Rambus (RMBS) 10-K2022 FY Annual report

This Annual Report on Form 10-K (“Annual Report on Form 10-K”) contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, predictions regarding the following aspects of our future:

Rambus is a trademark of Rambus Inc. Other trademarks or copyrights that may be mentioned in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.

Rambus is an industry-leading provider of chips, silicon IP and innovations that address the fundamental challenges of accelerating data and enable critical performance improvements for data center and other growing markets. The ongoing growth of the cloud, along with the widespread advancement of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and other data-intensive workloads, continue to drive an exponential increase in data usage and demands on data infrastructure. Creating fast and safe connections, both in and across systems, remains one of the most mission-critical design challenges limiting performance in advanced hardware for these markets.

As an industry pioneer with over 30 years of advanced semiconductor design experience, Rambus is ideally positioned to address the challenges of moving and protecting data. We are a leader in high-performance memory subsystems, providing chips, intellectual property (“IP”) and innovations that maximize the performance and security in data-intensive systems. Whether in the cloud, at the edge or in your hand, real-time and immersive applications depend on data throughput and integrity. Rambus products and innovations deliver the increased bandwidth, capacity and security required to meet the world’s data needs and drive ever-greater end-user experiences.

Rambus offers a balanced and diverse portfolio of solutions across chips, silicon IP and patent licensing. The data center continues to be the Company’s primary focus market, demanding the highest performance and security, and represents greater than 75% of the revenue from Rambus chip and silicon IP sales. Driven by the continued growth of our memory interface chips, we produced record product revenue of $227.1 million in 2022, up 58% as compared to 2021. Silicon IP grew 30% as compared to 2021 driven by design wins at leading system on chip (“SoC”) customers. In addition, Rambus successfully closed and extended key patent licensing agreements, solidifying our foundation of sustained cash generation to fuel investment in our product and technology roadmaps and delivering consistent return of value to stockholders.

Made for high speed, reliability and power efficiency, Rambus DDR memory interface chips for server memory modules (e.g., RDIMMs) enable increased bandwidth and expanded capacity in enterprise and cloud servers. The Rambus portfolio includes DDR5 and DDR4 memory interface chipsets. Our leading-edge DDR5 chipset solution includes the Registering Clock Driver (“RCD”), Serial Presence Detect Hubs (“SPD Hub”) and Temperature Sensors (“TS”).

We sell memory interface chips directly and indirectly to memory module manufacturers and OEMs worldwide through multiple channels, including our direct sales force and distributors. We operate direct sales offices in the United States, France, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China, where we employ sales personnel who serve our direct customers and manage our channel partners.

We operate a fabless business model and use third-party foundries and manufacturing contractors to fabricate, assemble and test our memory interface chips. We also inspect and test parts in our U.S.-based facilities. This outsourced manufacturing approach allows us to focus our investment and resources on the research, development, design, sale and marketing of our products. Outsourcing also allows us the flexibility needed to respond to new market opportunities, simplifies our operations and significantly reduces our capital requirements.

Rambus Silicon IP includes interface and security IP solutions that move and protect data in advanced data center, government and automotive applications. Our Interface IP solutions feature both high-speed memory and chip-to-chip interconnect technologies, including physical interface (“PHY”) and digital controller IP, to offer industry-leading, integrated memory and interconnect subsystems. We offer one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios of security IP solutions, including crypto cores, hardware roots of trust, high-speed protocol engines and chip provisioning technologies.

We sell Silicon IP solutions to leading chip makers worldwide for integration into their SoC and FPGA designs. Rambus Silicon IP is sold through our direct sales force operating out of offices in the United States, France, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Our patented inventions are foundational to the semiconductor industry and are licensed to leading semiconductor and system companies around the world. Rambus continues to innovate and invent, thereby advancing semiconductor technology. With a broad worldwide portfolio of patents covering memory architecture, high-speed serial links and security, we enhance our value and relevance in our target markets and create a platform for investment in product development.

Our patent licenses enable our customers to use specified portions of our portfolio of patented inventions in the customer’s own digital electronics products, systems or services. These licenses may also define the specific field of use where our customers may use or employ our inventions in their products. License agreements are structured with fixed or variable, or a hybrid of fixed and variable royalty payments over certain periods ranging up to ten years. Leading semiconductor and electronic system companies such as AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, CXMT, IBM, Infineon, Kioxia, Marvell, MediaTek, Micron, Nanya, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Phison, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK hynix, Socionext, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, Western Digital, Winbond and Xilinx have licensed our patents for use in their own products.

The semiconductor industry is intensely competitive and is characterized by rapid technological change, short product life cycles, cyclical market patterns, price erosion, increasing foreign and domestic competition and market consolidation. Rambus competes with product offerings from various companies depending upon the particular Rambus product line. In the memory interface chip market, we compete with international semiconductor companies, including Renesas and Montage Technology. In the Silicon IP market, Rambus competes with the in-house design teams at our potential customers, as well as with third-party IP suppliers such as Cadence and Synopsys. Many of our competitors are larger and have better access to financial, technical, sales and marketing resources than we possess.

To the extent that alternative technologies, which might provide comparable system performance at lower or similar cost to our patented technologies, are perceived to require the payment of no or lower fees or royalties, or to the extent other factors influence the industry, our customers and prospective customers may adopt and promote such alternative technologies. Even to the extent we determine that such alternative technologies infringe our patents, there can be no assurance that we would be able to negotiate agreements that would result in royalties being paid to us without litigation, which could be costly and the results of which would be uncertain. As in the past, litigation may be required to enforce and protect our IP rights, as well as the substantial investments undertaken to research and develop our innovations and technologies.

Building upon our foundation of core semiconductor technologies, our research priorities focus on innovation and patent development that differentiate our product offerings in the market and enhance the value of our patent portfolio. Key to our efforts is continuing to hire and retain world-class inventors, scientists and engineers to lead the development and deployment of inventions and technology solutions for our intended markets.

To foster our research and development efforts, we assembled a team of highly-skilled inventors, engineers and scientists whose activities are focused on continually developing new innovations within our chosen technology fields, and thereby securing the IP rights and legal protections for these ground-breaking inventions. Using this foundation of innovation, our technical teams develop new semiconductor solutions that enable increased performance, greater power efficiency and increased levels of security, as well as other improvements and benefits. Our solution design and development process is a multi-disciplinary effort requiring expertise in multiple fields across all of our operational units.

A significant number of our scientists and engineers spend all or a portion of their time on research and development. For the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, research and development expenses were $158.8 million, $135.7 million and $139.8 million, respectively. We expect to continue to invest substantial funds in research and development activities. In addition, because our customer agreements often call for us to provide engineering support, a portion of our total engineering costs are allocated to the cost of contract and other revenue.

As of December 31, 2022, we had 765 employees, of which approximately 38% were in the United States and 62% in other global regions. Additionally, approximately 71% of our employees were engineers with the remaining employees in sales, general and administrative positions. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

We believe that our future success largely depends upon our continued ability to identify, attract, motivate and retain qualified personnel. We provide our employees with competitive compensation, as well as opportunities for equity ownership and developmental programs that enable continued learning and growth. We also offer employees benefits such as life and

The employment market in the United States can be competitive especially for technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere. Our human capital resources objectives, as described above, help us retain and motivate our existing employees, advisors, and consultants, which is a key component of increasing stockholder value and the success of Rambus.

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to maintaining a diverse and inclusive work environment. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion helps us attract and retain the best talent, enables employees to realize their full potential and drives high performance through innovation and collaboration. Because we know that diversity is truly a competitive advantage that helps drive innovation, we strive to maintain a best-in-class work environment that fosters respect for individuals, their ideas and contributions. We benefit from the innovation that results when people with differing experiences, perspectives and cultures work together to achieve a common goal.

We maintain and support an active program to protect our IP, primarily through the filing of patent applications and the defense of issued patents against potential infringement. As of December 31, 2022, our technologies are covered by 2,392 U.S. and foreign patents, having expiration dates ranging from 2023 to 2041. Additionally, we have 615 patent applications pending. Some of the patents and pending patent applications are derived from a common parent patent application or are foreign counterpart patent applications. We believe our patented innovations provide our customers with the legal rights and licenses to use our inventions to achieve improved performance, greater cost-effectiveness and other technological benefits in their own products and services. We intend to continue our innovation efforts and allocate significant investment in our IP development programs.

We have a program to file applications for and obtain patents in the United States and in selected foreign countries where we believe filing for such protection is appropriate and would further our overall business strategy and objectives. In some instances, obtaining appropriate levels of protection may involve prosecuting continuation and counterpart patent applications based on a common parent application. In addition, we attempt to protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information through agreements with current and prospective customers, and confidentiality agreements with employees and consultants and other security measures. We also rely on copyright, trademarks and trade secret laws to protect our IP and other proprietary assets.

Our sales of memory interface chips are generally made pursuant to short-term purchase orders. These purchase orders are made without deposits and may be, and often are, rescheduled, canceled or modified on relatively short notice, without substantial penalty. Therefore, we believe that purchase orders or backlog are not necessarily a reliable indicator of our future product sales.

Information concerning our revenue, results of operations and revenue by geographic area is set forth in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and in Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Information concerning identifiable assets and segment reporting is also set forth in Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K. Information on customers that comprise 10% or more of our consolidated revenue and risks attendant to our foreign operations is set forth below in Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

Information regarding our current executive officers and their ages and positions is contained in the table below. Our executive officers are appointed by, and serve at the discretion of, our Board of Directors. There is no family relationship between any of our executive officers. Keith Jones served as our interim Chief Financial Officer from November 2021 until August 2022.

Because of the following factors, as well as other variables affecting our operating results, past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results or trends in future periods. See also “Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” at the beginning of this report.

Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that you should consider before investing in our company, as fully described below. The principal factors and uncertainties that make investing in our company risky include, among others:

Our target customers are companies that develop and market high volume business and consumer products in semiconductors, computing, data centers, networks, tablets, handheld devices, mobile applications, gaming and graphics, high-definition televisions, cryptography and data security. The electronics industry is intensely competitive and has been impacted by rapid technological change, short product life cycles, cyclical market patterns, price erosion and increasing foreign and domestic competition. We are subject to many risks beyond our control that influence whether or not we are successful in winning target customers or retaining existing customers, including, primarily, competition in a particular industry, market acceptance of such customers’ products and the financial resources of such customers. In particular, DRAM manufacturers, which such customers make up a significant part of our revenue, are prone to significant business cycles and have suffered material losses and other adverse effects to their businesses, leading to industry consolidation from time-to-time that may result in loss of revenues under our existing license agreements or loss of target customers. As a result of ongoing competition in the industries in which we operate and volatility in various economies around the world, we may achieve reduced market share, a reduced number of licenses or may experience tightening of customers’ operating budgets, difficulty or inability of our customers to pay our licensing fees, reduction in downstream demand, lengthening of the approval process for new products and licenses and consolidation among our customers. All of these factors may adversely affect the demand for our products and technologies and may cause us to experience substantial fluctuations in our operating results and financial condition.

We face competition from semiconductor and digital electronics products and systems companies, and other semiconductor IP companies that provide security and memory interface cores that are available to the market. We believe some of the competition for our technologies may come from our prospective customers, some of which are internally evaluating and developing products based on technologies that they contend or may contend will not require a license from us. Many of these companies are larger and may have better access to financial, technical and other resources than we possess and may be able to develop and advance competitive products more effectively.

To the extent that alternative technologies might provide comparable system performance at lower or similar cost to our technologies, or are perceived to require the payment of no or lower fees and/or royalties, or to the extent other factors influence the industry, our customers and prospective customers may adopt and promote such alternative technologies. Even to the extent we determine that such alternative technologies infringe our patents, there can be no assurance that we would be able to negotiate agreements that would result in royalties being paid to us without litigation, which could be costly and the results of which would be uncertain.

In addition, our efforts to expand into new markets subject us to additional risks. We may have limited or no experience in new products and markets, and our customers may not adopt our new offerings. These and other new offerings may present new and difficult challenges, which could negatively affect our operating results.

We have a high degree of revenue concentration. Our top five customers for each reporting period represented approximately 58%, 56% and 46% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively. We expect to continue to experience significant revenue concentration for the foreseeable future. Our customers’ demand for our products may fluctuate due to factors beyond our control. We could experience fluctuations in our customer base or the mix of revenue by customer as markets and strategies evolve. A disruption in our relationship with any of our customers could adversely affect our business. In addition, any consolidation of our customers could reduce the number of customers to whom our products may be sold or the demand for our products. Our inability to meet our customers’ requirements or to qualify our products with them could adversely impact our revenue. The loss of, or restrictions on our ability to sell to, one or more of our major customers, or any significant reduction in orders from, or a shift in product mix by, customers could have a material adverse effect on our on our operating results and financial condition.

In addition, our license agreements are complex and some contain terms that require us to provide certain customers with the lowest royalty rate that we provide to other customers for similar technologies, volumes and schedules. These clauses may limit our ability to effectively price differently among our customers, to respond quickly to market forces, or otherwise to compete on the basis of price. These clauses may also require us to reduce royalties payable by existing customers when we enter into or amend agreements with other customers. Any adjustment that reduces royalties from current customers or licensees may have a material adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

We continue to negotiate with customers and prospective customers to enter into license agreements. Any future agreement may trigger our obligation to offer comparable terms or modifications to agreements with our existing customers, which may be

We have no control over our customers’ pricing of their products and there can be no assurance that licensed products will be competitively priced or will sell in significant volumes. Any premium charged by our customers in the price of memory and controller chips or other products over alternatives must be reasonable. If the benefits of our technology do not match the price premium charged by our customers, the resulting decline in sales of products incorporating our technology could harm our operating results.

Prior to purchasing our products, our customers often require that our products undergo extensive qualification processes, which involve testing of our products in the customers’ systems, as well as testing for reliability. This qualification process may continue for several months. However, qualification of a product by a customer does not assure any sales of the product to that customer. Even after successful qualification and sales of a product to a customer, a subsequent revision in third-party manufacturing processes may require a new qualification process with our customers, which may result in delays and in our holding excess or obsolete inventory. After our products are qualified, it can take several months or more before the customer commences volume production of components or systems that incorporate our products. Despite these uncertainties, we devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualify our products with customers in anticipation of sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, sales of those products to the customer may be precluded or delayed, which may impede our growth and cause our business to suffer.

Products that do not meet their specifications or that contain, or are perceived by our customers to contain, defects could impose significant costs on us or otherwise materially adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. From time to time, we experience problems with nonconforming, defective, or incompatible products after we have shipped such products. In recent periods, we have further expanded our product offerings, which could potentially increase the chance that one or more of our products could fail to meet specifications in a particular application. Our products and technologies may be deemed fully or partially responsible for functionality in our customers’ products and may result in sharing or shifting of product or financial liability from our customers to us for costs incurred by the end user as a result of our customers’ products failing to perform as specified. In addition, if our products and technologies perform critical functions in our customers’ products or are used in high-risk consumer end products, such as automotive products, our potential liability may increase. We could be adversely affected in several ways, including the following:

We operate in rapidly changing, highly competitive markets. Technological advances, the introduction of new products and new design techniques could adversely affect our business unless we are able to adapt to changing conditions. Technological advances could render our products and technologies less competitive or obsolete, and we may not be able to respond

Our existing product offerings may present new and difficult challenges, and we may be subject to claims if customers of our offerings experience delays, failures, non-performance or other quality issues. In particular, we may experience difficulties with product design, qualification, manufacturing, including supply chain disruptions or shortages that might lead to an inability to meet customer demand, marketing or certification that could delay or prevent our development, introduction or marketing and sales of products. Although we intend to design our products to be fully compliant with applicable industry standards, proprietary enhancements may not in the future result in full conformance with existing industry standards under all circumstances. Further, our products must be enhanced periodically to keep up with evolving system requirements. Our introduction of new products could reduce the demand and revenue of our older products or affect their pricing.

Our research and development efforts with respect to new technologies may not result in customer or market acceptance. Some or all of those technologies may not successfully make the transition from the research and development stage to cost-effective production as a result of technology problems, competitive cost issues, yield problems, and other factors. Even if we successfully complete a research and development effort with respect to a particular technology, our customers may decide not to introduce or may terminate products utilizing the technology for a variety of reasons, including difficulties with other suppliers of components for the products, superior technologies developed by our competitors and unfavorable comparisons of our products with these technologies, price considerations and lack of anticipated or actual market demand for the products.

Our business model continues to transform towards greater reliance on product revenue. Our memory interface chips resulted in meaningful growth in fiscal year 2022 and we anticipate our memory interface chips will contribute to continued growth in fiscal year 2023. If sales of our memory interface chips do not grow as anticipated, then our business could suffer as a result. Our business could be harmed if we are unable to develop and utilize new technologies that address the needs of our customers, or our competitors or customers develop and utilize new technologies more effectively or more quickly than we can. A transition by our customers to different business models could also result in reduced revenue. We cannot guarantee that we will be successful in keeping pace with all, or any, of the customer trends. Any investments made to enhance or develop new technologies that are not successful could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

We sell our memory interface chips directly and indirectly to memory module manufacturers and OEMs worldwide for integration into server memory modules. We cannot be assured that our customer’s products will be commercially successful over time or at all as a result of factors beyond our control. If products incorporating our technologies are not commercially successful or experience rapid decline, our revenue and business will suffer. Further, we are continuing to expand into new segments and if our memory interface chips fail to achieve acceptance by customers in such segments, then our business could suffer as a result.

Various target markets for our products, such as AI, may develop slower than anticipated or could utilize competing technologies. The markets for some of these products depend in part upon the continued development and deployment of wireless and other technologies, which may or may not address the needs of the users of these products. We cannot predict the size or growth rate of these markets or the market share we will achieve or maintain in these markets in the future.

Our ability to generate significant revenue from new markets will depend on various factors, including the development and growth of these markets; the ability of our technologies and products to address the needs of these markets; the price and performance requirements of our customers, and the preferences of end users; and our ability to provide our customers with products that provide advantages compared with alternative products.

Our ongoing success in these markets will require us to offer better performance alternatives to other products at competitive costs. The failure of any of these target markets to develop as we expect, or our failure to serve these markets to a significant extent, will impede the sales growth of products incorporating our technology, which could harm our operating results.

While our business model continues to transform towards greater reliance on product revenue, a large portion of our revenue consists of fees paid for access to our patented technologies, existing technology and other development and support services

The process of persuading customers to adopt and license our chip interface, data security IP, and other technologies can be lengthy. Even if successful, there can be no assurance that our technologies will be used in a product that is ultimately brought to market, achieves commercial acceptance or results in significant royalties to us. We generally incur significant marketing and sales expenses prior to entering into our license agreements, generating a license fee and establishing a royalty stream from each customer. The length of time it takes to establish a new licensing relationship can take many months or even years. We may incur costs in any particular period before any associated revenue stream begins, if at all. If our marketing and sales efforts are very lengthy or unsuccessful, then we may face a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations as a result of failure to obtain or an undue delay in obtaining royalties.

From time to time, we enter into license agreements that automatically convert from royalty generating arrangements to fully paid-up licenses under which the customer is no longer required to make payments for the licensed technology or IP upon expiration or upon reaching certain milestones. We may not receive further royalties from customers for any licensed technology under those agreements if they convert to fully paid-up licenses because such customers will be entitled to continue using some, if not all, of the relevant IP or technology under the terms of the license agreements without further payment, even if relevant patents or technologies are still in effect. If we cannot find another source of royalties to replace the royalties from these license agreements converting to fully paid-up licenses, our results of operations following such conversion could be adversely affected.

As we commercially launch each of our products, the sales volume of and resulting revenue from such products in any given period will be difficult to predict. Our lengthy license negotiation cycles could make a considerable portion of our future revenue difficult to predict because we may not be successful in entering into or renewing licenses with our customers on our anticipated timelines.

In addition, while some of our license agreements provide for fixed, quarterly royalty payments, many of our license agreements provide for volume-based royalties and may also be subject to caps on royalties in a given period. The sales volume and prices of our customers’ products in any given period can be difficult to predict. Under revenue recognition standard (“ASC 606”) adopted during the first quarter of 2018, our revenue varies greatly from quarter to quarter. As a result of the foregoing items, our actual results may differ substantially from analyst estimates or our forecasts in any given quarter.

Also, a portion of our revenue comes from development and support services provided to our customers. Depending upon the nature of the services, a portion of the related revenue may be recognized ratably over the support period, or may be recognized according to contract revenue accounting. Contract revenue accounting may result in deferral of the service fees to the completion of the contract, or may result in the recognition of service fees over the period in which services are performed on a percentage-of-completion basis.

We provide guidance regarding our expected financial and business performance including our anticipated future revenues, operating expenses and other financial and operation metrics. Correctly identifying the key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is an inherently uncertain process. Any guidance that we provide may not always be accurate, or may vary from actual results, due to our inability to correctly identify and quantify risks and uncertainties to our business and to quantify their impact on our financial performance. We offer no assurance that such guidance will ultimately be accurate, and investors should treat any such guidance with appropriate caution. If we fail to meet our guidance or if we find it necessary to

For the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, revenues received from our international customers constituted approximately 39%, 36% and 44%, respectively, of our total revenue. We expect that future revenue derived from international sources will continue to represent a significant portion of our total revenue.

To the extent that customer sales are not denominated in U.S. dollars, any royalties which are based on a percentage of the customers’ sales that we receive as a result of such sales could be subject to fluctuations in currency exchange rates. In addition, if the effective price of licensed products sold by our foreign customers were to increase as a result of fluctuations in the exchange rate of the relevant currencies, demand for licensed products could fall, which in turn would reduce our royalties. We do not use financial instruments to hedge foreign exchange rate risk.

Trade-related government actions, whether implemented by the United States, China, European Union or other countries, that impose barriers or restrictions that would impact our ability to sell or ship products to certain customers may have a negative impact on our financial condition and results of operations. We cannot predict the actions government entities may take in this context and may be unable to quickly offset or effectively react to government actions that restrict our ability to sell to certain customers or in certain jurisdictions. Government actions that affect our customers’ ability to sell products or access critical elements of their supply chains may result in a decreased demand for their products, which may consequently reduce their demand for our products.

In addition, the U.S. government recently announced new controls affecting the ability to send certain products and technology related to semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing and supercomputing to China without an export license and added additional entities to restricted party lists. The Company currently has not been materially adversely impacted by these new restrictions.

We currently have international business and design operations in Canada, India, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Bulgaria, and business development operations in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Our international operations and revenue are subject to a variety of risks which are beyond our control, including:

We and our customers are subject to many of the risks described above with respect to companies which are located in different countries. There can be no assurance that one or more of the risks associated with our international operations will not result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Our operations and performance depend significantly on worldwide economic conditions. Current and future uncertainty in the worldwide economy, due to inflation, geopolitics, major central bank policies including interest rate increases, public health crises, or other global factors could adversely affect our business. Adverse economic conditions could also affect demand for our products and our customers’ products. If our customers experience reduced demand or excess inventory as a result of global or regional economic conditions or otherwise, this could result in reduced royalty revenue and/or product sales and our business and results of operations could be harmed. Inflationary pressures and shortages have increased, and may continue to increase, costs for materials, supplies, and labor and could cause our expenses to increase at a rate faster than our product pricing to recover such increases which may result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Additionally, deterioration of conditions in worldwide credit markets could limit our ability to obtain external financing, if needed, to fund our operations and capital expenditures. In addition, we may experience losses on our holdings of cash and investments due to failures of financial institutions and other parties. Difficult economic conditions may also result in a higher rate of losses on our accounts receivable due to credit defaults. As a result, downturns in the worldwide economy could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or financial condition.

Our customers depend on our support organization to resolve technical issues and provide ongoing maintenance relating to our products and services. We may be unable to respond quickly enough to accommodate short-term increases in customer demand for support services. Increased customer demand for these services, without corresponding revenues, could increase costs and adversely affect our operating results. In addition, our sales process is highly dependent on our offerings and business reputation and on positive recommendations from our existing customers. Any failure to maintain high-quality technical support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality support, could adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell our solutions to existing and prospective customers, and our business, operating results and financial position.

The United States has recently experienced historically high levels of inflation. If the inflation rate continues to increase, such as a result of increases in the costs of labor and supplies, it will affect our expenses, such as employee compensation and research and development charges. Research and development expenses account for a significant portion of our operating expenses. Additionally, the United States is experiencing an acute workforce shortage, which in turn, has created a competitive wage environment that may increase the Company’s operating costs. To the extent inflation results in rising interest rates and has other adverse effects on the market, it may adversely affect our consolidated financial condition and results of operations.

We rely on third parties for a variety of services, including our manufacturing supply chain partners and third parties within our sales and distribution channels. Some of these third parties are, and may be, our sole manufacturer or sole source of certain production materials and may be located in regions subject to geopolitical uncertainty (e.g., Taiwan). If we fail to manage our relationships with these manufacturers and suppliers effectively, or if they experience delays, disruptions, geopolitical changes, capacity constraints/allocation pressures or quality control problems in their operations, our ability to ship products to our customers could be impaired and our competitive position and reputation could be harmed. In addition, any adverse change in any of our manufacturers and suppliers’ financial or business condition could disrupt our ability to supply quality products to our customers. If we are required to change our manufacturers, we may lose revenue, incur increased costs and damage our end-customer relationships. In addition, qualifying a new manufacturer and commencing production can be an expensive and lengthy process. If our third-party manufacturers or suppliers are unable to provide us with adequate supplies of high-quality products for any other reason, we could experience a delay in our order fulfillment, and our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected. In the event these and other third parties we rely on fail to provide their services adequately, including as a result of errors in their systems, industry pressures or events beyond their control, or refuse

Semiconductor supply chain disruptions have been well publicized recently given high demand and lower supply. We believe that we will continue to experience various supply constraints related to our memory interface chip business in the near term. In particular, to the extent we do not have sufficient wafer and packaging substrate firm commitments from our third-party suppliers, we may not obtain the materials needed on our desired timelines or at reasonable prices. Large swings in demand may exceed our contracted supply and/or our suppliers’ capacity to meet those demand changes resulting in a shortage of parts, materials, or capacity needed to manufacture our products. While we continually work with our suppliers to mitigate the impact of the supply constraints to our customer deliveries, in the event of a shortage or supply interruption from suppliers of related components, we may not be able to develop alternate sources quickly, cost-effectively, or at all. An extended period of global supply chain and economic disruption could have a material negative impact on our business, results of operations, access to sources of liquidity and financial condition, though the full extent and duration is uncertain.

Additionally, various sources of supply-chain risk, including strikes or shutdowns at delivery ports or loss of or damage to our products while they are in transit or storage, IP theft, losses due to tampering, third-party vendor issues with quality or sourcing control, failure by our suppliers to comply with applicable laws and regulations, potential tariffs or other trade restrictions, geopolitical uncertainty and related military actions, or other similar problems could limit or delay the supply of our products. Any interruption or delay in manufacturing or component supply, any increases in manufacturing or component costs, or the inability to obtain these services or components from alternate sources at acceptable prices and within a reasonable amount of time would harm our ability to provide our products to customers on a timely basis. This could harm our relationships with our customers, prevent us from acquiring new customers, and materially and adversely affect our business.

We rely on subcontractors to manufacture and package our products using highly complex processes that require technologically advanced equipment and continuous modification. Our subcontractors maintain operations and continuously implement new product and process technology at facilities which are dispersed in multiple locations in Asia. As a result of the necessary interdependence within our network of manufacturing and packaging facilities, an operational disruption at one of our or a subcontractor’s facilities may have a disproportionate impact on our ability to produce many of our products.

From time to time, there have been disruptions in our subcontractors’ operations as a result of power outages, improperly functioning equipment, disruptions in supply of raw materials or components, or equipment failures. Our subcontractors have manufacturing and other operations in locations subject to natural disasters and possible climate changes, such as severe and variable weather and geological events resulting in increased costs, or disruptions to our manufacturing operations or those of our suppliers or customers. In addition, climate change may pose physical risks to our manufacturing facilities or our suppliers’ facilities, including increased extreme weather events that could result in supply delays or disruptions. Other events, including political or public health crises, such as an outbreak of contagious diseases like COVID-19 may also affect our subcontractors’ production capabilities.

If production is disrupted for any reason, manufacturing yields may be adversely affected, or we may be unable to meet our customers’ requirements and they may purchase products from other suppliers. This could result in a significant increase in manufacturing costs, loss of revenue, or damage to customer relationships, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We rely on third-party providers to supply data center hosting facilities, equipment, maintenance and other services in order to enable us to provide some of our services, and have entered into various agreements for such services. The continuous availability of our services depends on the operations of those facilities, on a variety of network service providers and on third-party vendors. In addition, we depend on our third-party facility providers’ ability to protect these facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, cyber-attacks and similar events. If there are any lapses of service or damage to a facility, we could experience lengthy interruptions in our service, as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services. Even with current and planned disaster recovery

Some of our products and services contain software licensed from third parties. Some of these licenses may not be available to us in the future on terms that are acceptable to us or allow our products to remain competitive. The loss of these licenses or the inability to maintain any of them on commercially acceptable terms could delay development of future offerings or the enhancement of existing products and services. We may also choose to pay a premium price for such a license in certain circumstances where continuity of the licensed product would outweigh the premium cost of the license. The unavailability of these licenses or the necessity of agreeing to commercially unreasonable terms for such licenses could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

Attempts by others to gain unauthorized access to and disrupt our information technology systems are becoming more sophisticated. These attempts, which might be related to industrial or other espionage, may include covertly introducing malware to our computers and networks (or those of our customers) and impersonating authorized users, phishing attempts and other forms of social engineering, employee or contractor malfeasance, denial of service attacks and ransomware attacks, among others. We seek to detect and investigate all security incidents impacting our systems and to prevent their recurrence, but in some cases, we might be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects. We also utilize third-party service providers to host, transmit or otherwise process electronic data in connection with our business activities, including our supply chain processes, operations and communications. Our customers also often have access to and host our confidential IP and business information on their own internal and directed third party systems. We, our customers, and/or our third-party service providers have faced and may continue to face security threats and attacks from a variety of sources. Our data, corporate systems, third-party systems and security measures and those of our customers may be subject to breaches or intrusions due to the actions of outside parties, employee error, malfeasance, a combination of these, or otherwise, including social engineering and employee and contractor error or malfeasance, especially as certain of our employees engage in work from home arrangements, and, as a result, an unauthorized party may obtain access to our systems, networks, or data, including IP and confidential business information of ourselves and our customers. There have been and may continue to be significant supply chain attacks, and we cannot guarantee that our or our third-party service providers’ systems and networks have not been breached or that they do not contain exploitable defects or bugs that could result in a breach of or disruption to our systems and networks or the systems and networks of our customers or of third parties that support us and our services. We and our service providers may face difficulties or delays in identifying or responding to any actual or perceived security breach or incident. The theft or other unauthorized acquisition of, unauthorized use or publication of, or access to our IP and/or confidential business information could harm our competitive position and reputation, reduce the value of our investment in research and development and other strategic initiatives or otherwise adversely affect our business. In the event of any security breach or incident, including any breach or incident that results in inappropriate access to, or loss, corruption, unavailability, or unauthorized acquisition, disclosure or other processing of our or our customers’ confidential information or any personally-identifiable information we or our third-party service providers maintain, including that of our employees, we could suffer a loss of IP or loss of data, may be subject to claims, liability and proceedings, and may incur liability and otherwise suffer financial harm.

Any actual, alleged or perceived breach of security in our systems or networks, or any other actual, alleged or perceived data security incident we or our third-party service providers or customers suffer, could result in damage to our reputation, negative publicity, loss of customers and sales, harm to our market position, increased costs to remedy any problems and otherwise respond to any incident, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, claims, litigation, proceedings and other liability. In addition, we may incur significant costs and operational consequences of investigating, remediating, eliminating and putting in place additional tools and devices designed to prevent actual or perceived security breaches and other security incidents, as well as the costs to comply with any notification or other legal obligations resulting from any security incidents. Any of these negative outcomes could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources, distract management and technical personnel, adversely impact our sales and reputation and seriously harm our business or operating results.

Although we maintain insurance coverage that may cover certain liabilities in connection with some security breaches and other security incidents, we cannot be certain our insurance coverage will be adequate for liabilities actually incurred, that insurance will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms (if at all) or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, or denials of coverage, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, results of operations and reputation.

Our products and services are highly technical and complex, and among our various businesses our products and services are crucial to providing security and other critical functions for our customers’ operations. Our products and services have from time to time contained and may in the future contain undetected errors, bugs, defects or other security vulnerabilities. Some errors in our products and services may only be discovered after a product or service has been deployed and used by customers, and may in some cases only be detected under certain circumstances or after extended use. In addition, because the techniques used by hackers to access or sabotage our products and services and other technologies change and evolve frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate, detect or prevent these techniques and may not address them in our data security technologies. Any errors, bugs, defects or security vulnerabilities discovered in our solutions after commercial release could adversely affect our revenue, our customer relationships and the market’s perception of our products and services. We may not be able to correct any errors, bugs, defects, security flaws or vulnerabilities promptly, or at all. Any breaches, defects, errors or vulnerabilities in our products and services could result in:

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and these principles are subject to interpretation by the SEC, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) and various bodies formed to interpret and create appropriate accounting principles and guidance. A change in these principles or application guidance, or in their interpretations, may have a material effect on our reported results, as well as our processes and related controls, and may retroactively affect previously reported results. For instance, we adopted ASC 606, the Revenue Standard, effective for us on January 1, 2018, on a modified retrospective basis, with a cumulative-effect adjustment to the opening balance of accumulated deficit on January 1, 2018. The Revenue Standard materially impacted the timing of revenue recognition for our fixed-fee IP licensing arrangements (including certain fixed-fee agreements that license our existing IP portfolio, as well as IP added to our portfolio during the license term) as a majority of such revenue would be recognized at inception of the license term (as opposed to over time as is the case under prior U.S. GAAP). We have enhanced the form and content of some of our guidance metrics that we provide following implementation of the Revenue Standard. We expect that any change to current revenue recognition practices may significantly increase volatility in our quarterly revenue, financial results and trends, and may impact our stock price.

From time to time, we engage in acquisitions, strategic transactions, strategic investments, divestitures and potential discussions with respect thereto. For example, in 2019, we acquired Northwest Logic, Inc. (“Northwest Logic”) and the Secure Silicon IP and Protocols business from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure. Further, we acquired AnalogX Inc. (“AnalogX”) in July 2021, PLDA Group (“PLDA”) in August 2021, and Hardent, Inc. (“Hardent”) in May 2022. Many of our acquisitions or strategic investments entail a high degree of risk, including those involving new areas of technology and such investments may not become liquid for several years after the date of the investment, if at all. Our acquisitions or strategic investments may not

Achieving the anticipated benefits of business acquisitions depends in part upon our ability to integrate the acquired businesses in an efficient and effective manner and achieve anticipated synergies, and we may not be successful in these efforts. The integration of companies that have previously operated independently is complex and time consuming and may result in significant challenges, including, among others: retaining key employees; successfully integrating new employees, facilities, products, processes, operations, business models and systems, technology, and sales and distribution channels; retaining customers and suppliers of the acquired business; minimizing the diversion of management’s and other employees’ attention from ongoing business matters; coordinating geographically separate organizations; consolidating research and development operations; consolidating corporate and administrative infrastructures; implementing controls, processes and policies appropriate for a public company at acquired companies that may have previously lacked such controls, processes and policies; and managing the increased scale, complexity and globalization of our business, operations and employee base.

Additional risks related to our acquisitions or strategic investments include, but are not limited to:

Our strategic investments in new areas of technology may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including distraction of management from current operations, greater than expected liabilities and expenses, inadequate return of capital, and unidentified issues not discovered in due diligence. These investments are inherently risky and may not be successful.

In addition, we may record impairment charges related to our acquisitions or strategic investments. Any losses or impairment charges that we incur related to acquisitions, strategic investments or sales of assets will have a negative impact on our financial results and the market value of our common stock, and we may continue to incur new or additional losses related to acquisitions or strategic investments.

We may have to incur debt or issue equity securities to pay for any future acquisitions, which debt could involve restrictive covenants or which equity security issuance could be dilutive to our existing stockholders. We may also use cash to pay for any future acquisitions which will reduce our cash balance.

From time to time, we may also divest certain assets. These divestitures or proposed divestitures may involve the loss of revenue and/or potential customers, and the market for the associated assets may dictate that we sell such assets for less than what we paid. In addition, in connection with any asset sales or divestitures, we may be required to provide certain representations, warranties and covenants to buyers. While we would seek to ensure the accuracy of such representations and warranties and fulfillment of any ongoing obligations, we may not be completely successful and consequently may be subject to claims by a purchaser of such assets.

Any downturn in economic conditions or other business factors could threaten the financial health of our counterparties, including companies with which we have entered into licensing and/or settlement agreements, and their ability to fulfill their financial and other obligations to us. Such financial pressures on our counterparties may eventually lead to bankruptcy proceedings or other attempts to avoid financial obligations that are due to us. Because bankruptcy courts have the power to modify or cancel contracts of the petitioner which remain subject to future performance and alter or discharge payment obligations related to pre-petition debts, we may receive less than all of the payments that we would otherwise be entitled to receive from any such counterparty as a result of bankruptcy proceedings.

Our success is dependent upon our ability to identify, attract, compensate, motivate and retain qualified personnel, especially engineers, senior management and other key personnel. The loss of the services of any key employees could be disruptive to our development efforts, business relationships and strategy, and could cause our business and operations to suffer.

Our future success depends in large part upon the continued service and enhancement of our management team and our employees. If there are further changes in management, such changes could be disruptive and could negatively affect our sales, operations, culture, future recruiting efforts and strategic direction. Competition for qualified executives is intense, and if we are unable to compensate our key talent appropriately and continue expanding our management team, or successfully integrate new additions to our management team in a manner that enables us to scale our business and operations effectively, our ability to operate effectively and efficiently could be limited or negatively impacted. In addition, changes in key management positions may temporarily affect our financial performance and results of operations as new management becomes familiar with our business, processes and strategy. The loss of any of our key personnel, or our inability to attract, integrate and retain qualified employees who join us organically and through acquisitions, could require us to dedicate significant financial and other resources to such personnel matters, disrupt our operations and seriously harm our operations and business.

Our business operations depend on our ability to maintain and protect our facilities, computer systems and personnel, which are primarily located in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Bulgaria, Taiwan and India. The San Francisco Bay Area is in close proximity to known earthquake fault zones and sites of recent historic wildfires. Our facilities and transportation for our employees are susceptible to damage from earthquakes and other natural disasters such as fires, floods, droughts, extreme temperatures, and similar events. Should a catastrophe disable our facilities, we do not have readily available alternative facilities from which we could conduct our business, so any resultant work stoppage could have a negative effect on our operating results. We also rely on our network infrastructure and technology systems for operational support and business activities which are subject to physical and cyber damage, and also susceptible to other related vulnerabilities common to networks and computer systems.

New epidemics, pandemics or outbreaks of novel diseases may arise at any time. The COVID-19 pandemic or other disease outbreak, may continue to adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that may impact overall technology spending, adversely affecting demand for our products and impacting our operating results. Furthermore, such disruption in the global financial markets may reduce our ability to access capital or our customers’ ability to pay us for past or future purchases, which could negatively affect our liquidity.

We and our suppliers could be affected by laws and regulations enacted in response to concerns regarding climate change, conflict minerals, responsible sourcing practices, public health crises, contagious disease outbreaks, or other matters, which could limit the supply of our materials and/or increase the cost. Environmental regulations could limit our ability to procure or use certain chemicals or materials in our operations or products. In addition, disruptions in transportation lines could delay our receipt of materials.

Acts of terrorism, climate-change related risk, widespread illness, or global pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic, war and any event that causes failures or interruption in our network infrastructure and technology systems could have a negative effect at our international and domestic facilities and could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.

Many of our license agreements require our customers to document the manufacture and sale of products that incorporate our technology and report this data to us on a quarterly basis. While licenses with such terms give us the right to audit books and records of our customers to verify this information, audits rarely are undertaken because they can be expensive, time consuming, and potentially detrimental to our ongoing business relationship with our customers. Therefore, we typically rely on the accuracy of the reports from customers without independently verifying the information in them. Our failure to audit our customers’ books and records may result in our receiving more or less royalty revenue than we are entitled to under the terms of our license agreements. If we conduct royalty audits in the future, such audits may trigger disagreements over contract terms with our customers and such disagreements could hamper customer relations, divert the efforts and attention of our management from normal operations and impact our business operations and financial condition.

We are subject to increased inventory risks and costs because we build our products based on forecasts provided by customers before receiving purchase orders for the product.

From time to time, we may undertake restructurings of our business, including discontinuing certain products, services and technologies and planned reductions in force. There are several factors that could cause restructurings to have adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These include potential disruption of our operations, the development of our technology, the deliveries to our customers and other aspects of our business. Loss of sales, service and engineering talent, in particular, could damage our business. Any restructuring would require substantial management time and attention and may divert management from other important work. Employee reductions or other restructuring activities also would cause us to incur restructuring and related expenses such as severance expenses. Moreover, we could encounter delays in executing any restructuring plans, which could cause further disruption and additional unanticipated expense.

We rely on our information systems and those of third parties for fulfilling licensing and contractual obligations, processing customer orders, delivering products, providing services and support to our customers, billing and tracking our customer orders, performing accounting operations and otherwise running our business. If our systems fail, our disaster and data recovery planning and capacity may prove insufficient to enable timely recovery of important functions and business records. Any disruption in our information systems and those of the third parties upon whom we rely could have a significant impact on our business. Additionally, our information systems may not support new business models and initiatives and significant investments could be required in order to upgrade them. Delays in adapting our information systems to address new business models and accounting standards could limit the success or result in the failure of such initiatives and impair the effectiveness of our internal controls. Even if we do not encounter these adverse effects, the implementation of these enhancements may be much more costly than we anticipated. If we are unable to successfully implement the information systems enhancements as planned, our operating results could be negatively impacted.

We use open source software in our services and we intend to continue to use open source software in the future. From time to time, there have been claims challenging the ownership of open source software against companies that incorporate open source software into their products or alleging that these companies have violated the terms of an open source license. As a result, we could be subject to lawsuits by parties claiming ownership of what we believe to be open source software or alleging that we have violated the terms of an open source license. Litigation could be costly for us to defend, have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition or require us to devote additional research and development resources to change our solutions. In addition, if we were to combine our proprietary software solutions with open source software in certain manners, we could, under certain open source licenses, be required to publicly release the source code of our proprietary software solutions. If we inappropriately use open source software, we may be required to re-engineer our solutions, discontinue the sale of our solutions, release the source code of our proprietary software to the public at no cost or take other remedial actions. There is a risk that open source licenses could be construed in a way that could impose unanticipated conditions or restrictions on our ability to commercialize our solutions, which could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition.

If we are not able to comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act or if we are unable to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and procedures, we may not be able to produce timely and accurate financial statements or guarantee that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we file with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms. In connection with the audit of our consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2020, we and our independent registered public accounting firm identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting that impacted our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures as of and for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, and revised our consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2018. While we believe this material weakness has been remediated, we cannot assure you that we have identified all of our existing material weaknesses, or that we will not in the future have additional material weaknesses. Any failure of our internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures could result in material misstatements of our consolidated financial statements, which could cause our investors to lose confidence in our publicly reported information, cause the market price of our stock to decline, expose us to sanctions or investigations by the SEC or other regulatory authorities, or impact our results of operations.

We are subject to income taxes in both the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and, in the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by several factors, many of which are outside of our control, including changes in the mix of earnings and losses in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in tax laws, rates, treaties and regulations or the interpretation of the same, changes to the financial accounting rules for income taxes, the outcome of current and future tax audits, examinations or administrative appeals and certain non-deductible expenses. Our tax determinations are regularly subject to audit by tax authorities and developments in those audits could adversely affect our income tax provision, and we are currently undergoing such audits of certain of our tax returns. Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits or tax disputes may be different from what is reflected in our historical income tax provisions, which could affect our operating results.

Many countries and organizations, including the United States and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, have proposed imposing or are in the process of adopting a 15% global minimum tax. Further, the United States has recently enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes, among other changes, a 1% excise tax on certain stock repurchases and a 15% alternative minimum tax on adjusted financial statement income. If we are subject to additional tax liabilities, our financial performance may be adversely affected. In addition, many jurisdictions are actively considering changes to existing tax laws or have proposed or enacted new laws that could increase our tax obligations in countries where we do business or cause us to change the way we operate our business. Any of these developments or changes in federal, state, or international tax laws or tax rulings could adversely affect our effective tax rate and our operating results.

Various countries have adopted controls, license requirements and restrictions on the export, import and use of products or services that contain encryption technology. In addition, governmental agencies have proposed additional requirements for encryption technology, such as requiring the escrow and governmental recovery of private encryption keys. Restrictions on the sale or distribution of products or services containing encryption technology may impact our ability to license data security technologies to the manufacturers and providers of such products and services in certain markets or may require us or our customers to make changes to the licensed data security technology that is embedded in such products to comply with such restrictions. Government restrictions, or changes to the products or services of our customers to comply with such restrictions, could delay or prevent the acceptance and use of such customers’ products and services. In addition, the United States and other countries have imposed export controls that prohibit the export of encryption and other technology to certain countries, entities and individuals. Our failure to comply with export and use regulations concerning encryption technology could subject us to sanctions and penalties, including fines, and suspension or revocation of export or import privileges. Additionally, climate change concerns and the potential resulting environmental impact may result in new environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations that may affect us, our suppliers, and our customers. Such laws or regulations could cause us to incur additional direct costs for compliance, as well as increased indirect costs resulting from our customers, suppliers, or both incurring additional compliance costs that are passed on to us. These costs may adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.

We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States, the European Union and other countries that involve, for example, user privacy, data protection and security, content and consumer protection. For example, in 2016, a new EU data protection regime, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was adopted, with it fully effective on May 25, 2018. The GDPR includes significant penalties for noncompliance, which may result in monetary penalties of up to the higher of €20 million or 4% of a group’s worldwide turnover for the preceding financial year for the most serious violations. The United Kingdom’s version of the GDPR, which it maintains along with its Data Protection Act, also provides for substantial penalties that, for the most serious violations, can go up to the greater of £17.5 million or 4% of a group’s worldwide turnover for the preceding financial year. In the United States, California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which became effective on January 1, 2020. The CCPA includes a framework with potentially severe statutory damages and private rights of action. Moreover, a new privacy law, the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), was approved by California voters in November 2020. The CPRA significantly modifies the CCPA, effective as of January 1, 2023. Other states, including Virginia, Colorado, Utah, and Connecticut, have passed similar laws that share similarities with the CCPA, CPRA and legislation proposed in other states. The U.S. federal government also is contemplating federal privacy legislation. The GDPR and CCPA, and new and evolving laws such as the CPRA, and other future changes in laws or regulations relating to cross-border data transfer, data localization, and other aspects of privacy, data protection and information security may require us to modify our existing practices with respect to the collection, use, disclosure and other processing of data. The GDPR, CCPA, and other existing and proposed laws and regulations can be costly and challenging to comply with and can delay or impede the development of new products, result in negative publicity, increase our operating costs and subject us to claims or other remedies.

We are subject to disclosure and reporting requirements for companies that use “conflict” minerals mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries in their products, whether or not these products are manufactured by third parties. These requirements could affect the sourcing and availability of minerals that are used in the manufacture of our products. We have to date incurred costs and expect to incur significant additional costs associated with complying with the disclosure requirements, including for example, due diligence in regard to the sources of any conflict minerals used in our products, in addition to the cost of remediation and other changes to products, processes, or sources of supply as a consequence of such verification activities. Additionally, we may face reputational challenges with our customers and other stakeholders if we are unable to sufficiently verify the origins of all minerals used in our products through the due diligence procedures that we implement. We may also face challenges with government regulators and our customers and suppliers if we are unable to sufficiently verify that the metals used in our products are conflict free.

We may be subject to legal claims or regulatory matters involving consumer, stockholder, employment, competition, IP and other issues on a global basis. Litigation can be lengthy, expensive and disruptive to our operations, and results cannot be predicted with certainty. An adverse decision could include monetary damages or, in cases for which injunctive relief is sought, an injunction prohibiting us from manufacturing or selling one or more of our products or technologies. If we were to receive an unfavorable ruling on a matter, our business, operating results or financial condition could be materially harmed.

We seek to diligently protect our IP rights and will continue to do so. While we are not currently involved in IP litigation, any future litigation, whether or not determined in our favor or settled by us, would be expected to be costly, may cause delays applicable to our business (including delays in negotiating licenses with other actual or potential customers), would be expected to discourage future design partners, would tend to impair adoption of our existing technologies and would divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel from other business operations. In addition, we may be unsuccessful in any litigation if we have difficulty obtaining the cooperation of former employees and agents who were involved in our business during the relevant periods related to our litigation and are now needed to assist in cases or testify on our behalf. Furthermore, any adverse determination or other resolution in litigation could result in our losing certain rights beyond the rights at issue in a particular case, including, among other things: our being effectively barred from suing others for violating certain or all of our IP rights; our patents being held invalid or unenforceable or not infringed; our being subjected to significant liabilities; our being required to seek licenses from third parties; our being prevented from licensing our patented technology; or our being required to renegotiate with current customers on a temporary or permanent basis.

An adverse resolution by or with a governmental agency could result in severe limitations on our ability to protect and license our IP, and could cause our revenue to decline substantially. Third parties have and may attempt to use adverse findings by a government agency to limit our ability to enforce or license our patents in private litigation, to challenge or otherwise act against us with respect to such government agency proceedings.

Further, third parties have sought and may seek review and reconsideration of the patentability of inventions claimed in certain of our patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and/or the European Patent Office (the “EPO”). Any re-examination or inter parties review proceedings may be initiated by the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). The PTAB and the related former Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences have previously issued decisions in a few cases, finding some challenged claims of our patents to be valid, and others to be invalid. Decisions of the PTAB are subject to further USPTO proceedings and/or appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. A final adverse decision, not subject to further review and/or appeal, could invalidate some or all of the challenged patent claims and could also result in additional adverse consequences affecting other related U.S. or European patents, including in any IP litigation. If a significant number of such patents are impaired, our ability to enforce or license our IP would be significantly weakened and could cause our revenue to decline substantially.

The pendency of any governmental agency acting as described above may impair our ability to enforce or license our patents or collect royalties from existing or potential customers, as any litigation opponents may attempt to use such proceedings to delay or otherwise impair any pending cases and our existing or potential customers may await the final outcome of any proceedings before agreeing to new licenses or to paying royalties.

Our research and development and product programs are in highly competitive fields in which numerous third parties have issued patents and patent applications with claims closely related to the subject matter of our programs. We and/or our customers, also may be named as a defendant in lawsuits claiming that our technology infringes upon the IP rights of third parties. As we develop additional products and technology, we may face claims of infringement of various patents and other IP rights by third parties. In the event of a third-party claim or a successful infringement action against us, we may be required to pay substantial damages, to stop developing and licensing our infringing technology, to develop non-infringing technology, and to obtain licenses, which could result in our paying substantial royalties or our granting of cross licenses to our technologies. We may not be able to obtain licenses from other parties at a reasonable cost, or at all, which could cause us to expend substantial resources, or result in delays in, or the cancellation of, new products. Moreover, customers and/or suppliers of our products may seek indemnification for alleged infringement of IP rights. We could be liable for direct and consequential damages and expenses including attorneys’ fees. A future obligation to indemnify our customers and/or suppliers may harm our business, financial condition and operating results.

We have an active program to protect our proprietary inventions through the filing of patents. There can be no assurance, however, that:

If any of the above were to occur, our operating results could be adversely affected.

Furthermore, patent reform legislation, such as the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, could increase the uncertainties and costs surrounding the prosecution of any patent applications and the enforcement or defense of our licensed patents. The federal courts, the USPTO, the Federal Trade Commission, and the U.S. International Trade Commission have also recently taken certain actions and issued rulings that have been viewed as unfavorable to patentees. While we cannot predict what form any new patent reform laws or regulations may ultimately take, or what impact recent or future reforms may have on our business, any laws or regulations that restrict or negatively impact our ability to enforce our patent rights against third parties could have a material adverse effect on our business.

In addition, our patents will continue to expire according to their terms, with expected expiration dates ranging from 2023 to 2041. Our failure to continuously develop or acquire successful innovations and obtain patents on those innovations could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.

We rely primarily on a combination of license, development and nondisclosure agreements, trademark, trade secret and copyright law and contractual provisions to protect our non-patentable IP rights. If we fail to protect these IP rights, our customers and others may seek to use our technology without the payment of license fees and royalties, which could weaken our competitive position, reduce our operating results and increase the likelihood of costly litigation. The growth of our business depends in part on the use of our IP in the products of third-party manufacturers, and our ability to enforce IP rights against them to obtain appropriate compensation. In addition, effective trade secret protection may be unavailable or limited in certain foreign countries. Although we intend to protect our rights vigorously, if we fail to do so, our business will suffer.

Effective protection of trademarks, copyrights, domain names, patent rights, and other IP rights is expensive and difficult to maintain, both in terms of application and maintenance costs, as well as the costs of defending and enforcing those rights. The efforts we have taken to protect our IP rights may not be sufficient or effective. Our IP rights may be infringed, misappropriated, or challenged, which could result in them being narrowed in scope or declared invalid or unenforceable. In addition, the laws or practices of certain countries do not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as do the laws of the United States. Significant impairments of our IP rights, and limitations on our ability to assert our IP rights against others, could have a material and adverse effect on our business.

Our success and ability to compete are also dependent upon our ability to operate without infringing upon the patent, trademark and other IP rights of others. Third parties may claim that our current or future products or services infringe upon

In any potential dispute involving our patents or other IP, our customers could also become the target of litigation. Some of our agreements provide for indemnification, and some require us to provide technical support and information to a customer that is involved in litigation involving use of our technology. In addition, we may be exposed to indemnification obligations, risks and liabilities that were unknown at the time that we acquired assets or businesses for our operations. Any of these indemnification and support obligations could result in substantial and material expenses. In addition to the time and expense required for us to indemnify or supply such support to our customers, a customer’s development, marketing and sales of licensed semiconductors, mobile communications and data security technologies could be severely disrupted or shut down as a result of litigation, which in turn could severely hamper our business operations and financial condition as a result of lower or no royalty payments.

We may from time to time be subject to warranty, service level agreement and product liability claims with regard to product performance and our services. We could incur material losses as a result of warranty, support, repair or replacement costs in response to customer complaints or in connection with the resolution of contemplated or actual legal proceedings relating to such claims. In addition to potential losses arising from claims and related legal proceedings, warranty and product liability claims could affect our reputation and our relationship with customers. We generally attempt to limit the maximum amount of indemnification or liability that we could be exposed to under our contracts, however, this is not always possible.

We and certain of our current and former officers and directors, as well as our current auditors, have been subject to several stockholder derivative actions, securities fraud class actions and/or individual lawsuits filed in federal court. The complaints generally alleged that the defendants violated the federal and state securities laws and stated state law claims for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. Although to date these complaints have either been settled or dismissed, the amount of time to resolve any future lawsuits is uncertain, and these matters could require significant management and financial resources. Unfavorable outcomes and significant judgments, settlements and legal expenses in litigation related to any future securities law claims could have material adverse impacts on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and the trading price of our common stock.

In the course of our participation in the development of emerging standards for some of our present and future products, we may be obligated to grant to all other participants a license to our patents that are essential to the practice of those standards on reasonable and non-discriminatory, or RAND, terms. If we fail to limit to whom we license our patents, or fail to limit the terms of any such licenses, we may be required to license our patents or other IP to others in the future, which could limit the effectiveness of our patents against competitors.

Our common stock is listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “RMBS.” The trading price of our common stock has at times experienced price volatility and may continue to fluctuate significantly in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. Some of these factors include:

In addition, the stock market in general, and prices for companies in our industry in particular, have experienced extreme volatility that often has been unrelated to the operating performance of such companies. The trading price of our common stock may fluctuate widely due to various factors, including, but not limited to, actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results, changes in financial forecasts or estimates by us or financial or other market estimates and ratings by securities and other analysts, changes in our capital structure, including issuance of additional debt or equity to the public, interest rate changes, regulatory changes, news regarding our products or products of our competitors, and broad market and industry fluctuations. While the trading price of our common stock has been trending upward, there is no guarantee that the trading price will continue to increase.

We have outstanding senior convertible notes in an aggregate principal amount totaling $10.4 million as of December 31, 2022. Because these notes are convertible into shares of our common stock, volatility or depressed prices of our common stock could have a similar effect on the trading price of such notes. In addition, the existence of these notes may encourage short selling in our common stock by market participants because the conversion of the notes could depress the price of our common stock.

Investors in our common stock may not realize any return on their investment in us and may lose some or all of their investment. Volatility in the trading price of our common stock could also result in the filing of securities class action litigation matters, which could result in substantial costs and the diversion of management time and resources.

We have material indebtedness. In November 2017, we issued $172.5 million aggregate principal amount of our 2023 Notes, of which $10.4 million remains outstanding as of December 31, 2022. The degree to which we are leveraged could have negative consequences, including, but not limited to, the following:

A failure to comply with the covenants and other provisions of our debt instruments could result in events of default under such instruments, which could permit acceleration of all of our outstanding 2023 Notes. Any required repurchase of the 2023 Notes as a result of a fundamental change or acceleration of the 2023 Notes would reduce our cash on hand such that we would not have those funds available for use in our business.

Our ability to meet our payment obligations under our debt instruments depends on our ability to generate significant cash flows or obtain external financing in the future. This, to some extent, is subject to market, economic, financial, competitive, legislative, and regulatory factors as well as other factors that are beyond our control. There can be no assurance that our business will generate cash flow from operations, or that additional capital will be available to us, in amounts sufficient to enable us to meet our debt payment obligations and to fund other liquidity needs. If we are at any time unable to generate sufficient cash flows from operations to service our indebtedness when payment is due, we may be required to attempt to renegotiate the terms of the instruments relating to the indebtedness, seek to refinance all or a portion of the indebtedness or obtain additional financing. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully renegotiate such terms, that any such refinancing would be possible or that any additional financing could be obtained on terms that are favorable or acceptable to us.

Changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure have historically created uncertainty for companies such as ours. Any new or changed laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations due to their lack of specificity, and as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices.

Our certificate of incorporation, our bylaws and Delaware law contain provisions that might enable our management to discourage, delay or prevent a change in control. In addition, these provisions could limit the price that investors would be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock. Pursuant to such provisions:

We are also subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which provides, subject to enumerated exceptions, that if a person acquires 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, the person is an “interested stockholder” and may not engage in any “business combination” with us for a period of three years from the time the person acquired 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock.

As of December 31, 2022, we occupied offices in the leased facilities described below:

We are not currently a party to any material pending legal proceeding; however, from time to time, we may become involved in legal proceedings or be subject to claims arising in the ordinary course of our business. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we currently believe that the final outcome of these ordinary course matters will not have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, financial position or cash flows. Regardless of the outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on us because of defense and settlement costs, diversion of management attention and resources and other factors.

Our common stock is listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “RMBS.”

Information regarding our securities authorized for issuance under equity compensation plans will be included in Item 12, “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters,” of this report on Form 10-K.

As of January 31, 2023, there were 481 holders of record of our common stock. Since many of the shares of our common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of beneficial stockholders represented by these record holders.

We have never paid or declared any cash dividends on our common stock or other securities.

On October 29, 2020, our Board approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the repurchase of up to an aggregate of 20.0 million shares (the “2020 Repurchase Program”). Share repurchases under the 2020 Repurchase Program may be made through the open market, established plans or privately negotiated transactions in accordance with all applicable securities laws, rules, and regulations. There is no expiration date applicable to the 2020 Repurchase Program.

As part of the broader share repurchase program authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch as counterparty, through its agent Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (“Deutsche Bank”) on November 11, 2020 (the “2020 ASR Program”), which was completed in the second quarter of 2021. Also in the second quarter of 2021, we entered into another accelerated share repurchase program with Deutsche Bank on June 15, 2021 (the “2021 ASR Program”), which was completed in the fourth quarter of 2021. In the third quarter of 2022, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association (“Wells Fargo”) on September 9, 2022 (the “2022 ASR Program”), which was completed in the fourth quarter of 2022.

After giving effect to the 2020, 2021 and 2022 ASR programs, detailed in the table below, there remained an outstanding authorization to repurchase approximately 9.7 million shares of our outstanding common stock under the 2020 Repurchase Program.

We record stock repurchases as a reduction to stockholders’ equity. We record a portion of the purchase price of the repurchased shares as an increase to accumulated deficit when the price of the shares repurchased exceeds the average original proceeds per share received from the issuance of common stock.

None.

None.

Rambus is an industry-leading provider of chips, silicon IP and innovations that address the fundamental challenges of accelerating data and enable critical performance improvements for data center and other growing markets. The ongoing growth of the cloud, along with the widespread advancement of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and other data-intensive workloads, continue to drive an exponential increase in data usage and demands on data infrastructure. Creating fast and safe connections, both in and across systems, remains one of the most mission-critical design challenges limiting performance in advanced hardware for these markets.

As an industry pioneer with over 30 years of advanced semiconductor design experience, Rambus is ideally positioned to address the challenges of moving and protecting data. We are a leader in high-performance memory subsystems, providing chips, intellectual property (“IP”) and innovations that maximize the performance and security in data-intensive systems. Whether in the cloud, at the edge or in your hand, real-time and immersive applications depend on data throughput and integrity. Rambus products and innovations deliver the increased bandwidth, capacity and security required to meet the world’s data needs and drive ever-greater end-user experiences.

Our strategic objectives are focusing our product portfolio and research around our core strength in semiconductors, optimizing our operational efficiency, and leveraging our strong cash generation to re-invest for growth. We continue to maximize synergies across our businesses and customer base, leveraging the significant overlap in our ecosystem of customers, partners and influencers. The Rambus product and technology roadmap, as well as our go-to-market strategy, are driven by the application-specific requirements of our focus markets.

The Company’s continued execution delivered strong results during fiscal year 2022, driven by continued demand in our memory interface chips, continued design wins in Silicon IP and continued stability from our royalties revenue.

Highlights from our annual results for the year ended December 31, 2022 were as follows:

We produced record product revenue of $227.1 million in 2022, up 58% as compared to 2021, which was primarily driven by our memory interface chips. In addition, our cash provided by operating activities for 2022 was $230.4 million, which was a record for the Company and up 10% as compared to 2021.

The Company’s consolidated revenue is comprised of product revenue, contract and other revenue and royalties.

Product revenue consists primarily of memory interface chips and is an increasingly growing part of our business. Our memory interface chips are sold to major DRAM manufacturers, Micron, Samsung and SK hynix, as well as directly to system manufacturers and cloud providers, for integration into server memory modules. Product revenue accounted for 50%, 44% and 46% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Royalty revenue is derived from our patent licenses, through which we provide our customers certain rights to our broad worldwide portfolio of patented inventions. Our patent licenses enable our customers to use a portion of our patent portfolio in their own digital electronics products. The licenses typically range in term up to ten years and define the specific field of use where our customers may utilize our inventions in their products. Royalties may be structured as fixed, variable or a hybrid of fixed and variable royalty payments. Leading semiconductor and electronic system companies such as AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, CXMT, IBM, Infineon, Kioxia, Marvell, MediaTek, Micron, Nanya, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Phison, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK hynix, Socionext, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, Western Digital, Winbond and Xilinx have licensed our patents. The vast majority of our patents originate from our internal research and development efforts. Revenues from royalties accounted for 31%, 42% and 34% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Contract and other revenue consists primarily of Silicon IP, which is comprised of our high-speed interface and security IP. Revenue sources under contract and other include our IP core licenses, software licenses and related implementation, support and maintenance fees and engineering services fees. The timing and amounts invoiced to customers can vary significantly depending on specific contract terms and can therefore have a significant impact on deferred revenue or accounts receivable in any given period. Contract and other revenue accounted for 19%, 14% and 19% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Cost of product revenue for 2022 increased approximately $39.6 million to $89.0 million from $49.4 million as compared to 2021, primarily due to increases in sales volumes of our memory interface chips.

Cost of contract and other revenue remained flat at $4.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021.

Sales, general and administrative expenses for 2022 increased approximately $15.7 million, primarily due to increased stock-based compensation expense of $5.0 million, headcount-related expenses of $3.4 million, facilities costs of $2.0 million, bonus accrual expense of $1.8 million, acquisition-related costs (including retention bonus expense) of $1.8 million, travel expenses of $0.9 million and general legal fees of $0.7 million, offset by decreases in legal and accounting costs of $3.0 million related to the shareholder activism activity and restatement matters in 2021 and allocated information technology costs of $0.6 million.

There are a number of trends that may have a material impact on us in the future, including but not limited to, the evolution of memory and SerDes technology, adoption of security solutions, the use and adoption of our inventions or technologies generally, industry consolidation, and global economic conditions with the resulting impact on sales of consumer electronic systems.

We have a high degree of revenue concentration. Our top five customers represented 58% of our revenue for 2022 as compared to 56% in 2021 and 46% in 2020. The particular customers which account for revenue concentration have varied from period-to-period as a result of the addition of new contracts, expiration of existing contracts, renewals of existing contracts, industry consolidation, and the volumes and prices at which the customers have recently sold to their customers. These variations are expected to continue in the foreseeable future.

Our revenue from companies headquartered outside of the United States accounted for 39% in 2022 as compared to 36% in 2021 and 44% in 2020. We expect that revenue derived from international customers will continue to represent a significant portion of our total revenue in the future. Currently, our revenue from international customers is denominated in U.S. dollars. For additional information concerning international revenue, refer to Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K.

The royalties we receive from our semiconductor customers are partly a function of the adoption of our technologies by system companies. Many system companies purchase semiconductors containing our technologies from our customers and do not have a direct contractual relationship with us. Our customers generally do not provide us with details as to the identity or volume of licensed semiconductors purchased by particular system companies. As a result, we face difficulty in analyzing the extent to which our future revenue will be dependent upon particular system companies. Several of our licensees have renewed or extended their license agreements with us during the year ended December 31, 2022, including Samsung, MediaTek, Phison and Qualcomm.

As a part of our overall business strategy, from time to time, we evaluate businesses and technologies for potential acquisitions that are aligned with our core business and designed to supplement our growth, including the 2022 acquisition of Hardent and the 2021 acquisitions of AnalogX and PLDA. Similarly, we evaluate our current businesses and technologies that are not aligned with our core business for potential divestiture. We expect to continue to evaluate and potentially enter into strategic acquisitions or divestitures which may adversely impact our business and operating results.

The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the percentage of total revenue represented by certain items reflected on our consolidated statements of operations:

Product revenue consists of revenue from the sale of memory and security products.

Product revenue increased approximately $83.2 million to $227.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 from $143.9 million for 2021. The increase was due to continued market share gains of our memory interface chips.

Product revenue increased approximately $29.9 million to $143.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 from $114.0 million for 2020. The increase was due to continued market share gains of our memory interface chips.

We believe that product revenue will continue to increase in 2023 as compared to 2022, mainly from the sale of our memory interface chips. However, our ability to continue to grow product revenue is dependent on, among other things, our ability to continue to obtain orders from customers, and our ability to meet our customers’ demands.

Royalty revenue, which includes patent and technology license royalties, increased approximately $3.1 million to $139.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2022 from $136.7 million for 2021. The increase was primarily due to the timing and structure of license renewals.

Royalty revenue increased approximately $52.1 million to $136.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2021 from $84.6 million for 2020. The increase was primarily due to the timing and structure of license renewals.

We are continuously in negotiations for licenses with prospective customers. We expect patent royalties will continue to vary from period to period based on our success in adding new customers, renewing or extending existing agreements, as well as the level of variation in our customers’ reported shipment volumes, sales price and mix, offset in part by the proportion of customer payments that are fixed or hybrid in nature. We also expect that our technology royalties will continue to vary from period to period based on our customers’ shipment volumes, sales prices and product mix.

Contract and other revenue consists of revenue from technology development projects.

We believe that contract and other revenue will fluctuate over time based on our ongoing technology development contractual requirements, the amount of work performed, the timing of completing engineering deliverables, and the changes to work required, as well as new technology development contracts booked in the future.

Cost of product revenue are costs attributable to the sale of memory and security products.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, cost of product revenue increased approximately $39.6 million, primarily due to increases in sales volumes of our memory interface chips.

For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, cost of product revenue increased approximately $11.7 million, primarily due to increases in sales volumes of our memory interface chips.

In the near term, we expect costs of product revenue to continue to be higher as we expect higher sales of our various products in 2023 as compared to 2022.

Cost of contract and other revenue reflects the portion of the total engineering costs which are specifically devoted to individual customer development and support services.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, cost of contract and other revenue remained flat.

For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, cost of contract and other revenue decreased approximately $0.9 million due to lower engineering services associated with the contracts.

In the near term, we expect costs of contract and other revenue to vary from period to period based on varying revenue recognized from contract and other revenue.

Research and development expenses are those expenses incurred for the development of applicable technologies.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, total research and development expenses increased approximately $23.1 million, primarily due to increased headcount-related expenses of $8.3 million, engineering development tool costs of $3.4 million, stock-based compensation expense of $2.9 million, consulting costs of $2.5 million, prototyping costs of $2.0 million, bonus accrual expense of $1.9 million, depreciation expense of $1.0 million and allocated information technology costs of $0.6 million, offset by a decrease in facilities costs of $1.3 million and retention bonus expense related to acquisitions of $0.7 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, total research and development expenses decreased approximately $4.1 million, primarily due to decreased engineering development tool costs of $3.6 million, headcount-related expenses of $1.7 million, retention bonus expense related to acquisitions of $1.1 million, allocated information technology costs of $0.8 million, facilities costs of $0.7 million and prototyping costs of $0.6 million, offset by an increase in engineering costs allocated to cost of revenue of $1.9 million, consulting costs of $1.8 million and stock-based compensation expense of $0.6 million.

In the near term, we expect research and development expenses to be higher as we continue to make investments in the infrastructure and technologies required to maintain our product innovation in semiconductor, security and other technologies.

Sales, general and administrative expenses include expenses and costs associated with trade shows, public relations, advertising, litigation, general legal, insurance and other sales, marketing and administrative efforts. Consistent with our business model, our licensing, sales and marketing activities aim to develop or strengthen relationships with potential new and current customers. In addition, we work with current customers through marketing, sales and technical efforts to drive adoption of their products that use our innovations and solutions, by system companies. Due to the long business development cycles we face and the semi-fixed nature of sales, general and administrative expenses in a given period, these expenses generally do not correlate to the level of revenue in that period or in comparable recent or future periods.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, total sales, general and administrative costs increased approximately $15.7 million, primarily due to increased stock-based compensation expense of $5.0 million, headcount-related expenses of $3.4 million, facilities costs of $2.0 million, bonus accrual expense of $1.8 million, acquisition-related costs (including retention bonus expense) of $1.8 million, travel expenses of $0.9 million and general legal fees of $0.7 million, offset by decreases in legal and accounting costs of $3.0 million related to the shareholder activism activity and restatement matters in 2021 and allocated information technology costs of $0.6 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, total sales, general and administrative costs increased approximately $4.6 million, primarily due to increased consulting, legal and accounting costs of $3.0 million related to the shareholder activism activity and restatement matters during the first quarter of 2021, acquisition-related costs (including retention bonus expense) of $1.8 million, allocated information technology costs of $0.8 million, stock-based compensation expense of $0.8 million and recruiting expenses of $0.6 million, offset by decreased facilities costs of $2.2 million, other consulting costs of $0.6 million and sales and marketing costs of $0.6 million.

In the future, sales, general and administrative expenses will vary from period to period based on the trade shows, advertising, legal, acquisition and other sales, marketing and administrative activities undertaken, and the change in sales, marketing and administrative headcount in any given period. In the near term, we expect our sales, general and administrative expenses to remain relatively flat.

Amortization expense is related to various acquired IP.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, total amortization of acquired intangible assets decreased approximately $1.8 million, primarily due to certain intangible assets being fully amortized, partially offset by additional amortization from intangible assets acquired in 2022.

For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, total amortization of acquired intangible assets decreased approximately $1.0 million, primarily due to certain intangible assets being fully amortized, offset by additional amortization from intangible assets acquired as part of the acquisitions of AnalogX and PLDA in 2021.

In November 2020, we initiated a restructuring plan to reduce overall expenses to improve future profitability by reducing spending on research and development efforts and sales, general and administrative programs (the “2020 Restructuring Plan”). As a result, we recorded a charge of $3.3 million, primarily related to headcount costs. The 2020 Restructuring Plan was completed in 2021.

Refer to Note 17, “Restructuring and Other Charges,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K for additional information.

For the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, the change in the fair value of the earn-out liability related to the 2021 acquisition of PLDA, which is subject to certain revenue targets of the acquired business for a period of three years from the date of acquisition.

During the year ended December 31, 2022, the first-year earn-out target was achieved, and the fair value relating to the remaining two years of the earn-out period were remeasured. As a result of these adjustments, we recorded a net loss of $3.1 million on our consolidated statements of operations.

During the fourth quarter of 2021, we remeasured the fair value of the earn-out liability related to the acquisition of PLDA, which resulted in an additional expense of $5.3 million on our consolidated statements of operations.

During 2020, we recorded a full reduction in the fair value of the earn-out liability related to the 2019 asset purchase agreement to acquire the Secure Silicon IP and Protocols business from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure, since the specified performance milestones were not met for calendar year 2020, which resulted in a gain on our consolidated statements of operations.

Interest income and other income (expense), net, consists primarily of interest income of $5.6 million, $9.3 million, and $14.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021 and 2020, respectively, due to the significant financing component of licensing agreements. Interest income and other income (expense), net, also includes any gains or losses from the re-measurement of our monetary assets or liabilities denominated in foreign currencies.

Gain on fair value of equity security was $3.5 million in 2022 and related to the sale of an equity security with an immaterial carrying value on our Consolidated Statement of Operations of this 10-K.

The $83.6 million loss on extinguishment of debt and the $10.6 million loss on fair value adjustment of derivatives, net, related to the repurchases of $162.1 million aggregate principal amount of our 1.375% Convertible Senior Notes due 2023 (the “2023 Notes”) during the first and third quarters of 2022 and the settlement of the related convertible senior note hedges and warrants in the same periods.

Interest expense for all periods disclosed consists primarily of interest expense associated with the non-cash interest expense related to the amortization of the debt issuance costs on the 2023 Notes, as well as the coupon interest related to these notes. Prior to the adoption of ASU No. 2020-06, “Debt—Debt with Conversion and Other Options (Subtopic 470-20) and Derivatives and Hedging - Contracts in Entity's Own Equity (Subtopic 815-40) (“ASU 2020-06”) on January 1, 2022, interest expense also included the non-cash interest expense related to the amortization of the debt discount.

For the year ended December 31, 2022 as compared to 2021, interest expense decreased approximately $8.8 million, primarily due to the partial repurchases of the 2023 Notes in the first and third quarters of 2022 and the adoption of ASU 2020-06 on January 1, 2022. For the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to 2020, interest expense remained relatively flat.

Our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2022 differed from the U.S. statutory rate primarily due to the foreign-derived intangible income deduction, acquisition indebtedness, and certain capitalized research expenditures, partially offset by the change in the valuation allowance against U.S. deferred tax assets. Our effective tax rate for the year ended December 31, 2021 differed from the U.S. statutory rate primarily due to the foreign-derived intangible income deduction and certain capitalized research expenditures, partially offset by the change in the valuation allowance against U.S. deferred tax assets.

We recorded a provision for income taxes of $6.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2022, which was primarily comprised of taxes on foreign earnings, withholding tax expense and tax expense from the amortization of indefinite-lived intangibles. For the year ended December 31, 2022, we paid withholding taxes of $21.1 million. We recorded a provision for incomes taxes of $5.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2021, which was primarily comprised of taxes on foreign earnings, withholding tax expense, tax expense from the amortization of indefinite-lived intangibles and an increase in the valuation allowance on California deferred tax assets. For the year ended December 31, 2021, we paid withholding taxes of $20.4 million.

We periodically evaluate the realizability of our net deferred tax assets based on all available evidence, both positive and negative. During the third quarter of 2018, we assessed the changes in our underlying facts and circumstances and evaluated the realizability of our existing deferred tax assets based on all available evidence, both positive and negative, and the weight accorded to each, and concluded a full valuation allowance associated with U.S. federal and California deferred tax assets was appropriate. We continue to maintain a full valuation allowance on our California and U.S. federal deferred tax assets as we do not expect to be able to fully utilize them.

Liquidity

We currently anticipate that existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities balances and cash flows from operations will be adequate to meet our cash needs for at least the next 12 months. Additionally, the majority of our cash and cash equivalents is in the United States. Our cash needs for the year ended December 31, 2022 were funded primarily from cash collected from our customers.

We do not anticipate any liquidity constraints as a result of either the current credit environment or investment fair value fluctuations. Additionally, we have the intent and ability to hold our debt investments that have unrealized losses in accumulated other comprehensive gain (loss) for a sufficient period of time to allow for recovery of the principal amounts invested. Further, we have no significant exposure to European sovereign debt. We continually monitor the credit risk in our portfolio and mitigate our credit risk exposures in accordance with our policies.

As a part of our overall business strategy, from time to time, we evaluate businesses and technologies for potential acquisitions that are aligned with our core business and designed to supplement our growth.

To provide us with more flexibility in returning capital to our stockholders, on October 29, 2020, our Board approved a share repurchase program authorizing the repurchase of up to an aggregate of 20.0 million shares (the “2020 Repurchase Program”). Share repurchases under the 2020 Repurchase Program may be made through the open market, established plans or privately negotiated transactions in accordance with all applicable securities laws, rules, and regulations. There is no expiration date applicable to the 2020 Repurchase Program. The 2020 Repurchase Program replaced the previous program approved by our Board in January 2015 and canceled the remaining shares outstanding as part of the previous authorization. During the

On November 11, 2020, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch as counterparty, through its agent Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (“Deutsche Bank”) (the “2020 ASR Program”). The 2020 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2020 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Deutsche Bank the $50.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 2.6 million shares of our common stock from Deutsche Bank in the fourth quarter of 2020, which were retired and recorded as a $40.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $10.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the second quarter of 2021, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.1 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

On June 15, 2021, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Deutsche Bank (the “2021 ASR Program”). The 2021 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2021 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Deutsche Bank the $100.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 3.9 million shares of our common stock from Deutsche Bank in the second quarter of 2021, which were retired and recorded as a $80.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $20.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.4 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

On September 9, 2022, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association (“Wells Fargo”) (the “2022 ASR Program”). The 2022 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2022 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Wells Fargo the $100.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 3.1 million shares of our common stock from Wells Fargo in the third quarter of 2022, which were retired and recorded as a $80.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $20.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.1 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

As of December 31, 2022, there remained an outstanding authorization to repurchase approximately 9.7 million shares of our outstanding common stock under the 2020 Repurchase Program. Refer to “Share Repurchase Program” below.

Cash provided by operating activities of $185.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 was primarily attributable to the cash generated from customer licensing, product sales and engineering services fees. Changes in operating assets and liabilities for the year ended December 31, 2020 primarily included decreases in unbilled receivables, accounts receivable, prepaids and other current assets, and an increase in accrued salaries and benefits, offset by a decrease in income taxes payable and an increase in inventories.

Contractual Obligations

As of December 31, 2022, our material contractual obligations were as follows:

Share Repurchase Program

On October 29, 2020, our Board approved the 2020 Repurchase Program authorizing the repurchase of up to an aggregate of 20.0 million shares. Share repurchases under the 2020 Repurchase Program may be made through the open market, established plans or privately negotiated transactions in accordance with all applicable securities laws, rules, and regulations. There is no expiration date applicable to the 2020 Repurchase Program. The 2020 Repurchase Program replaced the previous program approved by the Board in January 2015 and canceled the remaining shares outstanding as part of the previous authorization.

On November 11, 2020, we entered into the 2020 ASR Program with Deutsche Bank. The 2020 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2020 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Deutsche Bank the $50.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 2.6 million shares of our common stock from Deutsche Bank in the fourth quarter of 2020, which were retired and recorded as a $40.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $10.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the second quarter of 2021, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.1 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

On June 15, 2021, we entered into the 2021 ASR Program with Deutsche Bank. The 2021 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2021 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Deutsche Bank the $100.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 3.9 million shares of our common stock from Deutsche Bank in the second quarter of 2021, which were retired and recorded as a $80.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $20.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the fourth quarter of 2021, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.4 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

On September 9, 2022, we entered into the 2022 ASR Program with Wells Fargo. The 2022 ASR Program was part of the share repurchase program previously authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020. Under the 2022 ASR Program, we pre-paid to Wells Fargo the $100.0 million purchase price for our common stock and, in turn, we received an initial delivery of approximately 3.1 million shares of our common stock from Wells Fargo in the third quarter of 2022, which were retired and recorded as a $80.0 million reduction to stockholders’ equity. The remaining $20.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the accelerated share repurchase program was completed and we received an additional 0.1 million shares of our common stock, which were retired, as the final settlement of the accelerated share repurchase program.

As of December 31, 2022, there remained an outstanding authorization to repurchase approximately 9.7 million shares of our outstanding common stock under the 2020 Repurchase Program.

We record share repurchases as a reduction to stockholders’ equity. We record a portion of the purchase price of the repurchased shares as an increase to accumulated deficit when the price of the shares repurchased exceeds the average original proceeds per share received from the issuance of common stock. During the year ended December 31, 2022, the cumulative price of $90.1 million was recorded as an increase to accumulated deficit.

In connection with the 2023 Notes, we separately entered into privately negotiated warrant transactions, whereby we sold warrants (the “Warrants”) to certain bank counterparties (the “Counterparties”) to acquire, collectively, subject to anti-dilution adjustments, approximately 9.1 million shares of our common stock at an initial strike price of approximately $23.30 per share, which represents a premium of 60% over the last reported sale price of our common stock of $14.56 on November 14, 2017. We received aggregate proceeds of approximately $23.2 million from the sale of the Warrants to the Counterparties. The Warrants are separate transactions and are not part of the 2023 Notes or the privately negotiated convertible note hedge transactions we entered into in November 2017 in connection with the 2023 Notes (“Convertible Note Hedge Transactions”). The holders of the 2023 Notes and Convertible Note Hedge Transactions will not have any rights with respect to the Warrants.

In connection with the partial repurchase of our 2023 Notes in the first quarter of 2022, we entered into agreements with the Counterparties to retire the corresponding portions of warrants we had previously entered into with the Counterparties in connection with the issuance of the 2023 Notes. Upon settlement, we paid $55.1 million in cash for the retirement of the proportionate amount of Warrants during the first quarter of 2022.

Refer to Note 12, “Convertible Notes,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K for additional information.

The discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses, and related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. On an ongoing basis, we evaluate our estimates, including those related to revenue recognition, investments, income taxes, litigation and other contingencies. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that are believed to be reasonable under the circumstances, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. Actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

We believe the following critical accounting policies affect our more significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our consolidated financial statements.

We recognize revenue upon transfer of control of promised goods and services in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive in exchange for those goods and services. Goods and services that are distinct are accounted for as separate performance obligations.

Where an arrangement includes multiple performance obligations, the transaction price is allocated to these on a relative standalone selling price basis. We have established standalone selling prices for all of our distinct offerings - specifically, the same pricing methodology is consistently applied to all licensing arrangements; all services offerings are priced within tightly controlled bands and all contracts that include support and maintenance state a renewal rate or price that is systematically enforced.

Our revenue consists of product, royalty and contract and other revenue. Products primarily consist of memory interface chips sold directly and indirectly to module manufacturers and OEMs worldwide through multiple channels, including our direct sales force and distributors. Royalty revenue consists of patent and technology license royalties. Contract and other revenue consists of software license fees, engineering fees associated with integration of our technology solutions into our customers’ products and support and maintenance fees.

Product revenue is recognized upon shipment of product to customers, net of accruals for estimated sales returns and allowances, and to distributors, net of accruals for price protection and rights of return on products unsold by the distributors.

Our patent and technology licensing arrangements generally range between one year and ten years in duration and generally grant the licensee the right to use our entire IP portfolio as it evolves over time. These arrangements do not typically grant the licensee the right to terminate for convenience and where such rights exist, termination is prospective, with no refund of fees already paid or cancellation of fees already incurred by the licensee. There is no interdependency or interrelation between the IP included in the portfolio licensed upon contract inception and any IP subsequently made available to the licensee, and we would be able to fulfill our promises by transferring the portfolio and the additional IP use rights independently. However, the numbers of additions to, and removals from the portfolio (for example when a patent expires and renewal is not granted to us) in any given period have historically been relatively consistent; as such, we do not allocate the transaction price between the rights granted at contract inception and those subsequently granted over time as a function of these additions.

Patent and technology licensing arrangements result in fixed payments received over time, with guaranteed minimum payments on occasion, variable payments calculated based on the licensee’s sale or use of the IP, or a mix of fixed and variable payments.

Contract and other revenue consists of software license fees and engineering fees associated with integration of our technology solutions into our customers’ products, and support and maintenance.

An initial software arrangement generally consists of a term-based or perpetual license, significant software customization services and support and maintenance services that include post-implementation customer support and the right to unspecified software updates and enhancements on a when and if available basis. We recognize license and customization services revenue at a point in time when final delivery is made or based on an over time model, depending on nature and amount of customization. For the over time model, we recognize revenue over time by measuring the progress toward complete satisfaction of that performance obligation. We measure progress using an input method. We recognize revenue over time based on such progress measurement for each reporting period. Due to the nature of the work performed in these arrangements, the estimation of the over time model is complex and involves significant judgment. The key factor reviewed by us to estimate costs to complete each contract is the estimated man-months necessary to complete the project.

We recognize support and maintenance revenue over time.

Historically, no significant judgment has generally been required in determining the amount and timing of revenue from our contracts with customers, except for the following:

Key estimates used in recognizing revenue predominantly consist of the following:

Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of the net tangible and identifiable intangible assets acquired in each business combination. Goodwill is not subject to amortization, but is subject to at least an annual assessment for impairment. We perform our impairment analysis of goodwill on an annual basis during the fourth quarter of the year unless conditions arise that warrant a more frequent evaluation.

When goodwill is assessed for impairment, we have the option to perform an assessment of qualitative factors of impairment (optional assessment) prior to necessitating a quantitative impairment test. Should the optional assessment be used for any given year, qualitative factors to consider for a reporting unit include: cost factors; financial performance; legal, regulatory, contractual, political, business, or other factors; entity specific factors; industry and market considerations; macroeconomic conditions; and other relevant events and factors affecting the reporting unit. If we determine in the qualitative assessment that it is more likely than not that the fair value of the reporting unit is less than its carrying value, a quantitative test is then performed. Otherwise, no further testing is required. For a reporting unit tested using a quantitative approach, we compare the fair value of the reporting unit with the carrying amount of the reporting unit, including goodwill. The fair value of the reporting unit is estimated using an income approach.

Under the income approach, we measure fair value of the reporting unit based on a projected cash flow method using a discount rate determined by our management which is commensurate with the risk inherent in its current business model. Our discounted cash flow projections are based on its annual financial forecasts developed internally by management for use in managing our business. If the fair value of the reporting unit exceeds its carrying value, goodwill is not impaired and no further testing is required. If the fair value of the reporting unit is less than the carrying value, then the amount of goodwill impairment will be the amount by which the reporting unit’s carrying value exceeds its fair value, not to exceed the carrying amount of goodwill.

Intangible assets are comprised of existing technology, customer contracts and contractual relationships, and other definite-lived and indefinite-lived intangible assets. Identifiable intangible assets resulting from the acquisitions of entities accounted for using the purchase method of accounting are estimated by management based on the fair value of assets received. Identifiable definite-lived intangible assets are being amortized over the period of estimated benefit using the straight-line method and estimated useful lives ranging from six months to ten years.

We amortize definite-lived assets over their estimated useful lives. We evaluate definite-lived and indefinite-lived assets for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value of an asset may not be recoverable. The carrying value is not recoverable if it exceeds the undiscounted cash flows resulting from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition. Our estimates of future cash flows attributable to our assets require significant judgment based on our historical and anticipated results and are subject to many factors. Factors we consider important which could trigger an impairment review include significant negative industry or economic trends, significant loss of clients, and significant changes in the manner of our use of the acquired assets or the strategy for our overall business.

When we determine that the carrying value of the assets may not be recoverable based upon the existence of one or more of the above indicators of impairment, we measure the potential impairment based on a projected discounted cash flow method using a discount rate determined by our management to be commensurate with the risk inherent in our current business model. An impairment loss is recognized only if the carrying amount of the asset is not recoverable and exceeds its fair value. Different assumptions and judgments could materially affect the calculation of the fair value of our assets.

Acquired indefinite-lived intangible assets related to our IPR&D are capitalized and subject to impairment testing until completion or abandonment of the projects. Upon successful completion of each project, we make a separate determination of

As part of preparing our consolidated financial statements, we are required to calculate the income tax expense (benefit) which relates to the pretax income or loss for the period. In addition, we are required to assess the realization of the deferred tax asset or liability to be included on the consolidated balance sheet as of the reporting dates.

As of December 31, 2022, our consolidated balance sheet included net deferred tax assets, before valuation allowance, of approximately $180.0 million, which consists of net operating loss carryovers, tax credit carryovers, capitalized research, amortization, employee stock-based compensation expenses, certain liabilities and certain assets. As of December 31, 2022, we have a valuation allowance of $201.9 million, resulting in net deferred tax liabilities of $21.9 million.

We maintain liabilities for uncertain tax positions within our long-term income taxes payable accounts and as a reduction to existing deferred tax assets or other refundable taxes to the extent tax attributes are available to offset such liabilities. These liabilities involve judgment and estimation and are monitored by us based on the best information available including changes in tax regulations, the outcome of relevant court cases and other information.

The calculation of our tax liabilities involves uncertainties in the application of complex tax law and regulations in a multitude of jurisdictions. Although ASC 740, “Income Taxes,” provides further clarification on the accounting for uncertainty in income taxes, significant judgment is required by us. If the ultimate resolution of tax uncertainties is different from what is currently estimated, it could materially affect income tax expense.

We maintain stock plans covering a broad range of potential equity grants including stock options, nonvested equity stock and equity stock units and performance-based instruments. In addition, we sponsor an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (“ESPP”), whereby eligible employees are entitled to purchase common stock semi-annually, by means of limited payroll deductions, at a 15% discount from the fair market value of the common stock as of specific dates.

The accounting guidance for share-based payments requires the measurement and recognition of compensation expense in our statement of operations for all share-based payment awards made to our employees, directors and consultants including employee stock options, nonvested equity stock and equity stock units, and employee stock purchase grants. Stock-based compensation expense is measured at grant date, based on the estimated fair value of the award, reduced by an estimate of the annualized rate of expected forfeitures, and is recognized as expense over the employees’ expected requisite service period, generally using the straight-line method. In addition, the accounting guidance for share-based payments requires the benefits of tax deductions in excess of recognized compensation expense to be reported as a financing cash flow. Our forfeiture rate represents the historical rate at which our stock-based awards were surrendered prior to vesting. The accounting guidance for share-based payments requires forfeitures to be estimated at the time of grant and revised on a cumulative basis, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from those estimates. Refer to Note 14, “ Equity Incentive Plans and Stock-Based Compensation,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K for additional information regarding the valuation of stock-based compensation.

We account for acquisitions of businesses using the purchase method of accounting, which requires us to recognize separately from goodwill the assets acquired and the liabilities assumed at their acquisition date fair values. While we use our best estimates and assumptions to accurately value assets acquired and liabilities assumed at the acquisition date, as well as contingent consideration, where applicable, the estimates are inherently uncertain and subject to refinement. As a result, during the measurement period, which may be up to one year from the acquisition date, we may record adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed with the corresponding offset to goodwill. Upon the conclusion of the measurement period or final determination of the values of assets acquired or liabilities assumed, whichever comes first, any subsequent adjustments are recorded on our consolidated statements of operations.

Accounting for business combinations requires us to make significant estimates and assumptions, especially at the acquisition date including our estimates for intangible assets, contractual obligations assumed and pre-acquisition contingencies where applicable. Although we believe the assumptions and estimates made in the past have been reasonable and appropriate, they are based in part on historical experience and information obtained from the management of the acquired companies and are inherently uncertain. Significant estimates and assumptions made by us in estimating the fair value of the existing technologies included revenue growth rates, operating expense margins, technology obsolescence rates and discount rates. Unanticipated events and circumstances may occur that may affect the accuracy or validity of such assumptions, estimates or actual results.

We are exposed to financial market risks, primarily arising from the effect of interest rate fluctuations on our investment portfolio. Interest rate fluctuation may arise from changes in the market’s view of the quality of the security issuer, the overall economic outlook, and the time to maturity of our portfolio. We mitigate this risk by investing only in high quality, highly liquid instruments. Securities with original maturities of one year or less must be rated by two of the three industry standard rating agencies as follows: A1 by Standard & Poor’s, P1 by Moody’s and/or F-1 by Fitch. Securities with original maturities of greater than one year must be rated by two of the following industry standard rating agencies as follows: AA- by Standard & Poor’s, Aa3 by Moody’s and/or AA- by Fitch. By corporate investment policy, we limit the amount of exposure to $15.0 million or 10% of the portfolio, whichever is lower, for any single non-U.S. Government issuer. A single U.S. Agency can represent up to 25% of the portfolio. No more than 20% of the total portfolio may be invested in the securities of an industry sector, with money market fund investments evaluated separately. Our policy requires that at least 10% of the portfolio be in securities with a maturity of 90 days or less. We may make investments in U.S. Treasuries, U.S. Agencies and corporate bonds with maturities up to 36 months. However, the bias of our investment portfolio is shorter maturities. All investments must be U.S. dollar denominated. Additionally, we have no significant exposure to European sovereign debt.

We invest our cash equivalents and marketable securities in a variety of U.S. dollar financial instruments such as U.S. Treasuries, U.S. Government Agencies, commercial paper and corporate notes. Our policy specifically prohibits trading securities for the sole purposes of realizing trading profits. However, we may liquidate a portion of our portfolio if we experience unforeseen liquidity requirements. In such a case, if the environment has been one of rising interest rates, we may experience a realized loss, similarly, if the environment has been one of declining interest rates, we may experience a realized gain. As of December 31, 2022, we had an investment portfolio of fixed income marketable securities of $218.5 million, including cash equivalents. If market interest rates were to increase immediately and uniformly by 1.0% from the levels as of December 31, 2022, the fair value of the portfolio would decline by approximately $1.1 million. Actual results may differ materially from this sensitivity analysis.

The fair value of our outstanding convertible notes is subject to interest rate risk, market risk and other factors due to the convertible feature. The fair value of the convertible notes will generally increase as interest rates fall and decrease as interest rates rise. In addition, the fair value of the convertible notes will generally increase as our common stock price increases and will generally decrease as our common stock price declines in value. The interest and market value changes affect the fair value of our convertible notes but do not impact our financial position, cash flows or results of operations due to the fixed nature of the debt obligation. All outstanding convertible notes were retired as of February 1, 2023.

We invoice the majority of our customers in U.S. dollars. Although the fluctuation of currency exchange rates may impact our customers, and thus indirectly impact us, we do not attempt to hedge this indirect and speculative risk. Our overseas operations consist primarily of international business operations in France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, design centers in Canada, India, Bulgaria and Finland and small business development offices in Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. We monitor our foreign currency exposure; however, we believe our foreign currency exposure is not material as of December 31, 2022.

Refer to Item 15, “Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules,” of this Form 10-K for required financial statements and supplementary data.

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in the reports we file or submit pursuant to the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Management, with the participation of the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) of the Exchange Act as of the end of the period covered by this report. Based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that, as of December 31, 2022, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective.

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act. Our internal control over financial reporting is a process designed by, or under the supervision of, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and effected by our board of directors, management and other personnel, to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and includes those policies and procedures that:

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, we conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022. In making this assessment, our management used the criteria set forth in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”). Based on this assessment, our management has concluded that, as of December 31, 2022, our internal control over financial reporting was effective.

The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022 has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report which appears herein.

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting identified in management’s evaluation pursuant to Rules 13a-15(d) or 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act during the quarter ended December 31, 2022, that materially affected, or that we believe are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

The following consolidated financial statements of the Registrant and Report of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm, are included herewith:

All schedules are omitted because they are not applicable or the required information is shown in the Consolidated Financial Statements or the notes thereto.