreciation and amortization of $1,262 million, share-based compensation of $353 million, amortization of the discount on debt and debt issuance costs of $8 million, a gain on sale of assets of $1 million, a loss on extinguishment of debt of $22 million, a loss on equity securities of $2 million, results relating to equity-accounted investees of $2 million and changes in deferred taxes of $(20) million.

The change in operating assets and liabilities was attributable to the following:

The $176 million increase in receivables and other current assets was primarily due to the increase in trade accounts receivable, net, which was driven by the increasing linearity of revenue between the two periods, customer mix, and the related timing of cash collections in 2021 compared with the same period in 2020.

The $159 million increase in inventories was primarily related to increased production levels in order to attempt to align inventory on hand with the current revenue forecasts.

The $248 million increase in accounts payable and other liabilities was primarily related to increases in trade accounts payable of $262 million, and $163 million related to accruals for employee compensation; partially offset by the decrease of other liabilities of $57 million related to income and social taxes payable, $37

The $350 million increase in other non-current assets was primarily related to prepayments to secure long-term production supply with multiple vendors.

For the year-ended December 31, 2020 our operating activities provided $2,482 million in cash. This was primarily the result of net income of $80 million, adjustments to reconcile the net income of $1,959 million and changes in operating assets and liabilities of $438 million. Net income includes offsetting non-cash items, such as depreciation and amortization of $1,988 million, share-based compensation of $384 million, amortization of the discount on debt and debt issuance costs of $8 million, a gain on sale of assets of $(115) million, a loss on extinguishment of debt of $60 million, a gain on equity securities of $(21) million, results relating to equity-accounted investees of $4 million and changes in deferred taxes of $(349) million.

Net cash used for investing activities amounted to $934 million for the year-ended December 31, 2021 and principally consisted of the cash outflows for capital expenditures of $767 million, $132 million for the purchase of identified intangible assets, $33 million for the purchase of equipment leased to others, $23 million purchases of interests in businesses (net of cash acquired) and $8 million purchase of investments, partly offset by proceeds of $10 million from insurance recoveries received for equipment damage, $10 million from proceeds from return of equity investments and $8 million from proceeds from sale of investments.

Net cash used for investing activities amounted to $418 million for the year-ended December 31, 2020 and principally consisted of the cash outflows for capital expenditures of $392 million, $130 million for the purchase of identified intangible assets, $34 million purchases of interests in businesses (net of cash acquired), and $30 million purchase of investments, partly offset by proceeds of $161 million from the sale of our Voice and Audio Solution assets (net of cash).

In addition to the financing activities described below, net cash used for financing activities by year included:

The following debt instruments are guaranteed, fully and unconditionally, jointly and severally, by NXP Semiconductors N.V. and issued or guaranteed by NXP USA, Inc., NXP B.V. and NXP LLC, (together, the “Subsidiary Obligors” and together with NXP Semiconductors N.V., the “Obligor Group”): 4.625% Senior Notes due 2023, 4.875% Senior Notes due 2024, 2.700% Senior Notes due 2025, 5.350% Senior Notes due 2026, 3.875% Senior Notes due 2026, 3.150% Senior Notes due 2027, 5.550% Senior Notes due 2028, 4.300% Senior Notes due 2029, 3.400% Senior Notes due 2030, 2.500% Senior Notes due 2031, 2.650% Senior Notes

All of the existing guarantees by the Company rank equally in right of payment with all of the existing and future senior indebtedness of the Obligor Group. There are no significant restrictions on the ability of the Obligor Group to obtain funds from respective subsidiaries by dividend or loan.

The following tables present summarized financial information of the Obligor Group on a combined basis, with intercompany balances and transactions between entities of the Obligor Group eliminated and investments and equity in the earnings of the Non-Guarantor Subsidiaries excluded. The Obligor Group’s amounts due from, amounts due to, and intercompany transactions with Non-Guarantor Subsidiaries have been disclosed below the table, when material.

NXP Semiconductors N.V. is the head of a fiscal unity for the corporate income tax and VAT that contains the most significant Dutch wholly-owned group companies. The Company is therefore jointly and severally liable for the tax liabilities of the tax entity as a whole, and as such the income tax expense of the Dutch fiscal unity has been included in the Net income of the Obligor Group.

The financial information of the Obligor Group includes sales executed through a Non-Guarantor Subsidiary single-billing entity as a sales agent on behalf of an entity in the Obligor Group. The Obligor Group has sales to non-guarantors (2021: $563 million). The Obligor Group has amounts due from equity financing (2021: $5,167) and due to debt financing (2021: $3,053) with non-guarantor subsidiaries.

The preparation of financial statements and related disclosures in accordance with U.S. GAAP requires our management to make judgments, assumptions and estimates that affect the amounts reported in our Consolidated

The methods, estimates, and judgments that we use in applying our accounting policies have a significant impact on the results that we report in our Consolidated Financial Statements. Some of our accounting policies require us to make difficult and subjective judgments, often as a result of the need to make estimates regarding matters that are inherently uncertain. Our most critical accounting estimates include:

In the following section, we discuss these policies further, as well as the estimates and judgments involved.

Inventories are valued at the lower of cost or net realizable value. We regularly review our inventories and write down our inventories for estimated losses due to obsolescence. This allowance is determined for groups of products based on sales of our products in the recent past and/or expected future demand. Future demand is affected by market conditions, technological obsolescence, new products and strategic plans, each of which is subject to change with little or no forewarning. In estimating obsolescence, we utilize information that includes projecting future demand.

The need for strategic inventory levels to ensure competitive delivery performance to our customers are balanced against the risk of inventory obsolescence due to rapidly changing technology and customer requirements.

The change in our reserves for inventories was primarily due to the normal review and accrual of obsolete or excess inventory. If actual future demand or market conditions are less favorable than those projected by our management, additional inventory write-downs may be required.

Goodwill is required to be assessed for impairment at least once annually, or more frequently if indicators of potential impairment exist, which includes evaluating qualitative and quantitative factors to assess the likelihood of an impairment of a reporting unit’s goodwill. Such events or changes in circumstances can be significant changes in business climate, operating performance or competition, or upon the disposition of a significant portion of a reporting unit. A significant amount of judgment is involved in determining if an indicator of impairment has occurred between annual test dates. We perform impairment tests using a fair value approach when necessary. Determining the fair value of a reporting unit involves the use of significant estimates and assumptions, including projected future cash flows, discount rates based on weighted average cost of capital and future economic and market conditions. We base our fair-value estimates on assumptions we believe to be reasonable. Actual cash flow amounts for future periods may differ from estimates used in impairment testing.

We perform our annual impairment test for goodwill in the fourth quarter of each fiscal year. We did not recognize any impairment charges for goodwill in the years presented, as our annual impairment testing indicated that the fair value exceeded the recorded value for the respective reporting unit.

We perform reviews of long-lived assets including property, plant and equipment, and intangible assets subject to amortization, whenever facts and circumstances indicate that the useful life is shorter than what we had originally estimated or that the carrying amount of assets may not be recoverable. If such facts and circumstances exist, we assess the recoverability of the long-lived assets by comparing the projected undiscounted net cash flows associated with the related asset or group of assets over their remaining lives against their respective carrying amounts. In the event such cash flows are not expected to be sufficient to recover the recorded value of the assets, the assets are written down to their estimated fair values based on the expected discounted future cash flows attributable to the assets or based on appraisals. Impairment losses, if any, are based on the excess of the carrying amount over the fair value of those assets. Long-lived assets to be disposed of by sale are reported at the lower of their carrying amounts or their estimated fair values less costs to sell and are not depreciated.

The assumptions and estimates used to determine future values and remaining useful lives of our intangible and other long-lived assets are complex and subjective. They can be affected by various factors, including external factors such as industry and economic trends, and internal factors such as changes in our business strategy and our forecasts for specific product lines. In 2021, we recognized impairment charges of $36 million as a result of the discontinuation of an IPR&D project. In 2020, we recognized impairment charges of $36 million, relative to IPR&D that was acquired from Freescale. In 2019 we had no impairments.

The Company recognizes revenue under the core principle to depict the transfer of control to customers in an amount reflecting the consideration the Company expects to be entitled. In order to achieve that core principle, the Company applies the following five step approach: (1) identify the contract with a customer, (2) identify the performance obligations in the contract, (3) determine the transaction price, (4) allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations in the contract, and (5) recognize revenue when a performance obligation is satisfied.

The vast majority of the Company’s revenue is derived from the sale of semiconductor products to distributors, Original Equipment Manufacturers (“OEMs”) and similar customers. In determining the transaction price, the Company evaluates whether the price is subject to refund or adjustment to determine the consideration to which the Company expects to be entitled. Variable consideration is estimated and includes the impact of discounts, price protection, product returns and distributor incentive programs. The estimate of variable consideration is dependent on a variety of factors, including contractual terms, analysis of historical data, current economic conditions, industry demand and both the current and forecasted pricing environments. The estimate of variable consideration is not constrained because the Company has extensive experience with these contracts.

Revenue is recognized when control of the product is transferred to the customer (i.e., when the Company’s performance obligation is satisfied), which typically occurs at shipment. In determining whether control has transferred, the Company considers if there is a present right to payment and legal title, and whether risks and rewards of ownership having transferred to the customer.

For sales to distributors, revenue is recognized upon transfer of control to the distributor. For some distributors, contractual arrangements are in place which allow these distributors to return products if certain conditions are met. These conditions generally relate to the time period during which a return is allowed and reflect customary conditions in the particular geographic market. Other return conditions relate to circumstances arising at the end of a product life cycle, when certain distributors are permitted to return products purchased during a pre-defined period after the Company has announced a product’s pending discontinuance. These return rights are a form of variable consideration and are estimated using the most likely method based on historical return rates in order to reduce revenues recognized. However, long notice periods associated with these announcements prevent significant amounts of product from being returned. For sales where return rights exist, the Company has determined, based on historical data, that only a very small percentage of the sales of this type to distributors is actually returned. Repurchase agreements with OEMs or distributors are not entered into by the Company.

Sales to most distributors are made under programs common in the semiconductor industry whereby distributors receive certain price adjustments to meet individual competitive opportunities. These programs may include credits granted to distributors, or allow distributors to return or scrap a limited amount of product in accordance with contractual terms agreed upon with the distributor, or receive price protection credits when our standard published prices are lowered from the price the distributor paid for product still in its inventory. In determining the transaction price, the Company considers the price adjustments from these programs to be variable consideration that reduce the amount of revenue recognized. The Company’s policy is to estimate such price adjustments using the most likely method based on rolling historical experience rates, as well as a prospective view of products and pricing in the distribution channel for distributors who participate in our volume rebate incentive program. We continually monitor the actual claimed allowances against our estimates, and we adjust our estimates as appropriate to reflect trends in pricing environments and inventory levels. The estimates are also adjusted when recent historical data does not represent anticipated future activity. Historically, actual price adjustments for these programs relative to those estimated have not materially differed.

Deferred tax assets, including assets arising from loss carryforwards, are recognized, net of a valuation allowance, if based upon the available evidence it is more likely than not that the asset will be realized.

The income tax benefit from an uncertain tax position is recognized only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained upon examination by the relevant taxing authorities. The income tax benefit recognized is measured based on the largest benefit that is more than 50% likely to be realized upon resolution of the uncertainty. Unrecognized tax benefits are presented as a reduction to the deferred tax asset for related net operating loss carryforwards, unless these would not be available, in which case the uncertain tax benefits are presented together with the related interest and penalties as a liability, under accrued liabilities and other non-current liabilities based on the timing of the expected payment. Penalties are recorded as income tax expense, whereas interest is reported as financial expense in the statement of operations.

The Company’s employees participate in pension and other postretirement benefit plans in many countries. The costs of pension and other postretirement benefits and related assets and liabilities with respect to the Company’s employees participating in defined-benefit plans are based upon actuarial valuations.

The projected defined-benefit obligation is calculated annually by qualified actuaries using the projected unit credit method. For the Company’s major plans, the discount rate is derived from market yields on high quality corporate bonds. Plans in countries without a deep corporate bond market use a discount rate based on the local government bond rates.

In calculating obligation and expense, the Company is required to select actuarial assumptions. These assumptions include discount rate, expected long-term rate of return on plan assets and rates of increase in compensation costs determined based on current market conditions, historical information and consultation with and input from our actuaries. Changes in the key assumptions can have a significant impact to the projected benefit obligations, funding requirements and periodic pension cost incurred.

The Company determines the fair value of plan assets based on quoted prices or comparable prices for non-quoted assets. For a defined-benefit pension plan, the benefit obligation is the projected benefit obligation; for any other postretirement defined benefit plan it is the accumulated postretirement benefit obligation.

We recognize compensation expense for all share-based awards based on the grant-date estimated fair values, net of an estimated forfeiture rate. We use the Black-Scholes option pricing model to determine the estimated fair value for certain awards. Share-based compensation cost for restricted share units (“RSUs”) with time-based vesting is measured based on the closing fair market value of our common stock on the date of the grant, reduced by the present value of the estimated expected future dividends, and then multiplied by the number of RSUs granted. Share-based compensation cost for performance-based share units (“PSUs”) granted with performance or market conditions is measured using a Monte Carlo simulation model on the date of grant.

Our valuation models and generally accepted valuation techniques require us to make assumptions and to apply judgment to determine the fair value of our awards. These assumptions and judgments include estimating the volatility of our stock price, expected dividend yield, employee turnover rates and employee stock option exercise behaviors. When establishing the expected life assumption, we used the ‘simplified’ method prescribed in ASC Topic 718 for companies that do not have adequate historical data. The risk-free interest rate is measured as the prevailing yield for a U.S. Treasury security with a maturity similar to the expected life assumption. We also estimate a forfeiture rate at the time of grant and revise this rate in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures or vesting differ from the original estimates.

We evaluate the assumptions used to value our awards on a quarterly basis. If factors change and we employ different assumptions, share-based compensation expense may differ significantly from what we have recorded in the past. If there are any modifications or cancellation of the underlying unvested securities, we may be required to accelerate, increase or cancel any remaining unearned share-based compensation expense.

We are regularly involved as plaintiffs or defendants in claims and litigation related to our past and current business operations. The claims can cover a broad range of topics, including intellectual property, reflecting the Company’s identity as a global manufacturing and technology business. The Company vigorously defends itself against improper claims, including those asserted in litigation. Due to the unpredictable nature of litigation, there can be no assurance that the Company’s accruals will be sufficient to cover the extent of its potential exposure to losses but, historically, legal actions have not had a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operations or financial condition.

The estimated aggregate range of reasonably possible losses is based on currently available information in relation to the claims that have arisen and on the Company’s best estimate of such losses for those cases for which such estimate can be made. For certain claims, the Company believes that an estimate cannot currently be made. The estimated aggregate range requires significant judgment, given the varying stages of the proceedings (including the fact that many of them are currently in preliminary stages), the existence of multiple defendants (including the Company) in such claims whose share of liability has yet to be determined, the numerous yet-unresolved issues in many of the claims, and the attendant uncertainty of the various potential outcomes of such claims. Accordingly, the Company’s estimate will change from time to time, and actual losses may be more than the current estimate.

In addition to disclosing financial results in accordance with U.S. GAAP, this document contains references to net debt. Net debt is a non-GAAP financial measure and represents total debt (short-term and long-term) after deduction of cash and cash equivalents. We believe this measure provides investors with useful supplemental information about the financial performance of our business, enables comparison of financial results between periods where certain items may vary independent of business performance, and allows for greater transparency with respect to calculating our net leverage.

The following is a reconciliation of net debt to the most directly comparable GAAP measure, total debt, as adjusted for our cash and cash equivalents our net debt was calculated as follows:

We understand that, although net debt is used by investors and securities analysts in their evaluation of companies, this concept has limitations as an analytical tool and it should not be used as an alternative to any other measure in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

We are exposed to changes in interest rates and foreign currency exchange rates because we finance certain operations through fixed and variable rate debt instruments and denominate our transactions in a variety of foreign currencies. Changes in these rates may have an impact on future cash flow and earnings. We manage these risks through normal operating and financing activities and, when deemed appropriate, through the use of derivative financial instruments. We do not enter into financial instruments for trading or speculative purposes.

By using derivative instruments, we are subject to credit and market risk. The fair market value of the derivative instruments is determined by using valuation models whose inputs are derived using market observable inputs, including interest rate yield curves, as well as foreign exchange and commodity spot and forward rates, and reflects the asset or liability position as of the end of each reporting period. When the fair value of a derivative contract is positive, the counterparty owes us, thus creating a receivable risk for us. We are exposed to counterparty credit risk in the event of non-performance by counterparties to our derivative agreements. We minimize counterparty credit (or repayment) risk by entering into transactions with major financial institutions of investment grade credit rating. Our exposure to market risk is not hedged in a manner that completely eliminates the effects of changing market conditions on earnings or cash flow.

Our RCF Agreement has a $1,500 million borrowing capacity with a floating rate interest. As there are currently no borrowings under this facility, a hypothetical increase in LIBOR based interest rates would not have caused any change to our interest expense on our floating rate debt.

Additional information regarding our notes is provided in Note 2 - Significant Accounting Policies, and Note 13 - Debt, of our notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8. of this Annual Report is incorporated herein by reference.

We are also exposed to market risk from changes in foreign currency exchange rates, which could affect operating results as well as our financial position and cash flows. We monitor our exposures to these market risks and generally employ operating and financing activities to offset these exposures where appropriate. If we do not have operating or financing activities to sufficiently offset these exposures, from time to time, we may employ derivative financial instruments such as swaps, collars, forwards, options or other instruments to limit the volatility to earnings and cash flows generated by these exposures. Derivative financial instruments are only used for hedging purposes and not for trading or speculative purposes. All counterparties to our derivatives contracts are major banking institutions. In the event of financial insolvency or distress of a counterparty to our derivative financial instruments, we may be unable to settle transactions if the counterparty does not provide us with sufficient collateral to secure its net settlement obligation to us, which could have a negative impact on our results. The Company measures all derivative financial instruments based on fair values derived from market prices of the instruments or from option pricing models, as appropriate and record these as assets or liabilities in the balance sheet. Changes in the fair values are recognized in the statement of operations immediately unless cash flow hedge accounting is applied. A summary of our foreign currency accounting policies is provided in Note 2 - Significant Accounting Policies, of our notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Item 8. of this Annual Report is incorporated herein by reference.

At December 31, 2021 our net asset related to foreign currency forward contracts designated as hedges of foreign currency risk on certain operating expenditure transactions was $2 million. If our forecasted operating expenditures for currencies in which we hedge were to decline by 20% and foreign exchange rates were to change unfavorably by 20% in our hedged foreign currency, we would incur a negligible loss.

Financial assets and liabilities held by consolidated subsidiaries that are not denominated in the functional currency of those entities are subject to the effects of currency fluctuations and may affect reported earnings. As a global company, we face exposure to adverse movements in foreign currency exchange rates. We may hedge currency exposures associated with certain assets and liabilities denominated in nonfunctional currencies and certain anticipated nonfunctional currency transactions. As a result, we could experience unanticipated gains or losses on anticipated foreign currency cash flows, as well as economic loss with respect to the recoverability of investments.

Our primary foreign currency exposure relates to the U.S. dollar to euro exchange rate. However, our foreign currency exposures also relate, but are not limited, to the Chinese Yuan, the Japanese Yen, the Pound Sterling, the Malaysian Ringgit, the Singapore Dollar, the New Taiwan Dollar and the Thai Baht.