Table of Contents

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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-Q

(Mark One)

QUARTERLY REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the quarterly period ended September 30, 2017April 2, 2022

or

TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from _____ to

_____

Commission file numbernumber: 001-33170

Picture 1Graphic

NETLIST, INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware

95-4812784

(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organizationorganization)

(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)

175 Technology Drive, Suite 150

111 Academy, Suite 100

Irvine, California

92617

(Address of principal executive offices)

(Zip Code)

Irvine, CA 92618

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

(949) 949) 435-0025

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: None

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

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (section 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes     No 

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

Large accelerated filer 

Accelerated filer 

Non-accelerated filer 

Smaller reporting company 

Large accelerated filer 

Accelerated filer 

Non-accelerated filer 

Smaller reporting company 

(Do not check if a
smaller reporting company)

Emerging growth company 

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

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

The numberAs of May 03, 2022, there were 231,028,600 outstanding shares outstanding of the registrant’s common stock as of the latest practicable date:stock.

Common Stock, par value $0.001 per share

70,419,646 shares outstanding at November 6, 2017


Table of Contents

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

QUARTERLY REPORT ON FORM

Form 10-Q

FOR THE THREE AND NINE MONTHS ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2017

For the Quarter Ended April 2, 2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

PART I.

FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Item 1.1

Financial Statements

3

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets at September 30, 2017 (unaudited) and December 31, 2016 (audited)

3

Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016

4

Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016

5

Notes to Unaudited Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements

6

Item 2.2

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

29

17

Item 3.3

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

43

Item 4.

Controls and Procedures

43

23

PART II.Item 4

OTHER INFORMATIONControls and Procedures

44

23

Item 1.

Legal ProceedingsPART II

44

Item 1A.1

Risk FactorsLegal Proceedings

44

25

Item 6.1A

ExhibitsRisk Factors

69

25

Item 5

Other Information

50

Item 6

Exhibits

50

SIGNATURES

52

2


Table of Contents

PART I. FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Item 1.

Financial Statements

Item 1. Financial Statements

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets

(inIn thousands, except par value)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

December 31,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(unaudited)

 

(audited)

ASSETS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Assets:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cash and cash equivalents

 

$

8,583

 

$

9,476

Restricted cash

 

 

2,400

 

 

3,100

Accounts receivable, net of reserves of $47 (2017) and $151 (2016)

 

 

3,080

 

 

1,751

Inventories

 

 

4,386

 

 

3,160

Prepaid expenses and other current assets

 

 

1,703

 

 

1,766

Total current assets

 

 

20,152

 

 

19,253

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Property and equipment, net

 

 

509

 

 

645

Other assets

 

 

82

 

 

70

Total assets

 

$

20,743

 

$

19,968

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' DEFICIT

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Liabilities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accounts payable

 

$

7,766

 

$

4,028

Revolving line of credit

 

 

2,570

 

 

676

Accrued payroll and related liabilities

 

 

650

 

 

1,085

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

 

 

306

 

 

270

Notes payable and capital lease obligation, current

 

 

23

 

 

151

Total current liabilities

 

 

11,315

 

 

6,210

Convertible promissory note, net of debt discount, and accrued interest

 

 

14,638

 

 

14,251

Long-term warranty liability

 

 

53

 

 

36

Total liabilities

 

 

26,006

 

 

20,497

Commitments and contingencies

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stockholders' deficit:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preferred stock, $0.001 par value - 10,000 shares authorized; no shares issued and outstanding

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

Common stock, $0.001 par value - 150,000 shares authorized; 70,420 (2017) and 61,653 (2016) shares issued and outstanding

 

 

70

 

 

62

Additional paid-in capital

 

 

149,580

 

 

144,035

Accumulated deficit

 

 

(154,913)

 

 

(144,626)

Total stockholders' deficit

 

 

(5,263)

 

 

(529)

Total liabilities and stockholders' deficit

 

$

20,743

 

$

19,968

April 2,

January 1,

    

2022

    

2022

(unaudited)

ASSETS

Current Assets:

Cash and cash equivalents

$

37,530

$

47,679

Restricted cash

20,800

10,800

Accounts receivable, net of allowances of $207 (2022) and $283 (2021)

5,777

12,727

Inventories

19,503

15,670

Prepaid expenses and other current assets

1,167

1,126

Total current assets

84,777

88,002

Property and equipment, net

1,129

989

Operating lease right-of-use assets

2,279

1,891

Other assets

287

294

Total assets

$

88,472

$

91,176

LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY

Current Liabilities:

Accounts payable

$

28,963

$

25,887

Revolving line of credit

4,732

7,000

Accrued payroll and related liabilities

1,345

1,308

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

709

632

Long-term debt due within one year

376

562

Total current liabilities

36,125

35,389

Operating lease liabilities

1,994

1,593

Other liabilities

187

152

Total liabilities

38,306

37,134

Commitments and contingencies

Stockholders' equity :

Preferred stock, $0.001 par value—10,000 shares authorized: Series A preferred stock, $0.001 par value; 1,000 shares authorized; NaN issued and outstanding

Common stock, $0.001 par value—450,000 shares authorized; 231,029 (2022) and 230,113 (2021) shares issued and outstanding

232

231

Additional paid-in capital

245,861

243,866

Accumulated deficit

(195,927)

(190,055)

Total stockholders' equity

50,166

54,042

Total liabilities and stockholders' equity

$

88,472

$

91,176

See accompanying notes.Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements.

3


Table of Contents

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

Unaudited

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations (Unaudited)

(inIn thousands, except per share amounts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Net product revenues

 

$

9,010

 

$

2,589

 

$

29,840

 

$

7,260

Non-recurring engineering revenues

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

 

6,857

Total net revenues

 

 

9,010

 

 

2,589

 

 

29,840

 

 

14,117

Cost of sales(1)

 

 

8,285

 

 

2,580

 

 

27,791

 

 

6,996

Gross profit

 

 

725

 

 

 9

 

 

2,049

 

 

7,121

Operating expenses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research and development(1)

 

 

1,159

 

 

1,463

 

 

4,142

 

 

4,940

Intellectual property legal fees

 

 

749

 

 

409

 

 

2,129

 

 

2,255

Selling, general and administrative(1)

 

 

1,780

 

 

2,398

 

 

5,645

 

 

6,822

Total operating expenses

 

 

3,688

 

 

4,270

 

 

11,916

 

 

14,017

Operating loss

 

 

(2,963)

 

 

(4,261)

 

 

(9,867)

 

 

(6,896)

Other expense, net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interest expense, net

 

 

(135)

 

 

(159)

 

 

(421)

 

 

(428)

Other income, net

 

 

 -

 

 

19

 

 

 2

 

 

17

Total other expense, net

 

 

(135)

 

 

(140)

 

 

(419)

 

 

(411)

Loss before provision for income taxes

 

 

(3,098)

 

 

(4,401)

 

 

(10,286)

 

 

(7,307)

Provision for income taxes

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

 

 1

 

 

 1

Net loss

 

$

(3,098)

 

$

(4,401)

 

$

(10,287)

 

$

(7,308)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Net loss per common share:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic and diluted

 

$

(0.05)

 

$

(0.08)

 

$

(0.16)

 

$

(0.14)

Weighted-average common shares outstanding:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basic and diluted

 

 

65,644

 

 

52,454

 

 

63,056

 

 

51,301


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) Amounts include stock-based compensation expense as follows:

    

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cost of sales

 

$

 4

 

$

14

 

$

33

 

$

42

Research and development

 

 

78

 

 

73

 

 

258

 

 

263

Selling, general and administrative

 

 

213

 

 

246

 

 

649

 

 

789

Total stock-based compensation

 

$

295

 

$

333

 

$

940

 

$

1,094

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Net product sales

$

50,200

$

14,897

Cost of sales

46,837

13,396

Gross margin

3,363

1,501

Operating expenses:

Research and development

2,457

1,124

Intellectual property legal fees

2,826

2,287

Selling, general and administrative

3,938

1,957

Total operating expenses

9,221

5,368

Operating loss

(5,858)

(3,867)

Other expense, net:

Interest expense, net

(11)

(147)

Other expense, net

(2)

(2)

Total other expense, net

(13)

(149)

Loss before provision for income taxes

(5,871)

(4,016)

Provision for income taxes

1

1

Net loss

$

(5,872)

$

(4,017)

Loss per share:

Basic and diluted

$

(0.03)

$

(0.02)

Weighted-average common shares outstanding:

Basic and diluted

230,546

205,680

See accompanying notes.Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Statements.

4


Table of Contents

B

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

Unaudited

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Stockholders Equity (Unaudited)

(In thousands)

Additional

Total

Common Stock

Paid-in

Accumulated

Stockholders'

    

Shares

    

Amount

    

Capital

    

Deficit

    

Equity

Balance, January 1, 2022

230,113

$

231

$

243,866

$

(190,055)

$

54,042

Net loss

(5,872)

(5,872)

Issuance of common stock, net

303

1,767

1,767

Exercise of stock options

197

138

138

Stock-based compensation

682

682

Restricted stock units vested and distributed

533

1

(1)

Tax withholdings related to net share settlements of equity awards

(117)

(591)

(591)

Balance, April 2, 2022

231,029

$

232

$

245,861

$

(195,927)

$

50,166

Additional

Total

Common Stock

Paid-in

Accumulated

Stockholders'

    

Shares

    

Amount

    

Capital

    

Deficit

    

Equity (Deficit)

Balance, January 2, 2021

195,978

$

195

$

192,071

$

(194,886)

$

(2,620)

Net loss

(4,017)

(4,017)

Issuance of common stock, net

11,700

12

9,349

9,361

Exercise of stock options

476

376

376

Exercise of warrants

6,508

7

3,975

3,982

Stock-based compensation

338

338

Restricted stock units vested and distributed

501

1

(1)

Tax withholdings related to net share settlements of equity awards

(150)

(276)

(276)

Balance, April 3, 2021

215,013

$

215

$

205,832

$

(198,903)

$

7,144

See accompanying Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Statements

5

Table of Contents

NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows (Unaudited)

(In thousands)

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Cash flows from operating activities:

Net loss

$

(5,872)

$

(4,017)

Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash provided by (used in) operating activities:

Depreciation and amortization

81

33

Interest accrued on convertible promissory notes

76

Amortization of debt discounts

53

Non-cash lease expense

167

112

Stock-based compensation

682

338

Changes in operating assets and liabilities:

Accounts receivable

6,950

(998)

Inventories

(3,833)

(5,358)

Prepaid expenses and other assets

(34)

(196)

Accounts payable

3,076

5,777

Accrued payroll and related liabilities

37

(13)

Accrued expenses and other liabilities

(37)

(98)

Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities

1,217

(4,291)

Cash flows from investing activities:

Acquisition of property and equipment

(221)

(41)

Net cash used in investing activities

(221)

(41)

Cash flows from financing activities:

Net (payments) borrowings under line of credit

(2,268)

962

Principal repayments under finance lease

(5)

Repayments on notes payable

(186)

(83)

Proceeds from issuance of common stock, net

1,767

9,361

Proceeds from exercise of stock options and warrants

138

4,358

Payments for taxes related to net share settlement of equity awards

(591)

(276)

Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities

(1,145)

14,322

Net change in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash

(149)

9,990

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at beginning of period

58,479

16,526

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period

$

58,330

$

26,516

Reconciliation of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period:

Cash and cash equivalents

$

37,530

$

21,616

Restricted cash

20,800

4,900

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash at end of period

$

58,330

$

26,516

(in thousands)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cash flows from operating activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Net loss

 

$

(10,287)

 

$

(7,308)

Adjustments to reconcile net loss to net cash used in operating activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Depreciation and amortization

 

 

214

 

 

210

Interest accrued on convertible promissory note

 

 

225

 

 

 -

Amortization of debt discount

 

 

162

 

 

163

Stock-based compensation

 

 

940

 

 

1,094

Changes in operating assets and liabilities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restricted cash

 

 

700

 

 

(700)

Accounts receivable

 

 

(1,329)

 

 

(403)

Inventories

 

 

(1,226)

 

 

(1,334)

Prepaid expenses and other assets

 

 

271

 

 

157

Accounts payable

 

 

3,738

 

 

902

Accrued payroll and related liabilities

 

 

(435)

 

 

(349)

Accrued expenses and other liabilities

 

 

53

 

 

181

Deferred revenue

 

 

 -

 

 

(6,857)

Net cash used in operating activities

 

 

(6,974)

 

 

(14,244)

Cash flows from investing activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acquisition of property and equipment

 

 

(78)

 

 

(317)

Net cash used in investing activities

 

 

(78)

 

 

(317)

Cash flows from financing activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Net borrowings under line of credit

 

 

1,894

 

 

 -

Payments on debt

 

 

(348)

 

 

(250)

Proceeds from issuance of common stock, net

 

 

4,431

 

 

10,334

Proceeds from exercise of stock options

 

 

182

 

 

187

Net cash provided by financing activities

 

 

6,159

 

 

10,271

Net change in cash and cash equivalents

 

 

(893)

 

 

(4,290)

Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period

 

 

9,476

 

 

19,684

Cash and cash equivalents at end of period

 

$

8,583

 

$

15,394

See accompanying notes.Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Statements.

56


NETLIST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES

NOTES TO UNAUDITED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Notes to Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements (Unaudited)

September 30, 2017

Note 1—Description of Business

Netlist, Inc. together withand its wholly ownedwholly-owned subsidiaries (hereinafter collectively referred to as(collectively the “Company” or “Netlist,” unless the context or the use of the term indicates otherwise) is a leading provider of“Netlist”) provides high-performance solid state drives and modular memory subsystems servingsolutions to enterprise customers in diverse industries that require superiorindustries. The Company's NVMe SSDs in various capacities and form factors and the line of custom and specialty memory products bring industry-leading performance to empower critical business decisions. The Company has a long historyserver and storage appliance customers and cloud service providers. Netlist licenses its portfolio of introducing disruptive new products, such as one of the first load-reduced dual in-lineintellectual property including patents, in server memory, modules (“LRDIMM”) based on its distributed buffer architecture, which has been adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM.  The Company was also one of the first to bring NAND flashhybrid memory (“NAND flash”) to the memory channel with its NVvault® non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (“NVDIMM”) using software-intensive controllers and merging dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”) and NAND flash to solve data bottleneck and data retention challenges encountered in high-performance computing environments. The Company recently introduced a new generation of storage class memory, products called HybriDIMM™ to address the growing need for real-time analytics in Big Data applications and in‑memory databases.companies that implement Netlist’s technology.

Due to the ground-breaking product development of its engineering teams, Netlist has built a robust portfolio of over 100 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since its inception, the Company has dedicated substantial resources to the development and protection of technology innovations essential to its business. The Company’s early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard LRDIMM and in NVDIMM. Netlist’s objective is to continue to innovate in its field and invest further in its intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing its intellectual property through a combination of product revenues and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of our patents through enforcement actions against parties we believe are infringing them.

Netlist was incorporated in June 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.  In 2007, the Company established a manufacturing facility in the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC”), which became operational in July 2007 upon the successful qualification of certain key customers. 

Liquidity

The Company incurred net losses of $3.1 million and $10.3 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively, and $11.2 million and $20.5 million for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, respectively. The Company has historically financed its operations primarily through issuances of equity and debt securities and revenues generated from operations, including product revenues and a non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) fee from its Joint Development and License Agreement (“JDLA”) with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”), discussed below. The Company has also funded its operations with a revolving line of credit and term loans under a bank credit facility, a funding arrangement for costs associated with certain of its legal proceedings and, to a lesser extent, equipment leasing arrangements (see Notes 4, 5 and 7).

On November 12, 2015, the Company entered into the JDLA with Samsung, pursuant to which the Company and Samsung have agreed to work together to jointly develop new storage class memory technologies including a standardized product interface for NVDIMM-P memory modules in order to facilitate broad industry adoption of this new technology. The JDLA also includes comprehensive cross-licenses to the Company’s and Samsung’s patent portfolios for the purpose of developing this product interface, grants Samsung a right of first refusal to acquire the Company’s HybriDIMM technology before it offers the technology to a third party, and grants the Company access to competitively priced DRAM and NAND flash raw materials. The Company believes Samsung represents an important strategic partner with a high level of technical capability in memory that can facilitate bringing its HybriDIMM technology to market. In connection with the JDLA, the Company received an $8.0 million NRE fee from Samsung for the joint development and received gross proceeds of $15.0 million for its issuance of a Senior Secured Convertible Note

6


(“SVIC Note”) and Stock Purchase Warrant (“SVIC Warrant”) to SVIC No. 28 New Technology Business Investment L.L.P., an affiliate of Samsung Venture Investment Co. (“SVIC”) (see Note 5).

On September 23, 2016, the Company completed an underwritten registered public offering (the “2016 Offering”), pursuant to which it sold 9,200,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $1.25 per share.  The net proceeds to the Company from the 2016 Offering were $10.3 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by the Company.

On August 22, 2017, the Company completed an underwritten registered public offering (the “2017 Offering”), pursuant to which it sold 8,500,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $0.60 per share.  The net proceeds to the Company from the 2017 Offering were $4.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by the Company.

Inadequate working capital would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business and operations and could cause the Company to fail to execute its business plan, fail to take advantage of future opportunities or fail to respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. A lack of sufficient funding may also require the Company to significantly modify its business model and/or reduce or cease its operations, which could include implementing cost-cutting measures or delaying, scaling back or eliminating some or all of its ongoing and planned investments in corporate infrastructure, research and development projects, business development initiatives and sales and marketing activities, among other activities.  While the Company’s estimates of its operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect and the Company may use its cash resources faster than it anticipates, management believes the Company’s existing cash balance, together with cash provided by the Company’s operations and borrowing availability under a bank credit facility (see Note 4) and taking into account cash expected to be used in operations and the funding to be received for certain litigation expenses (see Note 7), will be sufficient to meet the Company’s anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months.

Note 2—Summary of Significant Accounting Policies

Significant Accounting Policies

Basis of Presentation

The accompanying interim unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“U.S. GAAP”) for interim financial. Certain information and footnote disclosures normally included in the instructionscondensed consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP have been condensed or omitted pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission’sCommission (“SEC”) Form 10-Q and Article 8 of the SEC’s Regulation S-X.. These condensed consolidated financial statements do not include all of the information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete financial statements. Therefore, these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company’s auditedcondensed consolidated financial statements and notes thereto as of and for the year ended December 31, 2016,January 1, 2022, included in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 31, 2017.1, 2022 (the “2021 Annual Report”).

The accompanyingIn the opinion of management, all adjustments for the fair presentation of the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements ashave been made. The adjustments are of and for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 are unaudited; however, they contain alla normal recurring accruals and adjustments that, in the opinion of the Company’s management, are necessary to present fairly the condensed consolidated financial position of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiariesnature except as of September 30, 2017 and the condensed consolidated statements of operations and statements of cash flows for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016.otherwise noted. The results of operations for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017interim periods are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for anyother periods or the full year or anyfiscal year. The Company has evaluated events occurring subsequent to April 2, 2022 through the filing date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and concluded that there were no events that required recognition and disclosures other interim period.than those discussed elsewhere in the notes hereto.

Principles of Consolidation

The accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Netlist, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation.

7


Fiscal Year

The Company operates under a 52 or 53-week fiscal year ending on the Saturday closest to December 31.  For 2017, the Company’s fiscal year is scheduledthe 52- or 53-week period that ends on the Saturday nearest to end on December 30, 2017 and31. The Company’s fiscal year 2022 will consist ofinclude 52 weeks and eachends on December 31, 2022. Each quarter of the Company’s quarters within such fiscal year 2022 will be comprised of 13 weeks. Unless otherwise stated, references to particular years, quarters, months and periods refer to the Company’s fiscal years ended in January and the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years.

Use of Estimates

The preparation of the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements, and the reported amounts of net revenues and expenses during the reporting period. By their nature, these estimates and assumptions are subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty.  Significant estimates made by management include, among others, provisions for uncollectible receivables and sales returns, warranty liabilities, valuation of inventories, fair value of financial instruments, recoverability of long-lived assets, valuation of stock-based transactions, estimates for completion of NRE revenue milestones, and realization of deferred tax assets. The Company bases its estimates on its historical experience, knowledge of current conditions and the Company’s belief of what could occur in the future considering available information.  The Company reviews its estimates on an on-going basis.reported. Actual results may differ materially from these estimates which may result in material adverse effects on the Company’s consolidated operating results and financial position.those estimates.

The Company believes the following critical accounting policies involve its more significant assumptions and estimates used in the preparation of the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements: provisions for uncollectible receivables and sales returns; warranty liabilities; valuation of inventories; fair value of financial instruments; recoverability of long-lived assets; valuation of stock-based transactions; estimates for completion of NRE and other revenue milestones; and realization of deferred tax assets.

Revenue Recognition

The Company generates revenue from sales of products and performance of engineering services.

Net Product Revenues

Net product revenues primarily consist of sales of high-performance modular memory subsystems to original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”), Hyperscale data center operators and storage vendors.

The Company recognizes revenues in accordance with Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 605. Accordingly, the Company recognizes revenues when there is persuasive evidence that an arrangement exists, product delivery and acceptance have occurred, the sales price is fixed or determinable, and collectability of the resulting receivable is reasonably assured.

The Company generally uses customer purchase orders and/or contracts as evidence of an arrangement. Delivery occurs when goods are shipped for customers with shipping point terms and upon receipt for customers with destination terms, at which time title and risk of loss transfer to the customer. Shipping documents are used to verify delivery and customer acceptance. The Company assesses whether the sales price is fixed or determinable based on the payment terms associated with the transaction and whether the sales price is subject to refund. Customers are generally allowed limited rights of return for up to 30 days, except for sales of excess component inventories, which contain no right-of-return privileges. Estimated returns are provided for at the time of sale based on historical experience or specific identification of an event necessitating a reserve. The Company offers a standard product warranty to its customers and has no other post-shipment obligations. The Company assesses collectability based on the creditworthiness of the customer as determined by credit checks and evaluations, as well as the customer’s payment history.

87


Recently Issued Accounting Guidance

All amounts billed to customers

In August 2020, the FASB issued 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): Accounting for Convertible Instruments and Contracts in an Entity’s Own Equity. This ASU amends the guidance on convertible instruments and the derivatives scope exception for contracts in an entity's own equity, and also improves and amends the related to shipping and handling are classified as net product revenues, while all costs incurred byearnings per share guidance for both Subtopics. The ASU was effective for the Company for shipping and handling are classified as cost of sales.

Engineering Services

The Company provides engineering services to its customers. The Company recognizes revenue from these services when all of the following conditions are met: (1) evidence existed of an arrangement with the customer, typically consisting of a purchase order or contract; (2) the Company’s services were performed and risk of loss passed to the customer; (3) the Company completed all of the necessary terms of the contract; (4) the amount of revenue to which the Company was entitled was fixed or determinable; and (5) the Company believed it was probable that it would be able to collect the amount due from the customer. To the extent that one or more of these conditions has not been satisfied, the Company defers recognition of revenue.

Deferred Revenue

From time-to-time the Company receives pre-payments from its customers related to future services. Engineering development fee revenues, including NRE fees, are deferred and recognized ratably over the period the engineering work is completed.

Cash and Cash Equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents consist of cash and short-term investments with original maturities of three months or less.

Restricted Cash

Restricted cash consistsended April 2, 2022. The adoption of cash to secure standby letters of credit. Restricted cash was $2.4 million as of September 30, 2017 and related to three standby letters of credit.  Restricted cash was $3.1 million as of December 31, 2016 and related to two standby letters of credit.

Fair Value of Financial Instruments

The Company’s financial instruments consist principally of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, accounts receivable, accounts payable, accrued expenses and debt instruments. The fair value of the Company’s cash equivalents is determined based on quoted prices in active markets for identical assets or Level 1 inputs.  The Company recognizes transfers between Levels 1 through 3 of the fair value hierarchy at the beginning of the reporting period.  The Company believes that the carrying values of all other financial instruments approximate their current fair values due to their nature and respective durations.

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts

The Company performs credit evaluations of our customers’ financial condition and limits the amount of credit extended to its customers as deemed necessary, but generally requires no collateral. The Company evaluates the collectability of accounts receivable based on a combination of factors. In cases where the Company is aware of circumstances that may impair a specific customer’s ability to meet its financial obligations subsequent to the original sale, the Company will recordthis ASU did not have an allowance against amounts due, and thereby reduce the net recognized receivable to the amount the Company reasonably believes will be collected. For all other customers, the Company records allowances for doubtful accounts based primarily on the length of time the receivables are past due based on the terms of the originating transaction, the current business environment, and its historical experience. Uncollectible accounts are charged against the allowance for doubtful accounts when all cost-effective commercial means of collection have been exhausted.  Generally, the Company’s credit losses have been within expectations and the provisions established. However, the Company cannot guarantee that it will continue to experience credit loss rates similar to those experienced in the past.

9


The Company’s accounts receivable are highly concentrated among a small number of customers, and a significant change in the liquidity or financial position of one of these customers could have a material adverse effect on the collectability of the Company’s accounts receivable, liquidity and future operating results.

Concentration of Credit Risk

Financial instruments that potentially subject the Company to significant concentrations of credit risk consist principally of cash and cash equivalents, and accounts receivable.

The Company invests its cash equivalents primarily in money market mutual funds.  Cash equivalents are maintained with high quality institutions, the composition and maturities of which are regularly monitored by management. At times, deposits held with financial institutions may exceed the amount of insurance provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

The Company’s trade accounts receivable are primarily derived from sales to OEMs in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets, as well as from sales to storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. The Company performs credit evaluations of its customers’ financial condition and limits the amount of credit extended when deemed necessary, but generally requires no collateral. The Company believes that the concentration of credit risk in its trade receivables is moderated by its credit evaluation process, relatively short collection terms, a high level of credit worthiness of its customers (see Note 3), foreign credit insurance, and letters of credit issued in its favor.  Reserves are maintained for potential credit losses, and such losses historically have not been significant and have been within management’s expectations.

Inventories

Inventories are valued at the lower of actual cost to purchase or manufacture the inventory or the net realizable value of the inventory. Cost is determined on an average cost basis which approximates actual cost on a first-in, first-out basis and includes raw materials, labor and manufacturing overhead. Net realizable value is the estimated selling prices in the ordinary course of business, less reasonably predictable costs of completion, disposal, and transportation. At each balance sheet date, the Company evaluates its ending inventory quantities on hand and on order and records a provision for excess quantities and obsolescence. Among other factors, the Company considers historical demand and forecasted demand in relation to the inventory on hand, competitiveness of product offerings, market conditions and product life cycles when determining obsolescence and net realizable value. In addition, the Company considers changes in the market value of components in determining the net realizable value of its inventory. Once established, lower of cost or market write-downs are considered permanent adjustments to the cost basis of the excess or obsolete inventories.

Property and Equipment

Property and equipment are recorded at cost and depreciated on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives, which generally range from three to seven years. Leasehold improvements are recorded at cost and amortized on a straight-line basis over the shorter of their estimated useful lives or the remaining lease term.  Expenditures for repairs and maintenance are expensed as incurred.  Upon retirement or sale, the cost and related accumulated depreciation and amortization of disposed assets are removed from the accounts and any resulting gain or loss is included in other expense, net.

Deferred Financing Costs, Debt Discount and Detachable Debt-Related Warrants

Costs incurred to issue debt are deferred and recorded as a reduction to the debt balance in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets. The Company amortizes debt issuance costs over the expected term of the related debt using the effective interest method. Debt discounts relate to the relative fair value of warrants issued in conjunction with the debt and are also recorded as a reduction to the debt balance and accreted over the expected term of the debt to interest expense using the effective interest method.

10


Impairment of Long-Lived Assets

The Company evaluates the recoverability of the carrying value of long-lived assets held and used by the Company in its operations for impairment on at least an annual basis or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that their carrying value may not be recoverable. When such factors and circumstances exist, the Company compares the projected undiscounted future net cash flows associated with the related asset or group of assets over their estimated useful lives against their respective carrying amount. These projected future cash flows may vary significantly over time as a result of increased competition, changes in technology, fluctuations in demand, consolidation of the Company’s customers and reductions in average selling prices. If the carrying value is determined not to be recoverable from future operating cash flows, the asset is deemed impaired and an impairment loss is recognized to the extent the carrying value exceeds the estimated fair value of the asset. The fair value of the asset or asset group is based on market value when available, or when unavailable, on discounted expected cash flows. The Company’s management believes there is no impairment of long-lived assets as of September 30, 2017. However, market conditions could change or demand for the Company’s products could decrease, which could result in future impairment of long-lived assets.

Warranty Liability

The Company offers product warranties generally ranging from one to three years, depending on the product and negotiated terms of any purchase agreements with its customers. Such warranties require the Company to repair or replace defective product returned to the Company during the warranty period at no cost to the customer. Warranties are not offered on sales of excess component inventory. The Company records an estimate for warranty related costs at the time of sale based on its historical and estimated future product return rates and expected repair or replacement costs (see Note 3).  While such costs have historically been within management’s expectations and the provisions established, unexpected changes in failure rates could have a material adverse impact on the Company, requiring additional warranty reserves and could adversely affect the Company’s gross profit and gross margins.

Stock-Based Compensation

The Company accounts for equity issuances to non-employees in accordance with FASB ASC Topic 505.  All transactions in which goods or services are the consideration received for the issuance of equity instruments are accounted for based on the fair value of the consideration received or the fair value of the equity instrument issued, whichever is more reliably measurable. The measurement date used to determine the estimated fair value of the equity instrument issued is the earlier of the date on which the third-party performance is complete or the date on which it is probable that performance will occur.

In accordance with FASB ASC Topic 718, employee and director stock-based compensation expense recognized during the period is based on the value of the portion of stock-based payment awards that is ultimately expected to vest during the period.  Given that stock-based compensation expense recognized in the accompanying condensed consolidated statements of operations is based on awards ultimately expected to vest, it has been reduced for estimated forfeitures. The Company estimates its forfeitures at the time of grant and revises such estimates, if necessary, in subsequent periods if actual forfeitures differ from those estimates. The Company’s estimated average forfeiture rates are based on historical forfeiture experience and estimated future forfeitures.

The estimated fair value of common stock option awards to employees and directors is calculated using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. The Black-Scholes model requires subjective assumptions regarding future stock price volatility and expected time to exercise, along with assumptions about the risk-free interest rate and expected dividends, all of which affect the estimated fair values of the Company’s common stock option awards.  The expected term of options granted is calculated as the weighted-average of the vesting period and the contractual expiration date of the option.  This calculation is in accordance with FASB ASC Topic 718, as amended by certain SEC guidance providing for a safe harbor method in instances where the vesting and exercise terms of options granted meet certain conditions and where limited historical exercise data is available.  The expected volatility is based on the historical volatility of the Company’s common stock.  The risk-free rate selected to value any particular grant is based on the U.S. Treasury rate that corresponds to the expected term of the grant effective as of the date of the grant. The expected dividend assumption is based on the Company’s history and management’s expectation regarding dividend payouts.

11


Compensation expense for common stock option awards with graded vesting schedules is recognized on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period for the last separately vesting portion of the award, provided that the accumulated cost recognized as of any date at least equals the value of the vested portion of the award.

The Company recognizes the fair value of restricted stock awards issued to employees and outside directors as stock-based compensation expense on a straight-line basis over the vesting period for the last separately vesting portion of the awards.  Fair value is determined as the difference between the closing price of the Company’s common stock on the grant date and the purchase price of the restricted stock award, if any, reduced by expected forfeitures.

If there are any modifications or cancellations of the underlying vested or unvested stock-based awards, the Company may be required to accelerate, increase or cancel any remaining unearned stock-based compensation expense, or record additional expense for vested stock-based awards. Future stock-based compensation expense and unearned stock-based compensation may increase to the extent that the Company grants additional common stock options or other stock-based awards.

Income Taxes

Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized to reflect the estimated future tax effects, calculated at currently effective tax rates, of future deductible or taxable amounts attributable to events that have been recognized on a cumulative basis in the accompanying condensed consolidated financial statements. A valuation allowance related to a net deferred tax asset is recorded when it is more likely than not that some portion of the deferred tax asset will not be realized. Deferred tax liabilities, deferred tax assets and valuation allowances are classified as non-current in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets.

ASC Topic 740 prescribes a recognition threshold and measurement requirement for the financial statement recognition of a tax position that has been taken or is expected to be taken on a tax return and also provides guidance on de-recognition, classification, interest and penalties, accounting in interim periods, disclosure, and transition. Under ASC Topic 740 the Company may only recognize or continue to recognize tax positions that meet a “more likely than not” threshold.

The application of tax laws and regulations is subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. Tax laws and regulations may change as a result of changes in fiscal policy, changes in legislation, the evolution of regulations and court rulings. Therefore, the actual liability for U.S. or foreign taxes may be materially different from the Company’s estimates, which could require the Company to record additional tax liabilities or to reduce previously recorded tax liabilities, as applicable.

Research and Development Expenses

Research and development expenditures are expensed in the period incurred.

Interest Expense

Interest expense consists primarily of interest associated with our debt instruments, including fees related to the term loans, accretion of debt discounts and amortization of debt issuance costs.  The Company recognizes the accretion of debt discounts and the amortization of interest costs using the effective interest method.

Risks and Uncertainties

The Company is subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including its ability to achieve profitable operations due to the Company’s history of losses and accumulated deficits, the Company’s dependence on a small number of customers for a substantial portion of its net product revenues, risks related to intellectual property matters, market acceptance of and demand for the Company’s products, and the risks described below.  These risks could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s condensed consolidated financial position, results of operations and cash flows.

12


The Company has dedicated substantial resources to the development and protection of technology innovations essential to its business, andstatements as the Company expects these activities to continue for the foreseeable future. The Company also intends to aggressively pursue monetization avenues forpaid off its intellectual property portfolio, potentially including licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements. However, the Company’s revenues are currently generated by its product revenues, and it may never be successfulconvertible debt in generating a revenue stream from its intellectual property, in which case the Company’s investments of time, capital and other resources into its intellectual property portfolio may not provide adequate, or any, returns.December 2021.

Note 3—Supplemental Financial Information

The Company also dedicates substantial resources to protecting its intellectual property, including its pending patent infringement litigation and U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) proceedings against SK hynix Inc., a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”), and its efforts to defend its patents against challenges made by way of reexamination and review proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) (see Note 7). The Company expects these activities to continue for the foreseeable future, without any guarantee that any ongoing or future patent protection or litigation activities will be successful. The Company is also subject to litigation based on claims that it has infringed the intellectual property rights of others, against which the Company intends to defend itself vigorously. Moreover, any litigation, regardless of its outcome, would involve a significant dedication of resources, including time and costs, would divert management’s time and attention and could negatively impact the Company’s results of operations. As a result, any current or future infringement claims by or against third parties could materially adversely affect the Company’s business, financial condition or results of operations.

Inventories

The Company has also invested significant research and development time and costs into the design of application-specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”) and hybrid devices, including its NVvault family of products and most recently its next-generation HybriDIMM memory subsystem. The Company believes that market acceptance of these products or derivative products that incorporate its core memory subsystem technology is critical to its success. However, these products are subject to increased risks as compared to the Company’s legacy products. For example, the Company is dependent on a limited number of suppliers for the DRAM and ASIC devices that are essential to the functionality of these products and in the past it has experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of DRAM and NAND flash required to create its NVvault family of products, and the Company’s products are generally subject to a product approval and qualification process with customers before purchases are made and the Company has experienced a longer qualification cycle than anticipated with some of these products, including its HyperCloud memory subsystems. These and other risks attendant to the production

Inventories consisted of the Company’s memory subsystem products could impair its ability to obtain customer or market acceptance of these products or obtain such acceptance in a timely manner, which would reduce the Company’s achievable revenues from these products and limit the Company’s ability to recoup its investments in the products.following (in thousands):

April 2,

January 1,

    

2022

    

2022

Raw materials

$

8,448

$

4,208

Work in process

219

154

Finished goods

10,836

11,308

$

19,503

$

15,670

The Company’s manufacturing operations in the PRC are subject to various political, geographic and economic risks and uncertainties inherent to conducting business in the PRC. These include, among others, (i) volatility and other potential changes in economic conditions in the region, (ii) managing a local workforce and overcoming other practical barriers, such as language and cultural differences, that may subject the Company to uncertainties or unfamiliar practices or regulatory policies, (iii) risks imposed by the geographic distance between the Company’s headquarters and its PRC operations, including difficulties maintaining the desired amount of control over production capacity and timing, inventory levels, product quality, delivery schedules, manufacturing yields and costs, (iv) the Company’s limited experience creating and overseeing foreign operations generally, (v) changes in the laws and policies of the Chinese government that affect business practices generally or restrict local operations by foreign companies, and (vi) changes in the laws and policies of the U.S. government regarding the conduct of business in foreign countries generally or in the PRC in particular, which may be more uncertain following the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Additionally, the Chinese government controls the procedures by which its local currency, the Chinese Renminbi (“RMB”), is converted into other currencies, which generally requires government consent, and imposes legal and regulatory restrictions on the movement of funds outside of the PRC. As a result, RMB may not be freely convertible into other currencies at all times and the Company may need to comply with regulatory procedures to repatriate funds from its Chinese operations. Any changes to currency conversion requirements or any failure by the Company to comply with repatriation procedures and regulations could adversely affect its operating results, liquidity and financial condition.

13


In addition, fluctuations in the exchange rate between RMB and U.S. dollars may adversely affect the Company’s expenses and results of operations, the value of its assets and liabilities and the comparability of its period-to-period results. The liabilities of the Company’s subsidiary in the PRC exceeded its assets as of September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016.

Foreign Currency Remeasurement

The functional currency of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries is the U.S. dollar. Local currency financial statements are remeasured into U.S. dollars at the exchange rate in effect as of the balance sheet date for monetary assets and liabilities and the historical exchange rate for nonmonetary assets and liabilities. Expenses are remeasured using the average exchange rate for the period, except items related to nonmonetary assets and liabilities, which are remeasured using historical exchange rates. All remeasurement gains and losses are included in determining net loss.  Transaction gains and losses were not significant during the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016.

Net Loss Per Share

Basic net loss per share is calculated by dividing net loss byThe following table shows the weighted-average common shares outstanding during the period, excluding unvested shares issued pursuant to restricted share awards under the Company’s share-based compensation plans.  Diluted net loss per share is calculated by dividing the net loss by the weighted-average shares and dilutive potential common shares outstanding during the period. Dilutive potential shares consistcomputation of dilutive shares issuable upon the exercise or vesting of outstanding stock options, warrants and restricted stock awards, respectively, computed using the treasury stock method and shares issuable upon conversion of the SVIC Note (see Note 5).  In periods of losses, basic and diluted loss per share are the same, as the effect of common stock options and unvested restricted share awards on loss(in thousands, except per share is anti-dilutive.data):

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Numerator: Net loss

$

(5,872)

$

(4,017)

Denominator: Weighted-average common shares outstanding—basic and diluted

 

230,546

 

205,680

Net loss per share—basic and diluted

$

(0.03)

$

(0.02)

Going Concern

In accordance with ASC Subtopic 205-40, Presentation of Financial Statements-Going Concern, management evaluates whether relevant conditions and events, when considered in the aggregate, indicate that it is probable the Company will be unable to meet its obligations as they become due within one year after the date that the financial statements are issued.  When relevant conditions or events, considered in the aggregate, initially indicate that it is probable  that the Company will be unable to meet its obligations as they become due within one year after the date that the financial statements are issued  (and therefore they raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern), management evaluates whether its plans that are intended to mitigate those conditions and events, when implemented, will alleviate substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern. Management’s plans are considered only to the extent that (1) it is probable that the plans will be effectively implemented and (2) it is probable that the plans will mitigate the conditions or events that raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.  See the discussion under “Liquidity” in Note 1 for information about the Company’s liquidity position.

Recently Adopted Accounting Standards

In July 2015, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2015-11, Simplifying the Measurement of Inventory (“ASU 2015-11”), which requires entities to measure inventory at the lower of cost or net realizable value. Current guidance requires inventory to be measured at the lower of cost or market, with market defined as replacement cost, net realizable value, or net realizable value less a normal profit margin. This ASU simplifies the subsequent measurement of inventory by replacing the lower of cost or market test with a lower of cost or net realizable value test. The Company adopted this guidance in the first quarter of 2017 and there was no material impact on its consolidated financial statements.

In March 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-09, Compensation-Stock Compensation (Topic 718) Improvements to Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting (“ASU 2016-09”), which is intended to simplify several aspects of the accounting for share-based payment award transactions. ASU 2016-09 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2016, including interim periods. The Company adopted this guidance in the first quarter of 2017 and

14


elected to continue to estimate forfeitures expected to occur to determine the amount of compensation cost to be recognized in each period; as a result there was no material impact on its consolidated financial statements.

Recent Accounting Pronouncements 

In May 2014, the FASB issued ASU No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (“ASU 2014-09”), which was subsequently amended by ASUs 2015-14, 2016-08, 2016-10, 2016-12, and 2016-20. ASU 2014-09, as amended, supersedes the revenue recognition requirements in ASC Topic 605, Revenue Recognition, and creates a new ASC Topic 606 (“ASC 606”). ASU 2014-9, as amended, implements a five-step process for customer contract revenue recognition that focuses on transfer of control, as opposed to transfer of risk and rewards. The amendment also requires enhanced disclosures regarding the nature, amount, timing and uncertainty of revenues and cash flows from contracts with customers. Other major provisions include the capitalization and amortization of certain contract costs, ensuring the time value of money is considered in the transaction price, and allowing estimates of variable consideration to be recognized before contingencies are resolved in certain circumstances. Entities can transition to the standard either retrospectively or as a cumulative-effect adjustment as of the date of adoption.   ASC 606 is effective for public entities for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2017 (fiscal year 2018 for the Company), and interim periods within the year of adoption.  The Company has not yet selected a transition method but does not anticipate the adoption of ASC 606 will have a material impact on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures.

In February 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-02, Leases (“ASU 2016-02”).  Under ASU 2016-02, lessees will be required to recognize the following for all leases (with the exception of short-term leases) at the commencement date: a lease liability, which is a lessee’s obligation to make lease payments arising from a lease, measured on a discounted basis; and a right-of-use asset, which is an asset that represents the lessee’s right to use, or control the use of, a specified asset for the lease term.  ASU 2016-02 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018 (fiscal year 2019 for the Company), including interim periods within those fiscal years.  Early application is permitted.  Lessees must apply a modified retrospective transition approach for leases existing at, or entered into after, the beginning of the earliest comparative period presented in the financial statements.  The modified retrospective approach would not require any transition accounting for leases that expired before the earliest comparative period presented.  Lessees may not apply a full retrospective transition approach.  The Company is currently evaluating the impact of adopting ASU 2016-02 on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures.

In August 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-15, Statement of Cash Flows (Topic 230): Classification of Certain Cash Receipts and Cash Payments (“ASU 2016-15”), which is intended to reduce the existing diversity in practice in how certain cash receipts and cash payments are classified in the statement of cash flows. ASU 2016-15 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017 (fiscal year 2018 for the Company), including interim periods within those fiscal years with early adoption permitted, provided that all of the amendments are adopted in the same period. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of adopting ASU 2016-15 on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures.

In October 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-16, Income Taxes (Topic 740), Intra-Entity Transfers of Assets Other Than Inventory (“ASU 2016-16”), which requires entities to recognize the income tax consequences of an intra-entity transfer of an asset other than inventory when the transfer occurs. This amends current U.S. GAAP which prohibits recognition of current and deferred income taxes for all types of intra-entity asset transfers until the asset has been sold to an outside party. ASU 2016-16 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017 (fiscal year 2018 for the Company), including interim periods therein with early application permitted. Upon adoption, the Company must apply a modified retrospective transition approach through a cumulative-effect adjustment to retained earnings as of the beginning of the period of adoption. The Company is currently evaluating the impact of this new standard on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures, as well as its planned adoption date.

In November 2016, the FASB issued ASU No. 2016-18, Statement of Cash Flows (Topic 230), Restricted Cash (“ASU 2016-18”), which enhances and clarifies the guidance on the classification and presentation of restricted cash in the statement of cash flows.  ASU 2016-18 is effective for fiscal periods beginning after December 15, 2018 (fiscal year 2019 for the Company), including interim periods therein with early application permitted.  The Company is currently evaluating the impact of this standard on its consolidated financial statements and disclosures.

15


Note 3—Supplemental Financial Information

Inventories

Inventories consisted of the following as of the dates presented:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

December 31,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

Raw materials

 

$

1,217

 

$

884

Work in process

 

 

276

 

 

47

Finished goods

 

 

2,893

 

 

2,229

 

 

$

4,386

 

$

3,160

Warranty Liabilities

The following table summarizes activity related to warranty liabilities in the periods presented:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

Beginning balance

 

$

89

 

$

122

Estimated cost of warranty claims charged to cost of sales

 

 

162

 

 

33

Cost of actual warranty claims

 

 

(119)

 

 

(87)

Ending balance

 

 

132

 

 

68

Less current portion

 

 

(79)

 

 

(41)

Long-term warranty liability

 

$

53

 

$

27

The allowance for warranty liabilities expected to be incurred within one year is included as a component of accrued expenses and other current liabilities in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets. The allowance for warranty liability expected to be incurred after one year is classified as long-term warranty liability in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets.

Computation of Net Loss Per Share

The following table sets forth the computation of basic and diluted net loss per share, including the numerator and denominator used in the calculation of basic and diluted net loss per share, for the periods presented:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands, except per share data)

Basic and diluted net loss per share:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Numerator: Net loss

 

$

(3,098)

 

$

(4,401)

 

$

(10,287)

 

$

(7,308)

Denominator: Weighted-average common shares outstanding, basic and diluted

 

 

65,644

 

 

52,454

 

 

63,056

 

 

51,301

Basic and diluted net loss per share

 

$

(0.05)

 

$

(0.08)

 

$

(0.16)

 

$

(0.14)

The table below sets forthshows potentially dilutive weighted average common share equivalents, consisting of shares issuable upon the exercise or vesting of outstanding stock options and restricted stock awards, respectively, and the exercise of warrants computed using the treasury stock method, and shares issuable upon conversion feature of the SVIC Note (see Note 5)a convertible note using the

16


“if converted” method.issuable upon the RSAs and RSUs. These potential weighted average common sharesshare equivalents have been excluded from the diluted net loss per share calculations above as their effect would be anti-dilutive for the periods presented:(in thousands):

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Weighted average common share equivalents

$

6,369

$

17,082

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

 

(in thousands)

Common share equivalents

 

 

12,803

 

 

13,601

 

 

12,941

 

 

13,150

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Table of Contents

Disaggregation of Net Sales

The above common share equivalents would have been included in the calculation of dilutedfollowing table shows disaggregated net loss per share had the Company reported net income for the periods presented.sales by major source (in thousands):

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Resales of third-party products

 

$

45,585

 

$

11,358

Sale of the Company's modular memory subsystems

 

 

4,615

 

 

3,539

Total net sales

 

$

50,200

 

$

14,897

Major Customers and Products

The Company’s net product revenuessales have historically been concentrated in a small number of customers. The following table sets forth the percentage of the Company’s net product revenuessales made to customers that each comprise 10% or more of the Company’s nettotal product revenues in the periods presented:sales:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

    

2017

 

2016

 

 

2017

 

2016

 

Customer:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Customer A

 

*

%  

*

%

 

*

%

10

%

Customer B

 

*

%

17

%

 

*

%

29

%

Customer C

 

*

%

17

%

 

*

%

*

%

Customer D

 

13

%

*

%

 

*

%

*

%

Customer E

 

10

%

*

%

 

*

%

*

%


Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Customer A

 

*

%

10

%  

Customer B

 

*

%

10

%  

Customer C

53

%

*

%  

*

Less than 10% of net sales during the period.

As of net product revenues during the period.

The Company’s accounts receivable are concentrated with three customers at September 30, 2017, representing 21%, 16% and 11%April 2, 2022, 1 customer represented 36% of aggregateaggregated gross receivables, respectively. At December 31, 2016, tworeceivables. As of January 1, 2022, 4 customers represented 27%26%, 16%, 13%, and 11%13% of aggregate gross receivables, respectively. The loss of any of the Company’s significant customersa major customer or a reduction in sales to or difficulties collecting payments from any of these customers could significantly reduce the Company’s net product revenuessales and adversely affect its operating results. The Company tries to mitigatemitigates risks associated with foreign and domestic receivables by purchasing comprehensive foreign credit insurance.

The Company resells certain Samsungcomponent products that it purchases under the terms of the JDLA with Samsung to certain end-customers that are not reached in Samsung’sthe distribution model,models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. InFor the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017April 2, 2022 and October 1, 2016,April 3, 2021, resales of these products represented approximately 75%, 86%, 53%91% and 51%, respectively,76% of the Company’s net product revenues.sales, respectively.

17


Cash Flow Information

The following table sets forth supplemental disclosures of cash flow information and non-cash financing activities for the periods presented:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

Supplemental disclosure of non-cash financing activities:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debt financing of  insurance

 

$

220

 

$

264

Acquisition of equipment through capital lease

 

$

 -

 

$

179

Issuance of shares for cashless warrant exercise

 

$

 -

 

$

 1

Note 4—Credit Agreement

SVB Credit Agreement

On October 31, 2009, the Company and Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) entered into a credit agreement (as the same may from time to time be amended, themodified, supplemented or restated, (the “SVB Credit Agreement”). Pursuant to the terms of the SVB Credit Agreement, the Company is eligible to borrow, in, which provides for a revolving line of credit up to the lesser$5.0 million. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of (i) 80% of itsthe eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments. On April 9, 2021, we entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to accrue interest on borrowings at a per annum rate equal to the greater of 2.25% above the Wall Street Journal prime rate (“Prime Rate”) or (ii) $5.05.50% from the Prime Rate plus 2.75% and to extend the maturity date to December 30, 2021. In December 2021, after meeting the conditions set forth in the amendment, the amount available for borrowing was increased to $7.0 million and the maturity date was extended to April 29, 2022, upon our request.

On April 29, 2022, the Company entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to accrue interest on advance at a per annum rate equal to the greater of 0.75% above the Prime Rate or 4.25%. The borrowing base is limited

9

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to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments, as set forth inand 50% of eligible inventory. The maximum amount available for borrowing was increased to $10.0 million and the SVB Credit Agreement. maturity date to April 28, 2023.

The SVB Credit Agreement requires letters of credit to be secured by cash, which is classified as restricted cash in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets. As of September 30, 2017April 2, 2022 and December 31, 2016,January 1, 2022, (i) outstanding letters of credit were outstanding in the amount of $2.4$20.8 million and $3.1$10.8 million, respectively, (ii) the Company had outstanding borrowings of $2.6were $4.7 million and $0.7$7.0 million, respectively, and (iii) availability under the revolving line of credit was $0.1 million and $0.8 million,NaN, respectively.

On January 29, 2016, the Company and SVB entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to, among other things, adjust the rate at which advances under the SVB Credit Agreement accrue interest to the Wall Street Journal “prime rate” plus 2.75% (prior to such amendment, advances accrued interest at a rate equal to SVB’s most recently announced “prime rate” plus 2.75%).

On March 27, 2017, the Company and SVB entered into another amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to, among other things, (i) extend the maturity date of advances under the SVB Credit Agreement to April 1, 2018, (ii) modify the Company’s financial covenants under the SVB Credit Agreement to remove all prior financial standards and replace them with a liquidity ratio standard, (iii) remove or amend certain termination, anniversary and unused facility fees payable by the Company under the SVB Credit Agreement, and (iv) make certain other administrative changes. On April 12, 2017, the Company and SVB entered into a further amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to, among other things, obtain SVB’s consent in connection with the Company’s rights agreement with Computershare Trust Company, N.A., as rights agent (see Note 8), and make certain administrative changes in connection with the Company’s funding arrangement with TR Global Funding V, LLC, an affiliate of TRGP Capital Management, LLC (“TRGP”) (see Note 7).

For all periods before April 20, 2017, all obligations under the SVB Credit Agreement were secured by a first priority security interest in the Company’s tangible and intangible assets, other than its patent portfolio, which was subject to a first priority security interest held by SVIC (see Note 5). Certain of these lien priorities were modified in April and May 2017 in connection with the Company’s establishment of a funding arrangement with TRGP for certain of the Company’s litigation expenses in connection with certain of its legal proceedings against SK hynix. On May 3, 2017, TRGP entered into an intercreditor agreement with each of SVIC and SVB, and on April 20, 2017 SVIC and SVB entered into an intercreditor agreement with each other (such intercreditor agreements, collectively, the “Intercreditor Agreements”). Pursuant to the terms of the Intercreditor Agreements, SVB’s security interests in the Company’s assets have been modified as follows: SVB has a first priority security interest in all of the Company’s tangible and intangible assets other than its patent portfolio and its claims underlying and any proceeds it may receive from the SK hynix proceedings; a second priority security interest in the Company’s patent portfolio other than the patents that are the subject of the SK hynix proceedings; and a third priority security interest in the Company’s patents that are the subject of

18


the SK hynix proceedings. See Note 7 for additional information about the funding arrangement with TRGP, the Intercreditor Agreements and the Company’s legal proceedings against SK hynix.

The SVB Credit Agreement subjects the Company to certain affirmative and negative covenants, including financial covenants with respect to the Company’s liquidity and restrictions on the payment of dividends. As of September 30, 2017, the Company was in compliance with its covenants under the SVB Credit Agreement.

Note 5—Debt

The Company’s debt consisted of the following as of the dates presented:(in thousands):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

December 31,

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(in thousands)

Convertible promissory note, SVIC, net of debt discount of $922 and $1,084 in 2017 and 2016, respectively

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$

14,078

 

$

13,916

Accrued interest on convertible promissory note with SVIC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

560

 

 

335

Notes payable and capital lease obligation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23

 

 

151

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$

14,661

 

$

14,402

Less current portion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(23)

 

 

(151)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

$

14,638

 

$

14,251

April 2,

January 1,

    

2022

    

2022

Note payable

376

562

Less: amounts due within one year

(376)

(562)

Long-term debt

$

$

On November 18, 2015, in connection with entering into the JDLA with Samsung, the Company sold to SVIC the SVIC .

Note and the SVIC Warrant. The SVIC Note has an original principal amount of $15.0 million, accrues interest at a rate of 2.0% per year, is due and payable in full on December 31, 2021, and is convertible into shares of the Company’s common stock at a conversion price of $1.25 per share, subject to certain adjustments, on the maturity date of the SVIC Note. Upon a change of control of the Company prior to the maturity date of the SVIC Note, the SVIC Note may, at the Company’s option, be assumed by the surviving entity or be redeemed upon the consummation of such change of control for the principal and accrued but unpaid interest as of the redemption date. The SVIC Warrant grants SVIC a right to purchase 2,000,000 shares of the Company’s common stock at an exercise price of $0.30 per share, subject to certain adjustments, is only exercisable in the event the Company exercises its right to redeem the SVIC Note prior to its maturity date, and expires on December 31, 2025.6—Leases

The SVIC Warrant was valued at $1,165,000, based on its relative fair value, and was recorded as a debt discount. The Company also recorded $154,000 as a debt discount for professional service fees rendered in connection with the transaction.  These amounts are being amortized over the term of the SVIC Note using the effective interest method. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016, the Company amortized $54,000, $162,000,  $55,000 and $163,000, respectively, to interest expense in the accompanying condensed consolidated statements of operations.

In connection with the SVIC Note, SVIC was granted a first priority security interest in the Company’s patent portfolio and a second priority security interest in all of the Company’s other tangible and intangible assets. Upon issuance of the SVIC Note, the Company, SVB and SVIC entered into an Intercreditor Agreement pursuant to which SVB and SVIC agreed to their relative security interests in the Company’s assets. In May 2017, SVIC, SVB and TRGP entered into additional Intercreditor Agreements to modify certain of these lien priorities (see Note 7). Additionally, upon issuance of the SVIC Note and the SVIC Warrant, the Company and SVIC entered into a Registration Rights Agreement pursuant to which the Company is obligated to register with the SEC, upon demand by SVIC, the shares of the Company’s common stock issuable upon conversion of the SVIC Note or upon exercise of the SVIC Warrant. 

The SVIC Note subjects the Company to certain affirmative and negative operating covenants. As of September 30, 2017,  the Company was in compliance with its covenants under the SVIC Note.

19


Capital Lease and Notes Payable

The Company has purchased computer equipment through a capital lease.  Asoperating and finance leases primarily associated with office and manufacturing facilities and certain equipment. The determination of September 30, 2017,which discount rate to use when measuring the lease requires monthly payments of approximately $12,000obligation was deemed a significant judgment.

Lease cost and matures in December 2017.

Interest expense, including amortization of debt discounts and debt issuance costs, net of interest income,supplemental cash flow information related to operating leases was as follows during(in thousands):

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

2022

    

2021

Lease cost:

Operating lease cost

$

198

$

119

Cash paid for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities:

Operating cash flows from operating leases

$

149

$

119

Right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for lease obligations:

Operating leases

$

555

$

For the periods presented:three months ended April 2, 2022, and April 3, 2021, finance lease costs and cash flows from finance lease were immaterial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

 

2016

 

    

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

 

(in thousands)

 

 

 

(in thousands)

Interest expense:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SVB

 

$

 5

 

$

13

 

 

 

 

$

26

 

$

31

SVIC

 

 

129

 

 

135

 

 

 

 

 

387

 

 

394

Others

 

 

 4

 

 

14

 

 

 

 

 

20

 

 

16

 

 

 

138

 

 

162

 

 

 

 

 

433

 

 

441

Interest income

 

 

(3)

 

 

(3)

 

 

 

 

 

(12)

 

 

(13)

 

 

$

135

 

$

159

 

 

 

 

$

421

 

$

428

10

Table of Contents

Supplemental balance sheet information related to leases was as follows (in thousands):

April 2,

January 1,

2022

2022

Operating Leases

Operating lease right-of-use assets

$

2,279

$

1,891

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

$

352

$

318

Operating lease liabilities

1,994

1,593

Total operating lease liabilities

$

2,346

$

1,911

Finance Leases

Property and equipment, at cost

$

116

$

116

Accumulated depreciation

(60)

(54)

Property and equipment, net

$

56

$

62

Accrued expenses and other current liabilities

$

24

$

24

Other liabilities

35

41

Total finance lease liabilities

$

59

$

65

Note 6—Income Taxes

The following table sets forth the Company’s provision for income taxes, along with the corresponding effective tax rates, for the periods presented:includes supplemental information:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

September 30,

 

 

October 1,

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

2017

    

 

2016

 

 

 

(in thousands)

 

(in thousands)

 

Provision for income taxes

 

$

 -

 

$

 -

 

$

 1

 

$

 1

 

Effective tax rate

 

 

 -

%  

 

 -

%  

 

(0.01)

%  

 

(0.01)

%

April 2,

January 1,

2022

2022

Weighted Average Remaining Lease Term (in years)

Operating lease

4.7

4.8

Finance lease

2.7

2.9

.

Weighted Average Discount Rate

Operating lease

5.5%

5.5%

Finance lease

5.2%

5.2%

The Company evaluates whether a valuation allowance should be established against its deferred tax assets based on the considerationMaturities of all available evidence using a “more likely than not” standard. In making such judgments, significant weight is given to evidence that can be objectively verified. Due to uncertainty of future utilization, the Company has provided a full valuation allowancelease liabilities as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016. Accordingly, no benefit has been recognized for net deferred tax assets. The Company’s effective tax rate differs from the federal statutory tax rate of 34% for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016 due to providing the full valuation allowance against net deferred tax assets.April 2, 2022, were as follows (in thousands):

Operating

Finance

Fiscal Year

Leases

Leases

2022 (remainder of the year)

$

362

$

20

2023

452

26

2024

601

10

2025

621

5

2026

639

3

2027

23

Total lease payments

2,698

64

Less: imputed interest

(352)

(5)

Total

$

2,346

$

59

The Company did not have any unrecognized tax benefits as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016.

Note 7—7 – Commitments and Contingencies

TRGP AgreementContingent Legal Expenses

We may retain the services of law firms that specialize in patent licensing and Related Intercreditor Agreements

On May 3, 2017, the Companyenforcement and TRGP entered into an investment agreement (the “TRGP Agreement”), which generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by or on behalf of the Companypatent law in connection with certain its legal proceedings against SK hynix (see “Litigationour licensing and Patent Reexaminations” in this Note 7 below), including costs incurred since January 1, 2017 and costs toenforcement activities. These law firms may be incurred in the future in the Company’s first ITC action and its U.S. district court proceedings, but excluding the Company’s subsequent ITC action and its proceedings in international courts (allretained on a contingent fee basis

11

Table of Contents

whereby such funded costs, collectively, the “Funded Costs”). In exchange for such funding, the Company has agreed that, if the Company recoverslaw firms are paid on a scaled percentage of any proceeds in connection with the funded SK hynix proceedings, it will pay to TRGP the amount of the Funded Costs paid by TRGP plus an escalating premiumnegotiated fee, settlements or judgments awarded based on how and when any such proceeds

20


the fees, settlements or judgments are recovered, such that the premium will equal a specified low-to-mid double-digit percentage of the amount of the Funded Costs and such percentage will increase by a specified low double-digit amount each quarter after a specified date until any such proceeds are recovered. In addition, pursuant to the terms of a separate security agreement between the Company and TRGP dated May 3, 2017 (the “Security Agreement”), the Company has granted to TRGP (i) a first priority lien on, and security in, the claims underlying the funded SK hynix proceedings and any proceeds that may be received by the Company in connection with these proceedings, and (ii) a second priority lien on, and security in, the Company’s patents that are the subject of the funded SK hynix proceedings.obtained.

The TRGP Agreement does not impose financial covenants on the Company. Termination events under the TRGP Agreement include, among others, any failure by the Company to make payments to TRGP thereunder upon receipt of recoveries in the SK hynix proceedings; the occurrence of certain bankruptcy events; certain breaches by the Company of its covenants under the TRGP Agreement or the related Security Agreement; and the occurrence of a change of control of the Company. If any such termination event occurs, subject to certain cure periods for certain termination events, TRGP would have the right to terminate its obligations under the TRGP Agreement, including its obligation to make any further payments of Funded Costs after the termination date. In the event of any such termination by TRGP, the Company would continue to be obligated to pay TRGP the portion of any proceeds the Company may recover in connection with the SK hynix proceedings that TRGP would have been entitled to receive absent such termination, as described above, and TRGP may also be entitled to seek additional remedies pursuant to the dispute resolution provisions of the TRGP Agreement.

In connection with the TRGP Agreement, in May 2017, TRGP, SVIC and SVB entered into the Intercreditor Agreements. Pursuant to the terms of the Intercreditor Agreements, TRGP, SVB and SVIC have agreed to their relative security interest priorities in the Company’s assets, such that: (i) TRGP has a first priority security interest in the Company’s claims underlying the funded SK hynix proceedings and any proceeds that may be received by the Company in connection with these proceedings, and a second priority security interest in the Company’s patents that are the subject of the funded SK hynix proceedings, (ii) SVIC has a first priority security interest in the Company’s complete patent portfolio and a second priority security interest in all of the Company’s other tangible and intangible assets (other than the Company’s claims underlying and any proceeds it may receive from the SK hynix proceedings funded under the TRGP Agreement), and (iii) SVB has a first priority security interest in all of the Company’s tangible and intangible assets other than its patent portfolio and its claims underlying and any proceeds it may receive from the SK hynix proceedings funded under the TRGP Agreement, a second priority security interest in the Company’s patent portfolio other than the patents that are the subject of the SK hynix proceedings funded under the TRGP Agreement, and a third priority security interest in the Company’s patents that are the subject of the SK hynix proceedings funded under the TRGP Agreement. The Company consented and agreed to the terms of each of the Intercreditor Agreements.

Legal expenses incurred by the Company but paid by TRGP pursuant to the terms of the TRGP Agreement are excluded from the Company’s consolidated financial statements in each period in which the TRGP Agreement remains in effect. In the nine months ended September 30, 2017, the Company excluded legal expenses of $9.3 million as a result of TRGP’s payment of these expenses under the TRGP Agreement. Any settlement or other cash proceeds the Company may recover in the future in connection with the funded SK hynix proceedings would be reduced by the aggregate amount of legal expenses excluded by the Company as a result of TRGP’s payment of these expenses under the TRGP Agreement, plus the premium amount due to TRGP under the terms of the TRGP Agreement at the time of any such recovery. 

Litigation and Patent Reexaminations

The Company ownsWe own numerous patents and continuescontinue to seek to grow and strengthen itsour patent portfolio, which covers differentvarious aspects of the Company’s technologyour innovations withand includes various claim scopes. The Company plansWe plan to pursue avenues to monetize itsour intellectual property portfolio, in which itwe would generate revenue by selling or licensing itsour technology, and it intendswe intend to vigorously enforce itsour patent rights against alleged infringers of such rights. The Company dedicatesWe dedicate substantial resources to protecting itsand enforcing our intellectual property rights, including its efforts to defend itswith patent infringement proceedings we file against third parties and defense of our patents against challenges made by way of reexamination and review proceedings at the PTAB or USPTO. TheseU.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”). We expect these activities are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, without anywith no guarantee that any ongoing or future patent protection andor litigation activities will be successful, or that the Companywe will be able to monetize itsour intellectual property portfolio. The

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Company isWe are also subject to litigation based on claims that it haswe have infringed on the intellectual property rights of others,others.

Any litigation, regardless of its outcome, is inherently uncertain, involves a significant dedication of resources, including time and capital, and diverts management’s attention from our other activities. As a result, any current or future infringement claims or patent challenges by or against which the Company intends to defend itself vigorously.

Litigation,third parties, whether or not eventually decided in the Company’sour favor or settled, is costly and time-consuming and could divert management’s attention and resources. Thus, because of the nature and inherent uncertainties of litigation, even if the outcome of any proceeding is favorable, the Company’smaterially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations or cash flows could be materially and adversely affected.operations. Additionally, the outcome of pending or future litigation and related patent reviews and reexaminations, as well as any delay in their resolution, could affect the Company’sour ability to continue to sell itsour products, protect against competition in the current and expected markets for itsour products or license itsor otherwise monetize our intellectual property rights in the future.

Google Litigation

On December 4, 2009, the CompanyNetlist filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Inc. (“Google”) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (the “Northern District Court”“NDCA”), seeking damages and injunctive relief based on Google’s alleged infringement of the Company’sour U.S. Patent No. 7,619,912 (the “‘912 patent”), which relates generally to technologies to implement rank multiplication. In February 2010, Google answeredThe NDCA case was stayed, pending challenges to the Company’s complaint‘912 patent before the United States Patent and asserted counterclaims againstTrademark Office. Eventually, the Company seeking a declaration thatUnited States Court of Appeals for the patent is invalidFederal Circuit confirmed the ‘912 patent’s validity on June 15, 2020, and not infringed, and claiming that the Company committed fraud, negligent misrepresentation and breachNDCA case stay was lifted. the case proceeded before Senior Judge Armstrong, where the parties entered cross motions for summary judgment. Of the issues in play, the parties contested the application of contract based on the Company’s activitiesdefense of intervening rights to the claims at issue in the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (“JEDEC”) standard-setting organization. The counterclaim seeks unspecified compensatory damages. Accruals have not been recorded for loss contingencies relatedcase. Afterward, the NDCA case was re-assigned to Google’s counterclaim because it is not probable that a loss has been incurredChief Judge Seeborg of the NDCA, and the amount of any such loss cannot be reasonably estimated. In October 2010, Google requested and was later grantedhearing for the parties’ cross motions took place on March 3, 2022. On May 5, 2022, Chief Judge Seeborg entered an Inter Partes ReexaminationOrder granting Netlist, Inc.’s Motion for Summary Judgement that Claim 16 of the ‘912 patent by the USPTO. The reexamination proceedings are described below. In connection with the reexamination request, the Northern District Court granted the Company’s andis not subject to Google’s joint request to stay the ‘912pleaded defense of Intervening Rights, while also entering orders on other issues, including setting a remote case management conference for June 23, 2022 at 10:00am pacific time.

Micron Litigation

On April 28, 2021, Netlist filed a complaint for patent infringement lawsuit against Google until the completion of the reexamination proceedings.

Inphi Litigation

On September 22, 2009, the Company filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Inphi CorporationMicron Technology, Inc. (“Inphi”Micron”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division (Case No. 6:21-cv00431 & Case No. 6:21-cv-00430) These proceedings are based on the alleged infringement by Micron’s load reduced dual in line memory modules (“LRDIMM”) and Micron’s non-volatile dual in line memory modules (“NVDIMM”) enterprise memory modules under four U.S. patents – US Pat. No. 10,489,314; US Pat. No. 9,824,035; US Pat. No. 10,268,608; & US Pat. No. 8,301,833. As of the reporting date, the case has been assigned to Hon. Judge Lee Yeakel, and the parties completed briefing on their claim construction arguments. The matter is set for a Claim Construction hearing on May 12, 2022.

In parallel, Micron filed requests to bring Inter Partes Review (“IPR”) proceedings against all four asserted patents: U.S. Patents 8,301,833, 9,854,035, 10,268,608, and 10,489,314. As of the reporting date, the PTAB has not made a decision with respect any of these IPR requests.

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Samsung Litigations

On May 28, 2020, Netlist filed a complaint against Samsung in the United States District Court for the Central District of California (the “Central District Court”). The complaint, as amended, alleges that Inphi is contributorily infringing and actively inducing the infringement of U.S. patents owned by the Company, including the ‘912 patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,532,537 (the “‘537 patent”), which relates generally to memory modules with load isolation and memory domain translation capabilities, and U.S. Patent No. 7,636,274 (the “‘274 patent”), which is related to the ‘537 patent and relates generally to load isolation and memory domain translation technologies. The Company is seeking damages and injunctive relief based on Inphi’s usefor Samsung’s breach of the Company’s patented technology. Inphi denied infringementparties’ JDLA. On July 22, 2020, Netlist amended its complaint to seek a Declaratory Judgment that it properly terminated the JDLA in light of Samsung’s material breaches. On October 14, 2021, the Court entered summary judgment in Netlist’s favor and claimedconfirmed Netlist properly terminated the JDLA as of July 15, 2020. On February 15, 2022, the Court entered a Final Judgment in favor of Netlist on each of its three claims and confirmed conclusively that all licenses granted under the three patents are invalid. In June 2010, Inphi requested and was later granted Inter Partes Reexaminations of the ‘912, ‘537 and ‘274 patents by the USPTO. The reexamination proceedings are described below (except for the reexamination proceeding related to the ‘537 patent, which have concluded with the confirmation of all of the claims of such patent). In connection with the reexamination requests, InphiJDLA were terminated. On February 25, 2022, Samsung filed a motion to stay the patent infringement lawsuit with the Central District Court until completion of the reexamination proceedings, which was granted.

‘912 Patent Reexamination

As noted above, in April 2010, June 2010 and October 2010, Google and Inphi submitted requests for an Inter Partes Reexamination of the ‘912 patent by the USPTO, claiming that the ‘912 patent is invalid and requesting that the USPTO reject the patent’s claims and cancel the patent. Additionally, in October 2010, Smart Modular, Inc. (“Smart Modular”) submitted another such reexamination request. On January 18, 2011, the USPTO granted such reexamination requests, and in February 2011, the USPTO merged the Inphi, Google and Smart Modular ‘912 patent reexaminations into a single proceeding. On March 21, 2014, the USPTO issued an Action Closing Prosecution (“ACP”), an office action that states the USPTO examiner’s position on patentability and closes further prosecution, and on June 18, 2014 the USPTO issued a RightNotice of Appeal, Notice (“RAN”), a notice that triggers the rights of the involved parties to file a notice of appeal to the ACP, each of which confirmed the patentability of 92 of the ‘912 patent’s claims and rejected the

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patent’s 11 other claims. The parties involved filed various notices of appeal, responses and requests, and on November 24, 2015, the PTAB held a hearing on such appeals. On May 31, 2016, the PTAB issued a decision affirming certain of the examiner’s decisions and reversing others. On February 9, 2017, the PTAB granted the Company’s request to reopen prosecution before the USPTO examiner and remanded the consolidated proceeding to the examiner to consider the patentability of certain of the pending claims in view of the PTAB’s May 31, 2016 decision and comments from the parties. On October 3, 2017, the examiner issued a determination as to the patentability of certain of the pending claims, which were found to be unpatentable. The proceeding will now return to the PTAB for reconsideration and issuance of a new decision. Accruals have not been recorded for loss contingencies related to the ‘912 patent reexamination proceedings because it is not probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount of any such loss cannot be reasonably estimated.

‘627 Patent Reexamination

In September 2011, Smart Modular submitted a request for an Inter Partes Reexamination by the USPTO of the Company’s U.S. Patent No. 7,864,627 (the “‘627 patent”), related to the ‘912 patent, claiming that the ‘627 patent is invalid and requesting that the USPTO reject the patent’s claims and cancel the patent. On November 16, 2011, the request was granted. On March 27, 2014 and June 27, 2014, the USPTO issued an ACP and a RAN, respectively, each of which rejected all of the ‘627 patent’s claims. The parties involved filed various notices of appeal, responses and requests, and on November 24, 2015, the PTAB held a hearing on such appeals. On May 31, 2016, the PTAB issued a decision affirming the decisions of the examiner. On February 9, 2017, the PTAB granted the Company’s request to reopen prosecution before the USPTO examiner and remanded the proceeding to the examiner to consider the patentability of certain of the pending claims in view of the PTAB’s May 31, 2016 decision and comments from the parties. On October 2, 2017, the examiner issued a determination as to the patentability of the pending claims, which were found to be unpatentable.  The proceeding will now return to the PTAB for reconsideration and issuance of a new decision. Accruals have not been recorded for loss contingencies related to the ‘627 patent reexamination proceedings because it is not probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount of any such loss cannot be reasonably estimated.

‘274 Patent Reexamination

As noted above, in April 2010 and June 2010, Inphi submitted requests for an Inter Partes Reexamination of the ‘274 patent by the USPTO. On August 27, 2010, the request was granted. In March 2012 and June 2012, the USPTO issued an ACP and a RAN, respectively, each of which confirmed the patentability of many of the ‘274 patent’s claims. The parties involved filed various notices of appeal, responses and requests, and on November 20, 2013, the PTAB held a hearing on such appeals. On January 16, 2014, the PTAB issued a decision affirming the examiner in part, but reversing the examiner on new grounds and rejecting all of the patent’s claims. On September 11, 2015, the USPTO examiner issued a determination rejecting the amended claims. On January 23, 2017, the USPTO granted-in-part the Company’s petition to enter comments in support of its positions in the proceeding. On May 9, 2017, the PTAB issued a decision on appeal affirming the rejection of all claims.  Netlist requested rehearing of the PTAB’s decision on June 6, 2017.  The PTAB denied the rehearing request on August 8, 2017.  Netlist expects to appeal the decision to theFederal Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Accruals haveNinth Circuit issued a Time Schedule Order on February 28, 2022, setting Samsung’s deadline to file an opening appeal brief as June 6, 2022. Netlist noticed its intention to file a cross-appeal and the Ninth Circuit confirmed a contemporaneous briefing deadline of June 6, 2022, for the same.

On October 15, 2021, Samsung filed a declaratory judgement action against Netlist in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware (“DDE”), requesting in relevant part that the Delaware District Court declare that Samsung does not been recorded for loss contingenciesinfringe Netlist’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,619,912, 9,858,218, 10,217,523, 10,474,595, 10,860,506, 10,949,339, and 11,016,918. As of the reporting date, Samsung seeks leave to add U.S. Pat. 11,232,054 (issued Jan. 25, 2022) to the action. Netlist believes Samsung’s claims levied in the DDE action meritless, and the relief Samsung requests unjustified. As of the reporting date, Netlist filed a motion seeking dismissal of Samsung’s DDE complaint, and an opposition contesting the inclusion of U.S. Pat. 11,232,054 as part of a second amended complaint filing. The matter is fully briefed, and Netlist awaits an order from the Court.

On November 19, 2021, Samsung filed IPR proceedings contesting the validity of U.S. Patents 9,858,218 (the “’218 patent”), 10,474,595 (the “’595 patent”), and 10,217,523 (the “’523 patent”). Netlist filed its initial responses to Samsung’s petitions on February 18, 2022, contesting the institution of any IPR on the grounds propounded. As of the reporting date, the PTAB has not yet made decision with respect to the IPR requests related to the ‘274‘218 or ‘595 patents, but did enter an order instituting IPR proceedings for the ‘523 patent reexamination proceedings because it is not probable that a loss has been incurred and the amount of any such loss cannot be reasonably estimated.

Smart Modular ‘295 Patent Litigation and Reexamination

In September 13, 2012, Smart Modular, Inc. (“Smart Modular”)on May 5, 2022. On February 17, 2022, Samsung filed a separate IPR request contesting the validity of only claim 16 within Netlist’s U.S. Patent 7,619,912. The PTAB issued a filing date for this challenge of the ‘912 patent, making Netlist’s Patent Owner Preliminary Response due on July 21, 2022. As of the reporting date, Samsung has filed two additional IPR proceedings contesting the validity of Netlist’s U.S. Patents 10,860,506 and 10,949,339. The PTAB issued filing dates for both, making Netlist’s deadline to file its Preliminary Responses to each on July 21, 2022 and July 28, 2022, respectively,

On December 20, 2021, Netlist filed for a complaint for patent infringement lawsuit against the CompanySamsung in the U.S. DistrictUnited States Court for the Eastern District of California (the “Eastern District Court”). TheTexas (Case No. 2:21-cv-463) under US Pat. No. 10,860,506; US Pat. No. 10,949,339; & US Pat. No. 11,016,918. Samsung responded to Netlist’s complaint alleges thaton April 12, 2022, and Judge Gilstrap ordered a scheduling conference be set for May 18, 2022. On May 3, 2022, Netlist entered a First Amended Complaint pursuant to FRCP Rule 15, adding claims for infringement under three additional patents: U.S. Patents 8,787,060, 9,318,160, and 11,232,054. On May 4, 2022, Netlist complied with the Company willfully infringesEDTX local patent rules and actively induces theserved its preliminary infringement of certain claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,250,295 (“the ‘295 patent”) issued to Smart Modular and seeks damages and injunctive relief. The Company answered Smart Modular’s complaint in October 2012, denying infringementcontentions on Samsung. As of the ‘295 patent, asserting that the ‘295 patent is invalid and unenforceable, and asserting counterclaims against Smart Modular.reporting date, Netlist awaits its opportunity to appear in Judge Gilstrap’s ordered case management conference.

On December 7, 2012, the USPTO granted the Company’s request for the reexamination of the ‘295 patent. On April 29, 2014, the USPTO examiner issued an ACP confirming some claims and rejecting others, and on August 4, 2015, the examiner issued a RAN confirming all pending claims.  On September 4, 2015, the Company appealed to the

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PTAB. The parties involved filed various notices of appeal, responses and requests, and on September 22, 2016, the PTAB held a hearing on such appeals. On November 14, 2016, the PTAB issued a decision reversing the examiner and rejected all of the pending claims.  On January 23, 2017, Smart Modular filed a request to reopen prosecution.  The parties had the opportunity present evidence and arguments and the examiner issued a determination on May 8, 2017, which found all pending claims to be unpatentable.  The proceeding will now return to the PTAB for reconsideration and issuance of a new decision.

Smart Modular and SanDisk Litigation

On July 1 and August 23, 2013, the Company filed complaints against Smart Modular, Smart Storage Systems (“Smart Storage”) (which was subsequently acquired by SanDisk Corporation (“SanDisk”)), Smart Worldwide Holdings (“Smart Worldwide”) and Diablo Technologies (“Diablo”) in the Central District Court, seeking, among other things, damages and other relief for alleged infringement of several of the Company’s patents by the defendants based on the manufacture and sale of the ULLtraDIMM memory module, alleged antitrust violations by Smart Modular and Smart Worldwide, and alleged trade secret misappropriation and trademark infringement by Diablo.  The trade secret misappropriation and trademark infringement claims against Diablo were fully adjudicated on August 17, 2016 and are no longer pending.

On August 23, 2013, Smart Modular and Diablo each filed a complaint in the San Francisco Division of the Northern District Court seeking declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the patents asserted in the Company’s complaint. Based on various motions filed by the parties, on November 26, 2013, the Central District Court severed and transferred the patent claims related to the ULLtraDIMM memory module to the Northern District Court.

On February 12, 2014, the Northern District Court granted the parties’ joint stipulation dismissing Smart Modular without prejudice. Between June 18, 2014 and August 23, 2014, SanDisk, Diablo, and Smart Modular filed numerous petitions in the USPTO requesting Inter Partes Review of the Company’s asserted patents.  All of the reviews associated with U.S. Patent Nos. 8,516,187; 8,301,833; 8,516,185 have been resolved in the Company’s favor and are no longer pending.  The reviews associated with U.S. Patent Nos. 8,001,434; 8,359,501; 7,881,150; and 8,081,536 have concluded before the PTAB and the parties have appealed the decisions in these reviews to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and are awaiting decisions. On April 9, 2015, the Northern District Court stayed the infringement proceedings as to the Company’s patents asserted against the ULLtraDIMM pending resolution of the patent review decisions on appeal.

SK hynix Litigation

On September 1, 2016, the Company filed legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix in the ITC and the Central District Court. The proceedings are based on the alleged infringement by SK hynix’s registered dual in-line memory module (“RDIMM”) and LRDIMM enterprise memory products of six of the Company’s U.S. patents. In the ITC proceedings, the Company is seeking an exclusion order that directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States. In the Central District Court proceedings, the Company is primarily seeking damages.

On October 3, 2016, the ITC instituted an investigation of the trade practices of SK hynix and certain of its subsidiaries related to its importation, sale for importation, and/or sale after importation of RDIMM and LRDIMM enterprise memory products. On November 10, 2016, the ITC set a 16-month target date of February 7, 2018, for the investigation with a final initial determination being filed no later than October 10, 2017.  Based on this target date, the ITC scheduled a hearing on the merits of the investigation which began on May 8, 2017 and concluded on May 11, 2017. On January 4, 2017, the Central District Court issued a scheduling order setting various dates including a trial date of July 10, 2018.  On August 16, 2017, the ITC extended the target date by 5 weeks to March 14, 2018, and extended the deadline for the final initial determination to November 14, 2017. 

On October 5, 2016 and October 28, 2016, SK hynix filed motions in the Central District Court and the ITC, respectively, to disqualify the Company’s litigation counsel. The Company opposed both motions. On December 5,

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2016, the Central District Court granted SK hynix’s motion to disqualify. On December 8, 2016, the Company’s substitute counsel entered appearances in the ITC and the Central District Court.

Between December 30, 2016 and January 20, 2017, SK hynix filed numerous petitions in the USPTO requesting Inter Partes Review of certain of the Company’s patents, including the patents asserted in the ITC and Central District Court.  In a series of decisions issued in May, June and July, 2017, the PTAB instituted reviews of certain of these patents, including the patents currently asserted in the ITC and Central District Court, the last of which is scheduled to conclude no later than July 2018.  On July 17, 2017, the Central District Court granted in part SK hynix’s request to stay the infringement proceedings pending further order of the court, and ordered the parties to file a joint status report shortly after the ITC issues its final initial determination.

On July 11, 2017, the Company filed legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix and certain of its distributors in the courts of Germany and the PRC based on the alleged infringement by SK hynix’s LRDIMM of the Company’s patents in those jurisdictions.  The courts in Germany and the PRC are currently handling service of process and have not yet issued a schedule for proceedings in either jurisdiction.

On October 31, 2017, the Company filed additional legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix in the ITC based on the alleged infringement by SK hynix’s RDIMM and LRDIMM products of two additional U.S. patents owned by the Company. As with the first ITC action, the Company is seeking an exclusion order that directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States.

Morgan Joseph Litigation

On March 31, 2016, Morgan Joseph Triartisan LLC (“Morgan Joseph”) filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against the Company and certain of its officers for breach of contract and related causes of action.  The complaint alleges that the Company refused to honor its payment obligations under a written agreement with Morgan Joseph related to the provision of financial advisory and investment banking services.  Morgan Joseph is seeking compensatory damages in the amount of $1,012,500, plus punitive damages in an amount not less than $1 million, together with pre-judgment interest, costs, and fees.

On September 15, 2016, the Company filed a motion to dismiss Morgan Joseph’s complaint for failure to state a claim. On February 15, 2017, the court granted the Company’s motion to dismiss as to all causes of action brought by Morgan Joseph.

Other Contingent Obligations

In the ordinary course of itsour business, the Company haswe have made certain indemnities, commitments and guarantees pursuant to which itwe may be required to make payments in relation to certain transactions. These include:include, among others: (i) intellectual property indemnities to the Company’sour customers and licensees in connection with the use, sale and/or license of Companyour products; (ii) indemnities to vendors and service providers pertaining to claims based on the Company’sour negligence or willful misconduct; (iii) indemnities involving the accuracy of representations and warranties in certain contracts; (iv) indemnities to our directors and officers of the Company to the maximum extent permitted under the laws of the State of Delaware; (v) indemnities to SVIC and SVB pertaining to all obligations, demands, claims, and liabilities claimed or asserted by any other party in connection with transactions contemplated by the applicable investment or loan documents;documents, as applicable; and (vi) indemnities or other claims related to certain real estate leases, under which the Companywe may be required to indemnify property

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owners for environmental and other liabilities or may face other claims arising from the Company’sour use of the applicable premises. The duration of these indemnities, commitments and guarantees varies and, in certain cases, may be indefinite. The majority of these indemnities, commitments and guarantees do not provide for any limitation of the maximum potential for future payments the Companywe could be obligated to make. Historically, the Company haswe have not been obligated to make significant payments as a result of these obligations, and no liabilities have been recorded for these indemnities, commitments and guarantees in the accompanying condensed consolidated balance sheets.

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Note 8—Stockholders’ Equity

Serial Preferred Stock

The Company’s authorized capital stock includes 10,000,000 shares of serial preferred stock, with a par value of $0.001 per share. NoNaN shares of preferred stock were outstanding at September 30, 2017as of April 2, 2022 or December 31, 2016.January 2, 2022.

On April 17, 2017, the Company entered into a rights agreement (the(as amended from time to time, the “Rights Agreement”) with Computershare Trust Company, N.A., as rights agent. In connection with the adoption of the Rights Agreement and pursuant to its terms, the Company’s board of directors authorized and declared a dividend of one1 right (each, a “Right”) for each outstanding share of the Company’s common stock to stockholders of record at the close of business on May 18, 2017 (the “Record Date”), and authorized the issuance of one1 Right for each share of the Company’s common stock issued by the Company (except as otherwise provided in the Rights Agreement) between the Record Date and the Distribution Date (as defined below).

Each Right entitles the registered holder, subject to the terms of the Rights Agreement, to purchase from the Company, when exercisable and subject to adjustment, one unit consisting of one one-thousandthone-thousandth of a share (a “Unit”) of Series A Preferred Stock of the Company (the “Preferred Stock”), at a purchase price of $6.56 per Unit, subject to adjustment. Subject to the provisions of the Rights Agreement, including certain exceptions specified therein, a distribution date for the Rights (the “Distribution Date”) will occur upon the earlier of (i) 10 business days following a public announcement that a person or group of affiliated or associated persons (an “Acquiring Person”) has acquired or otherwise obtained beneficial ownership of 15% or more of the then‑outstandingthen-outstanding shares of the Company’s common stock, and (ii) 10 business days (or such later date as may be determined by the Company’s board of directors) following the commencement of a tender offer or exchange offer that would result in a person or group becoming an Acquiring Person. The Rights are not exercisable until the Distribution Date and, unless earlier redeemed or exchanged by the Company pursuant to the terms of the Rights Agreement (as amended on April 16, 2018, April 16, 2019 and August 14, 2020) will expire on the earlier of (i) the close of business on April 17, 2018, the first anniversary of the adoption of the Rights Agreement, and (ii) the date of any settlement, adjudication, dismissal with prejudice, abandonment by the Company or other conclusive and final resolution of the Company’s legal proceedings against SK hynix (see Note 7).2024.

In connection with the adoption of the Rights Agreement, the Company’s board of directors approved a Certificate of Designation of the Series A Preferred Stock (the “Certificate of Designation”) designating 1,000,000 shares of the Company’sits serial preferred stock as Series A Preferred Stock and setting forth the rights, preferences and limitations of the Preferred Stock. The Company filed the Certificate of Designation with the Secretary of State of the State of Delaware on April 17, 2017.

Common Stock

On May 31, 2017, the Company’s stockholders approved an amendment to the Company’s Restated Certificate of Incorporation to increase the number of shares of the Company’s common stock that it is authorized to issue from 90,000,000 to 150,000,000.September 2021 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

On September 23, 2016,28, 2021, the Company completed the 2016 Offering,entered into a purchase agreement (the “September 2021 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which it sold 9,200,000the Company has the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $75 million in shares of its common stock at a pricesubject to the publicconditions and limitations set forth in the September 2021 Purchase Agreement. Concurrent with the execution of $1.25 per share.  The net proceedsthe September 2021 Purchase Agreement, the Company also entered into a registration rights agreement with Lincoln Park relating to the Company fromCompany’s common stock to be sold to Lincoln Park. As consideration for entering into the 2016 Offering were $10.3 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by the Company.

On August 22, 2017,September 2021 Purchase Agreement, the Company completed the 2017 Offering, pursuantissued to which it sold 8,500,000Lincoln Park 218,750 shares of its common stock atas initial commitment shares in a pricenoncash transaction on September 28, 2021 and will issue up to the public of $0.60 per share.  The net proceeds to the Company from the 2017 Offering were $4.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by the Company.

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Stock-Based Compensation

The Company has stock-based compensation awards outstanding pursuant to its Amended and Restated 2006 Equity Incentive Plan, as re-approved by the Company’s stockholders on June 8, 2016 (the “Amended 2006 Plan”), under which a variety of stock-based awards, including stock options, may be granted to employees and non-employee service providers of the Company. In addition to awards granted pursuant to the Amended 2006 Plan, the Company periodically grants equity-based awards outside the Amended 2006 Plan to certain new hires as an inducement to enter into employment with the Company.

Subject to certain adjustments, as of September 30, 2017, the Company was authorized to issue a maximum of 10,205,566143,750 additional shares of its common stock pursuant to awards granted underas additional commitment shares on a pro

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rata basis in connection with any additional purchases. The Company will not receive any cash proceeds from the Amended 2006 Plan. issuance of these additional commitment shares.

Pursuant to the termsSeptember 2021 Purchase Agreement, on any business day and as often as every other business day over the 36-month term of the Amended 2006 Plan,September 2021 Purchase Agreement, the Company has the right, from time to time, at its sole discretion and subject to certain conditions, to direct Lincoln Park to purchase up to 750,000 shares of its common stock, provided Lincoln Park’s obligation under any single such purchase will not exceed $4.0 million, unless the Company and Lincoln Park mutually agree to increase the maximum amount of such single regular purchase. If the Company directs Lincoln Park to purchase the maximum number of shares of common stock it then may sell in a regular purchase, then in addition to such regular purchase, and subject to certain conditions and limitations in the plan automatically increased onSeptember 2021 Purchase Agreement, the first dayCompany may direct Lincoln Park to purchase an additional amount of each calendar year from January 1, 2007 through January 1, 2016, bycommon stock that may not exceed the lesser of (i) 5.0%300% of the number of shares purchased pursuant to the corresponding regular purchase or (ii) 30% of the total number of shares of its common stock issuedtraded during a specified period on the applicable purchase date as set forth in the September 2021 Purchase Agreement. Under certain circumstances and outstanding asin accordance with the September 2021 Purchase Agreement, the Company may direct Lincoln Park to purchase shares in multiple accelerated purchases on the same trading day.

The Company controls the timing and amount of any sales of its common stock to Lincoln Park. There is no upper limit on the price per share that Lincoln Park must pay for the Company’s common stock under the September 2021 Purchase Agreement, but in no event will shares be sold to Lincoln Park on a day the closing price is less than the floor price specified in the September 2021 Purchase Agreement. In all instances, the Company may not sell shares of its common stock to Lincoln Park under the September 2021 Purchase Agreement if that would result in Lincoln Park beneficially owning more than 9.99% of its common stock.

The September 2021 Purchase Agreement does not limit the Company’s ability to raise capital from other sources at the Company’s sole discretion, except that, subject to certain exceptions, the Company may not enter into any Variable Rate Transaction (as defined in the September 2021 Purchase Agreement, including the issuance of any floating conversion rate or variable priced equity-like securities) during the 36 months after the date of the September 2021 Purchase Agreement. The Company has the right to terminate the September 2021 Purchase Agreement at any time, at 0 cost to the Company.

During 2021, Lincoln Park purchased an aggregate of 1,550,000 shares of our common stock for a net purchase price of $10.9 million under the September 2021 Purchase Agreement. In connection with the purchases, we issued to Lincoln Park an aggregate of 20,809 shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares in noncash transactions. During the first dayquarter of 2022, Lincoln Park purchased an aggregate of 300,000 shares of our common stock for a net purchase price of $1.8 million under the applicable calendar year, and (ii) 1,200,000September 2021 Purchase Agreement. In connection with the purchases, we issued to Lincoln Park an aggregate of 3,387 shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares in noncash transactions.

Note 9—Stock-Based Awards

As of April 2, 2022, the Company had 487,512 shares of common stock subject to adjustmentreserved for certain corporate actions. Beginning January 1, 2017, the automatic annual increase to the number of shares of common stock that may be issued pursuant to awards grantedfuture issuance under the its Amended and Restated 2006 Incentive Plan (“Amended 2006 Plan is equal to the lesser of (i) 2.5% of the number of shares of common stock issued and outstanding as of the first day of the applicable calendar year, and (ii) 1,200,000 shares of common stock, subject to adjustment for certain corporate actions. As of September 30, 2017, the Company had 995,381 shares of common stock available for issuance pursuant to future awards to be granted under the Amended 2006 Plan.Plan”). Stock options granted under the Amended 2006 Plan generally vest at a rate of at least 25% per year over four years and expire 10 years from the dategrant date. RSUs granted for employees and consultants generally vest in equal installments annually and fully vest over a four-year term from the grant date.

15

Table of grant.Contents

Stock Options

The following table summarizes the Company’sactivity related to stock option activity inoptions during the ninethree months ended September 30, 2017:April 2, 2022:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Options Outstanding

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weighted-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Average

 

 

 

Number of

 

 

Exercise

 

 

    

Shares

    

 

Price

 

 

 

(in thousands)

 

 

 

Options outstanding at December 31, 2016

 

 

8,798

 

$

1.46

Options granted

 

 

1,455

 

 

0.99

Options exercised

 

 

(267)

 

 

0.68

Options expired/forfeited

 

 

(1,339)

 

 

1.46

Options outstanding at September 30, 2017

 

 

8,647

 

$

1.40

Weighted-

Number of

Average

Shares

Exercise

(in thousands)

    

Price

Outstanding as of January 1, 2022

5,899

$

0.88

Granted

Exercised

(197)

0.70

Expired or forfeited

(372)

0.76

Outstanding as of April 2, 2022

5,330

$

0.90

The intrinsic value of stock options exercised in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was $89,000.Restricted Stock Units

The following table presentssummarizes the assumptions usedactivity related to calculate the weighted-average grant date fair value of stock options granted by the CompanyRSUs during the periods presented:three months ended April 2, 2022:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

    

2017

 

2016

 

Expected term (in years)

 

 

6.4

 

 

6.1

 

Expected volatility

 

 

87

%  

 

106

%

Risk-free interest rate

 

 

2.03

%

 

1.48

%

Expected dividends

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

Weighted-average grant date fair value per share

 

$

0.73

 

$

0.89

 

Weighted-

Average

Number of

Grant-Date

Shares

Fair Value

(in thousands)

per Share

Outstanding as of January 1, 2022

2,228

$

1.36

Granted

1,446

3.65

Vested

(533)

0.76

Forfeited

(2)

0.54

Outstanding as of April 2, 2022

3,139

$

2.52

Stock-Based Compensation

The following table summarizes the stock-based compensation expense by line item in the condensed consolidated statements of operations (in thousands):

    

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

2022

2021

Cost of sales

$

3

$

3

Research and development

176

110

Selling, general and administrative

503

225

Total

$

682

$

338

As of September 30, 2017,April 2, 2022, the amountCompany had approximately $8.0 million, net of estimated forfeitures, of unearned stock-based compensation, estimatedwhich it expects to be expensed from the Company’s 2017 fiscal year through the Company’s 2019 fiscal year related to unvested stock options isrecognize over a weighted-average period of approximately 3.4 years.

2716


approximately $1.7 million, net of estimated forfeitures. The weighted-average period over which the unearned stock-based compensation is expected to be recognized is approximately 2.3 years. If there are any modifications or cancellations of the underlying unvested awards, the Company may be required to accelerate, increase or cancel any remaining unearned stock-based compensation expense or calculate and record additional expense. Future stock-based compensation expense and unearned stock-based compensation expense will increase to the extent the Company grants additional stock options or other stock-based awards.

Warrants

The following is a summary of the Company’s warrant activity for the year ended December 31, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weighted

 

 

Number of

 

Average

 

 

Shares

 

Exercise

 

    

(in thousands)

    

Price

Warrants outstanding - January 2, 2016

 

 

7,633

 

$

0.59

Warrant granted

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

Warrants exercised

 

 

(2,709)

 

 

0.47

Warrants outstanding - December 31, 2016

 

 

4,924

 

$

0.66

Warrant granted

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

Warrants exercised

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

Warrants outstanding - September 30, 2017

 

 

4,924

 

$

0.66

Note 9—Segment and Geographic Information

The Company operates in one reportable segment, which is the design and manufacture of high-performance memory subsystems for the server, high-performance computing and communications markets. The Company evaluates financial performance on a Company-wide basis.

At September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, approximately $61,000 and $64,000, respectively, of the Company’s long-lived assets, net of depreciation and amortization, were located in the PRC. Substantially all other long-lived assets were located in the United States.

Note 10—Subsequent Events

The Company has performed an evaluation of events occurring subsequent to September 30, 2017, through the filing date of this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.  Based on its evaluation, there are no events, except for the matter discussed below, or discussed elsewhere in the notes hereto, which require recognition or disclosure in the condensed consolidated financial statements.

On November 13, 2017, the Company entered into an At Market Issuance Sales Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc. (the “Agent”) to sell shares of the Company’s common stock, with aggregate gross proceeds of up to $9,000,000, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under which the Agent will act as sales agent.

Under the Sales Agreement, the Company will set the parameters for the sale of shares, including the number of shares to be issued, the time period during which sales are requested to be made, limitation on the number of shares that may be sold in any one trading day and any minimum price below which sales may not be made. The Sales Agreement provides that the Agent will be entitled to compensation for its services in an amount equal to 3% of the gross proceeds from the sale of shares sold under the Sales Agreement. The Company has no obligation to sell any shares under the Sales Agreement and may suspend solicitation and offers under the Sales Agreement. The shares will be issued pursuant to the Company’s shelf registration statement on Form S-3 and the Prospectus Supplement to be filed on November 14, 2017 with the SEC in connection with the offer and sale of the shares pursuant to the Sales Agreement.

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Item 2.

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

The following discussion (“MD&A”) and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations (the “MD&A”) should be read together with our unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in Part I, Item 1other parts of this report, as well as the MD&A included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, including the audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included in such report (the “2016 Annual Report”), which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on March 31, 2017. In preparing this MD&A, we presume that readers have access to and have read the MD&A included in the 2016 Annual Report, pursuant to Instruction 2 to paragraph (b) of Item 303 of Regulation S-K promulgated by the SEC.

Unless the context indicates otherwise, all references to “Netlist,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our” in this MD&A and elsewhere in this report refer to Netlist, Inc., together with its majority and wholly owned subsidiaries.

Forward-Looking Statements

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

Forward-looking statements contained in this discussion and analysisMD&A include statements about, among other things: our plans relating to our intellectual property, including our strategy for monetizing, licensing, expanding, and defending our patent portfolio; our expectations with respect to strategic partners, including our relationship with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) and the potential for commercial licensing agreements; our expectations and strategies regarding outstanding legal proceedings and patent reexaminations relating to our intellectual property portfolio, including our pending proceedings against SK hynix Inc., a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”); our beliefs regarding the market and demand for our products or the component products we resell to customers directly; and our expectations regarding our strategy, business plans and objectives, our future operations and financial position, including future revenues, costs and prospects, and our liquidity and capital resources, including cash flows, sufficiency of cash resources, efforts to reduce expenses and the potential for future financings.

specific and overall impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our financial condition and results of operations;
our beliefs regarding the market and demand for our products or the component products we resell;
our ability to develop and launch new products that are attractive to the market and stimulate customer demand for these products;
our plans relating to our intellectual property, including our goals of monetizing, licensing, expanding and defending our patent portfolio;
our expectations and strategies regarding outstanding legal proceedings and patent reexaminations relating to our intellectual property portfolio;
our expectations with respect to any strategic partnerships or other similar relationships we may pursue;
the competitive landscape of our industry;
general market, economic and political conditions;
our business strategies and objectives;
our expectations regarding our future operations and financial position, including revenues, costs and prospects, and our liquidity and capital resources, including cash flows, sufficiency of cash resources, efforts to reduce expenses and the potential for future financings;
our ability to remediate any material weakness, maintain effective internal control over financial reporting and satisfy the accelerated and enhanced disclosure obligations that will apply to us as we transition from a “smaller reporting company” to a “large accelerated filer” in 2022; and
the impact of the above factors and other future events on the market price and trading volume of our common stock.

All forward-looking statements reflect management’s present assumptions, expectations and beliefs regarding future events and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptionsother factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by any forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described under “Risk Factors” in Part II, Item 1A of this report. GivenIn light of these risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, youour forward-looking statements should not place undue reliancebe relied on as predictions of future events. Additionally, many of these forward-looking statements.  Theserisks and uncertainties are currently elevated by and may or will continue to be elevated by the COVID-19 pandemic. All forward-looking statements representreflect our estimatesassumptions, expectations and assumptionsbeliefs only as of the date they are made, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements for any reason.

Overview

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

Due to the ground-breaking product development of our engineering teams, we have built a robust portfolio of over 100 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class

29


memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since our inception in 2000, we have dedicated substantial resources to the development and protection of technology innovations essential to our business. Our early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard LRDIMM and in NVDIMM. Our objective is to continue to innovate in our field and invest further in our intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing our intellectual property through a combination of product revenues and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of our patents through enforcement actions against parties we believe are infringing them.

In November 2015, we entered into a joint development and license agreement (“JDLA”) pursuant to which we and Samsung have agreed to work together to jointly develop new storage class memory technologies including a standardized product interface for NVDIMM-P memory modules in order to facilitate broad industry adoption of this new technology. The JDLA also includes comprehensive cross-licenses to our and Samsung’s patent portfolios for the purpose of developing this product interface, grants Samsung a right of first refusal to acquire our HybriDIMM technology before we offer the technology to a third party, and grants us access to competitively priced DRAM and NAND flash raw materials. The JDLA also provided for an $8.0 million non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) fee that we received from Samsung for the joint development and calls for potential marketing collaboration and for the exchange of potential monetary consideration as progress is made towards commercialization of our storage class memory product. Moreover, we believe Samsung represents an important strategic partner with a high level of technical capability in memory that can facilitate bringing our HybriDIMM technology to market. In connection with the JDLA, we also received gross proceeds of $15.0 million for our issuance of a Senior Secured Convertible Note (“SVIC Note”) and Stock Purchase Warrant (“SVIC Warrant”) to SVIC No. 28 New Technology Business Investment L.L.P., an affiliate of Samsung Venture Investment Co. (“SVIC”). See Note 5 to the condensed consolidated financial statements and the related notes included in Part I, Item 1 of this report, for additional information about the SVIC Note and the SVIC Warrant.

Further, in September 2016, we took action to protect and defendas well as our innovations by filing legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix and two of its subsidiaries in the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC") and in U.S. district court. We filed additional legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix in the ITC and in the courts of Germany and the People’s Republic of China in July and October 2017. In both of our ITC actions, we are seeking an exclusion order in the ITC that directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix RDIMM and LRDIMM products from entering the United States. The evidentiary hearing in the ITC investigations occurred in May 2017, with a final initial determination expected to be issued by the ITC in November 2017.  In the U.S. district court and international courts proceedings, we are primarily seeking damages. Our patents involved in the proceedings cover key features of RDIMM and LRDIMM, which we believe are strategic product lines for SK hynix that together account for a significant portion of SK hynix's total revenue and profits. We have taken steps to solidify our position and strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix, including establishing a funding arrangementAnnual Report on Form 10-K for our legal costs associatedfiscal year ended January 1, 2022 (the “2021 Annual Report”) filed with these proceedingsthe Securities and adopting a rights agreementExchange Commission (the “SEC”). All information presented herein is based on our fiscal calendar, and references to implement a standard “poison pill,” which are discussed further below. See Notes 7 and 8particular years, quarters, months or periods refer to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in this report for additional information about our proceedings against SK hynix, the related funding arrangement and our poison pill implementation.

We recorded total net revenues of $9.0 million, $29.8 million, $2.6 million and $14.1 million for the three and nine months ended and September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016, respectively, and $19.7 million and $8.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, respectively, and we recorded gross profit of $725,000, $2.0 million, $9,000 and $7.1 million for the three and nine months ended and September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016, respectively, and $7.4 million and $2.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, respectively. We also incurred net losses of $3.1 million, $10.3 million, $4.4 million and $7.3 million for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016, respectively, and $11.2 million and $20.5 million for the fiscal years ended in January or December 31, 2016 and January 2, 2016, respectively.the associated quarters, months and periods of those fiscal years. Each of the terms the “Company,” “Netlist,” “we,” “us,” or “our” as used herein refers collectively to Netlist, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, unless otherwise stated.

17

Table of Contents

Overview

Netlist provides high-performance solid state drives and modular memory solutions to enterprise customers in diverse industries. Our NVMe SSDs in various capacities and form factors and the line of custom and specialty memory products bring industry-leading performance to server and storage appliance customers and cloud service providers. Netlist licenses its portfolio of intellectual property including patents, in server memory, hybrid memory and storage class memory, to companies that implement Netlist’s technology.

During the first quarter of 2022, we recorded net sales of $50.2 million, gross margin of $3.4 million and net loss of $5.9 million. We have historically financed our operations primarily throughwith proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities and revenues generatedcash receipts from operations, including product revenues and NRE revenues from the JDLA.revenues. We have also funded our operations with a revolving line of credit and term loans under a bank credit facility, a funding arrangement for costs associated with our legal proceedings against SK hynixfacility. See “Recent Developments” and to a lesser extent, equipment leasing arrangements. See “Liquidity and Capital Resources” below for furthermore information.

30


Recent Developments

2017 ATM ProgramSK hynix License Agreement and Supply Agreement

On November 13, 2017,April 5, 2021, we entered into a Strategic Product Supply and License Agreement (the “License Agreement”) and Product Purchase and Supply Agreement with SK hynix, Inc., a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”). Both agreements have a term of 5 years. Under the License Agreement, (a) we have granted to SK hynix fully paid, worldwide, non-exclusive, non-assignable licenses to certain of our patents covering memory technologies and (b) SK hynix has granted to us fully paid, worldwide, non-exclusive, non-assignable licenses to its patent portfolio. In addition, the License Agreement provided for the settlement of all intellectual property proceedings between us and SK hynix and a settlement fee of $40 million paid to us by SK hynix. In addition, the parties have agreed to collaborate on certain technology development activities.

Amendment to SVB Credit Agreement

On October 31, 2009, we entered into the SVB Credit Agreement, which provides for a revolving line of credit of up to $5.0 million. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments as set forth in the SVB Credit Agreement. On April 9, 2021, we entered into an At Market Issuance Salesamendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to accrue interest on advances at a per annum rate equal to the greater of 2.25% above the Prime Rate or 5.50% and to extend the maturity date to December 30, 2021. The amount available for borrowing may be increased to $7.0 million and the maturity date will be extended to April 29, 2022 upon our request, if we meet certain conditions.

On April 29, 2022, we entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement to accrue interest on advance at a per annum rate equal to the greater of 0.75% above the Prime Rate or 4.25%. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments, and 50% of eligible inventory. The maximum amount available for borrowing was increased to $10.0 million and the maturity date to April 28, 2023.

As of April 2, 2022, the outstanding borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement were $4.7 million with additional borrowing availability of $0.1 million. During the three months ended April 2, 2022, we made net payments of $2.3 million under the SVB Credit Agreement.

September 2021 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

On September 28, 2021, we entered into a purchase agreement (the “Sales“Second 2021 Purchase Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc. (the “Agent”)Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we have the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $75 million in shares of our common stock with aggregate gross proceeds of up to $9,000,000, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under whichover the Agent will act as sales agent.

Under the Sales Agreement, we will set the parameters for the sale of shares, including the number of shares to be issued, the time period during which sales are requested to be made, limitation on the number of shares that may be sold in any one trading day and any minimum price below which sales may not be made. The Sales Agreement provides that the Agent will be entitled to compensation for their services in an amount equal to 3%36-month term of the gross proceeds from the sale of shares sold under the Sales Agreement. We have no obligation to sell any shares under the SalesSecond 2021 Purchase Agreement and may suspend solicitation and offers under the Sales Agreement. The shares will be issued pursuant to our shelf registration statement on Form S-3 and the Prospectus Supplement to be filed on November 14, 2017 with the SEC in connection with the offer and sale of the shares pursuantsubject to the Salesconditions and limitations set forth in the Second 2021 Purchase Agreement.

2017 Offering

On August 22, 2017, we completedDuring 2021, Lincoln Park purchased an underwritten registered public offering (the “2017 Offering”), pursuant to which we sold 8,500,000aggregate of 1,550,000 shares of our common stock atfor a net purchase price toof $10.9 million under the public of $0.60 per share.  The net proceeds to us from the 2017 Offering were $4.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by us.

Establishment of Funding Arrangement and Rights Agreement in connection with SK hynix Proceedings

Second 2021 Purchase Agreement. In April and May of 2017, we established a funding arrangement and a rights agreement in connection with our strategy for our proceedings against SK hynix, each of which is described below.

TRGP Agreement

On May 3, 2017, we entered into an investment agreement (the “TRGP Agreement”) with TR Global Funding V, LLC, an affiliate of TRGP Capital Management, LLC (“TRGP”), which generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with certain of our proceedings against SK hynix, including costs incurred since January 1, 2017 and costs to be incurred in the future in our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings, but excluding our subsequent ITC action and our proceedings in international courts. In exchange for such funding, we have agreed that, if we recover any proceeds in connection with the funded SK hynix proceedings,purchases, we will payissued to TRGP

18

Table of Contents

Lincoln Park an aggregate of 20,809 shares of our common stock as additional commitment shares in noncash transactions. During the amountfirst quarter of its funding plus2022, Lincoln Park purchased an escalating premium based on when any such proceeds are recovered, such that the premium will equalaggregate of 300,000 shares of our common stock for a specified low-to-mid double-digit percentagenet purchase price of the amount of TRGP’s funding and such percentage will increase by a specified low double-digit amount each quarter after a specified date until any such proceeds are recovered. In addition, we have granted to TRGP a first priority security interest in the claims underlying the funded SK hynix proceedings and any proceeds we may receive in connection with these proceedings, and a second priority security interest in our patents that are the subject of these proceedings. We have established this funding arrangement in order to provide us with increased security that we will be able to vigorously pursue our claims against SK hynix through their final resolution.

Rights Agreement

On April 17, 2017, we adopted a short-term rights agreement to implement a standard “poison pill.” In general terms, for so long as the rights issued$1.8 million under the rights agreement are outstanding, which is expected to be no longer than 12 months, the rights agreement prevents any person or group from acquiring a significant percentage of our outstanding capital stock or attempting a hostile takeover of our Company by significantly diluting the ownership percentage of such person or group. As a result, the rights agreement has a significant anti-takeover effect. Our board of directors approved the rights agreement as part of our strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix, with the intent of

31


disconnecting our market capitalization from the damages calculations and any settlement negotiations that may develop in connection with these proceedings.

Amendments to SVB Credit Agreement

On March 27, 2017 and April 12, 2017, we entered into amendments to our credit agreement (as amended, the “SVB Credit Agreement”) with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”). The amendments extend the maturity date of advances under the SVB Credit Agreement to April 1, 2018; modify our financial covenants under the SVB Credit Agreement to remove all prior financial standards and replace them with a liquidity ratio standard; remove or amend certain termination, anniversary and unused facility fees payable by us under the SVB Credit Agreement; and make certain other administrative changes.

Key Business Metrics

The following describes certain line items in our condensed consolidated statements of operations that are important to management’s assessment of our financial performance:

Net Product Revenues

Net product revenues consist of resales of certain component products, including NAND flash, and sales of our high-performance memory subsystems, net of a provision for estimated returns under our right of return policies, which generally range up to 30 days. Sales are made primarily pursuant to stand-alone purchase orders, which generally have no cancellation or rescheduling penalty provisions. We often ship products to our customers’ international manufacturing sites, but all of our sales to date have been denominated in U.S. dollars.

Sales to small numbers of customers have historically represented a substantial portion of our net product revenues. Additionally, the composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net product revenues have fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate from period to period as our existing and prospective customers progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell and experience resulting fluctuations in their product demand. For instance, approximately 13% and 10% of our net product revenues in the three months ended September 30, 2017 were to two customers, each of which represented less than 10% of our net product revenues in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and in all periods in 2016. Additionally, in the three and nine months ended October 1, 2016, approximately 17% and 17%, and 29% and 10% of our net product revenues in the respective periods were to two customers, neither of which purchased many products or contributed a meaningful portion of our revenues in the corresponding 2017 periods. We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers. As a result, our product revenues can be materially impacted by fluctuating customer concentrations, as any or all of our customers could decide at any time to increase or decrease their purchase of our products or the component products we resell directly.Second 2021 Purchase Agreement. In addition, the prices customers pay for products could change at any time. As a result, the loss of any of our customers, particularly our large or key customers, an increase or decrease in sales to or sale prices for any of them, including as a result of normal fluctuations in product demand or other factors, or difficulties collecting payments from any of them could materially impact our product revenues and operating results.

The component products we resell include products we purchase from Samsung and certain alternative suppliers for the purpose of resale, and excess component inventory we purchase for, but do not use in, our memory subsystems. We purchase certain products, including primarily NAND flash, from Samsung under the terms of our JDLA with Samsung in order to resell these products to end-customers that are not reached in Samsung’s distribution model, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. We have also sourced these products from alternative suppliers to the extent sufficient product is not available from Samsung to meet customer demand. In the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016, resales of these products represented 75%, 86%, 53% and 51%, respectively, of our net product revenues, respectively, and we expect resales of these products may continue to increase over time. We also resell excess component inventory to distributors and other users of memory integrated circuits, but these sales have historically been, and we expect will continue to be, a relatively small percentage of our net product revenues.

32


With respect to sales of our memory subsystems, our original equipment manufacturer (“OEM”) customers typically provide us with non-binding forecasts of future product demand over specific periods of time, but they generally place orders with us no more than two weeks in advance of the desired delivery date. Selling prices are typically negotiated monthly, based on competitive market conditions and the current price of key product components, including DRAM ICs and NAND flash. Sales of our memory subsystem products have declined in recent periods due in large part to the rapid decline in sales of our first-generation NVvault products following the loss of our former most significant NVvault customer, Dell, beginning in 2012, and the rate and degree of customer adoption of our next generation NVvault product extensions, which has been slower and smaller than expected to date. We expect these declines could continue in future periods unless and until our next-generation products gain significantly greater customer and market acceptance.

Engineering Services

Pursuant to the terms of our JDLA with Samsung, we provided certain engineering services for Samsung and received a NRE fee as compensation for these services.  These fees from Samsung are the only such fees for engineering services that we have received to date, although we may in the future receive additional fees of this type, from Samsung or other customers, depending on the terms of the relationships we may develop.

Cost of Sales

Our cost of sales includes the cost of materials, labor and other manufacturing costs, depreciation and amortization of equipment expenses, inventory valuation provisions, stock-based compensation expenses, occupancy costs and other allocated fixed costs.

For resales of component products, our cost of sales also includes the cost of the products we purchase for resale from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA or from alternative suppliers on the terms we negotiate with these suppliers. As a result, our gross margin on the resale of component products, including Samsung products and excess component inventory, is significantly lower than our gross margin on sales of our own products. Accordingly, increased resales of component products as a percentage of our total product revenues have a significant negative impact on our gross margin. In addition, to the extent we are not able to procure sufficient component products for resale from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA to satisfy customer orders for these products, we would need to seek to procure these products from alternative suppliers, which may not be available on terms comparable to those we have negotiated with Samsung under the JDLA. As a result, any inability to source sufficient component products from Samsung could increase our cost of sales associated with resales of these products if we are forced to pay higher prices to obtain these products from other suppliers.

With respect to sales of our memory subsystem products, the DRAM ICs and NAND flash incorporated into these products constitute a significant portion of our cost of sales for the products, and thus our cost of sales will fluctuate based on the cost of DRAM ICs and NAND flash. We attempt to pass through these DRAM IC and NAND flash cost fluctuations to our memory subsystem customers by frequently renegotiating pricing prior to the placement of their purchase orders. However, the sales prices of our memory subsystems can also fluctuate due to competitive conditions in our key customer markets that are unrelated to the cost of DRAM ICs and NAND flash, which affects our gross margin. In addition, we have in the past experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of DRAM and NAND flash required to create our HyperCloud, NVvault and Planar X VLP products, which can cause fluctuations in our net product revenues and gross profits associated with memory subsystem sales.

Any significant decrease in demand for our products or the component products we resell could result in an increase in the amount of excess inventory quantities on hand. In addition, our estimates of future product demand may prove to be inaccurate, in which case we may understate or overstate the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. In the future, if our inventories are determined to be overvalued, we would be required to recognize additional expense in our cost of sales at the time of such determination. Conversely, if our inventories are determined to be undervalued, we may have over-reported our costs of sales in previous periods and would be required to recognize additional gross profit at the time such inventories are sold. In addition, should the market value of DRAM ICs, NAND flash or other component products decrease, we may be required to lower the selling prices of our memory subsystems or

33


component product resales to reflect the lower cost of these materials. If such price decreases reduce the net realizable value of our inventories to less than our cost, we would be required to recognize additional expense in our cost of sales in the same period. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy of our forecasts of future product demand, any significant unanticipated changes in demand, technological developments or the market value of DRAM ICs, NAND flash or other component products could have a material effect on the value of our inventories and our reported operating results.

Research and Development

Research and development expenses consist primarily of employee and independent contractor compensation and related costs, stock‑based compensation expenses, NRE fees, computer‑aided design software license costs, reference design development costs, depreciation or rental of evaluation equipment expenses, and occupancy and other allocated overhead costs. Also included in research and development expenses are the costs of materials and overhead related to the production of engineering samples of new products under development or products used solely in the research and development process. Our customers typically do not separately compensate us for design and engineering work involved in developing application‑specific products for them. All research and development costs are expensed as incurred. We anticipate that research and development expenditures will increase in future periods as we seek to expand new product opportunities, increase our activities related to new and emerging markets and continue to develop additional proprietary technologies.

Intellectual Property Legal Fees

Intellectual property legal fees consist of legal fees incurred for patent filings, protection and enforcement. Although we anticipate that intellectual property legal fees will generally increase over time as we continue to protect and seek to expand our patent portfolio, we expect that our intellectual property legal fees may decrease or increase at a slower rate in the near term due to the impact of the TRGP Agreement on our expense related to certain of our proceedings against SK hynix. The legal expenses we incur that are paid by TRGP pursuant to the terms of the TRGP Agreement are excluded from our financial statements in each period in which the TRGP Agreement remains in effect. In the nine months ended September 30, 2017, we excluded legal expenses of $9.3 million as a result of TRGP’s payment of these expenses under the TRGP Agreement. Pursuant to the TRGP Agreement, any settlement or other cash proceeds we may recover in the future in connection with the funded SK hynix proceedings would be reduced by thepurchases, we issued to Lincoln Park an aggregate amount of legal expenses we exclude as a result of TRGP’s payment of these expenses under the TRGP Agreement, plus the premium amount due to TRGP under the terms of the TRGP Agreement at the time of any such recovery. As a result, we expect our intellectual property legal fees would be significantly higher in the period in which any such recovery occurs.

Selling, General and Administrative

Selling, general and administrative expenses primarily consist of employee compensation and related costs, stock-based compensation expenses, independent sales representative commissions, professional service fees, promotional and other selling and marketing expenses, and occupancy and other allocated overhead costs. A significant portion3,387 shares of our selling effort is directed at building relationships with OEMscommon stock as additional commitment shares in noncash transactions

Economic Conditions, Challenges and other customers and working through the product approval and qualification process with them. Therefore, the cost of material and overhead related to products manufactured for qualification is included in selling expenses.Risks

Provision for Income Taxes

The federal statutory tax rate was 34% for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016. Our effective tax rate differs from the statutory rate because we provide a full valuation allowance against net deferred tax assets, and accordingly we did not recognize an income tax benefit related to losses incurred for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016.

34


Factors Affecting Our Performance and Business Risks and Uncertainties

Our performance, financial condition and prospects are affected by a number of factors and are exposed to a number of risks and uncertainties. SeeWe operate in a competitive and rapidly evolving industry in which new risks emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of the discussionrisks we may face, nor can we assess the impact of certain majorall factors affectingon our performance inbusiness or the MD&A included inextent to which any factor or combination of factors could cause actual results to differ from our 2016 Annual Report, and seeexpectations. See the discussion of certain risks that we face under “Risk Factors” in Part II, Item 1A of this report.

Critical Accounting Policies and UseImpact of EstimatesCOVID-19 on our Business

The preparation of our condensed consolidated financial statements included in this report in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the dateimpact of the condensed consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of net revenues and expenses during the reporting period. By their nature, these estimates and assumptions are subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty. We base our estimates on our historical experience, knowledge of current conditions and belief of what could occur in the future considering available information. We review our estimates on an on-going basis. Actual results may differ from these estimates, which may result in material adverse effectscoronavirus disease (“COVID-19”) pandemic will have on our consolidated operating results of operations is uncertain. Although we initially observed demand increases in our products, we anticipate that the global health crisis caused by COVID-19 may negatively impact business activity across the globe. We will continue to actively monitor the situation and financial position. We believe the following critical accounting policies involvemay take further actions altering our more significant assumptions and estimates usedbusiness operations that we determine are in the preparationbest interests of our condensedemployees, customers, suppliers, and stakeholders, or as required by federal, state, or local authorities. It is not clear what the potential effects of such alterations or modifications may have on our business, consolidated results of operations, financial statements includedcondition, and liquidity.

Results of Operations

Net Sales and Gross Margin

Net sales and gross margin for the three months ended April 2, 2022, and April 3, 2021 were as follows (dollars in this report: provisions for uncollectible receivablesthousands):

    

Three Months Ended

    

    

 

April 2,

April 3,

%

    

2022

    

2021

    

Change

Net sales

$

50,200

$

14,897

237%

Cost of sales

 

46,837

 

13,396

250%

Gross profit

$

3,363

$

1,501

124%

Gross margin

 

7

%

10

%

Net Sales

Net sales include resales of component products including DIMMs, SSDs, and dynamic random access memory (“DRAM ICS” OR DRAM) products, and sales returns; warranty liabilities; valuation of inventories; fair valueour high-performance memory subsystems.

Net product sales increased by approximately $35.3 million during the first quarter of financial instruments; recoverability2022 compared to the same quarter of long-lived assets; valuation2021, primarily as a result of stock-based transactions; estimatesa $35.2 million increase in re-sale of SK Hynix products and a $1.1 million increase in sale of Netlist’s flash and SSD products, offset by a $1.0 million decrease in sales of low profile memory subsystem products.

19

Table of Contents

Gross Margin

Product gross profit increased during the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same periods of 2021 due primarily to higher sales across all product groups. Product gross margin percentage decreased between the periods as a result of the change in our product mix and increased component product resales as a percentage of revenue.

Operating Expenses

Operating expenses for completionthe three months ended April 2, 2022, and April 3, 2021, were as follows (dollars in thousands):

Three Months Ended

    

    

 

April 2,

April 3,

%

    

2022

    

2021

    

Change

Research and development

$

2,457

 

$

1,124

119

%  

Percentage of net sales

 

5

%  

8

%  

  

Intellectual property legal fees

$

2,826

 

$

2,287

24

%  

Percentage of net sales

 

6

%  

15

%  

  

Selling, general and administrative

$

3,938

 

$

1,957

101

%  

Percentage of net sales

 

8

%  

13

%  

  

Research and Development

Research and development expenses increased during the first quarter 2022 compared to the same period of NRE2021 due primarily to an increase in employee headcount, related overhead and other revenue milestones;new product research.

Intellectual Property Legal Fees

Intellectual property legal fees consist of legal fees incurred for patent filings, protection and realizationenforcement. Although we expect intellectual property legal fees to generally increase over time as we continue to protect, defend and enforce and seek to expand our patent portfolio, these increases may not be linear but may occur in lump sums depending on the due dates of deferred tax assets.

Our critical accounting policiespatent filings and estimatestheir associated fees and the arrangements we may make with our legal advisors in connection with enforcement proceedings, which may include fee arrangements or contingent fee arrangements in which we would pay these legal advisors on a scaled percentage of any negotiated fees, settlements or judgments awarded to us based on if, how and when the fees, settlements or judgments are discussed inobtained. See Note 27 to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this report andfor further discussion.

Intellectual property legal fees increased during the MD&A included in our 2016 Annual Report. Forfirst quarter 2022 compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2017, there were no material changessame period of 2021 primarily due to our criticalcontinued efforts to defend and enforce our patent portfolio.

Selling, General and Administrative

Selling, general and administrative expenses increased during the first quarter of 2022 compared to the same period of 2021 due primarily to an increase in employee headcount and overhead and outside services. As a result of the significant increase in the value of our non-affiliate public float in recent periods, we are a “large accelerated filer” as of the end of fiscal year ended January 2, 2022 which means that we need to file our quarterly and annual reports on an accelerated basis and that we are required to have our independent registered public accounting policies.firm audit and attest to our internal control over financial reporting. Complying with these requirements requires us to invest a material amount in enhancing our financial reporting infrastructure that will cause our selling, general and administrative expenses to increase in future periods.

3520


Other Expense, Net

Results of Operations

The following table presents each line item of our condensed consolidated statement of operations as a percentage of totalOther expense, net revenues for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 compared to three and nine months ended October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

    

September 30,

    

October 1,

 

September 30,

    

October 1,

 

 

 

2017

 

2016

 

2017

 

2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Net product revenues

 

100

%  

100

%  

100

%  

51

%

NRE revenues

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

49

 

Total net revenues

 

100

 

100

 

100

 

100

 

Cost of sales

 

92

 

100

 

93

 

50

 

Gross profit

 

 8

 

 -

 

 7

 

50

 

Operating expenses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research and development

 

13

 

57

 

14

 

35

 

Intellectual property legal fees

 

 8

 

16

 

 7

 

16

 

Selling, general and administrative

 

20

 

93

 

19

 

48

 

Total operating expenses

 

41

 

165

 

40

 

99

 

Operating loss

 

(33)

 

(165)

 

(33)

 

(49)

 

Other expense, net:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interest expense, net

 

(1)

 

(6)

 

(1)

 

(3)

 

Other income, net

 

 -

 

 1

 

-

 

-

 

Total other expense, net

 

(1)

 

(5)

 

(1)

 

(3)

 

Loss before provision for income taxes

 

(34)

 

(170)

 

(34)

 

(52)

 

Provision for income taxes

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

-

 

Net loss

 

(34)

%  

(170)

%  

(34)

%  

(52)

%

Net Product Revenues, NRE Revenues, Cost of Sales and Gross Profit

The following tables present net product revenues, NRE revenues, cost of sales and gross profit for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Net product revenues

 

$

9,010

 

$

2,589

 

$

6,421

 

248

%

NRE revenues

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

 

 -

 

 -

%

Total net revenues

 

 

9,010

 

 

2,589

 

 

6,421

 

248

%

Cost of sales

 

 

8,285

 

 

2,580

 

 

5,705

 

221

%

Gross profit

 

$

725

 

$

 9

 

$

716

 

7,956

%

Gross margin

 

 

8.0%

 

 

0.3%

 

 

7.7

%  

 

 

36


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Net product revenues

 

$

29,840

 

$

7,260

 

$

22,580

 

311

%

NRE revenues

 

 

 -

 

 

6,857

 

 

(6,857)

 

(100)

%

Total net revenues

 

 

29,840

 

 

14,117

 

 

15,723

 

111

%

Cost of sales

 

 

27,791

 

 

6,996

 

 

20,795

 

297

%

Gross profit

 

$

2,049

 

$

7,121

 

$

(5,072)

 

(71)

%

Gross margin

 

 

6.9%

 

 

50.4%

 

 

(43.6)

%  

 

 

Net Product Revenues

The increase in our net product revenues for the three months ended September 30, 2017April 2, 2022, and April 3, 2021 was as compared to the three months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from increases of $1.3 millionfollows (dollars in sales of NAND flash, primarily sourced from Samsung, and $4.4 million in sales of other small outline dual in-line memory module (“SODIMM”) and RDIMM products and $0.7 million of other very low profile (VLP) product sales. The increase in our net product revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared with the nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from increases of $12.7 million in sales of NAND flash, also primarily sourced from Samsung, $9.2 million of other SODIMM and RDIMM sales, $0.6 million in other VLP product sales and $0.1 million of sales of our EV3 product.thousands):

    

Three Months Ended

    

    

 

April 2,

April 3,

%

    

2022

    

2021

    

Change

Interest expense, net

$

(11)

 

$

(147)

 

  

Other expense, net

 

(2)

 

(2)

 

  

Total other expense, net

$

(13)

$

(149)

 

91

%

NRE Revenues

The decrease in NRE revenues for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three and nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted from the recognition of revenues from the NRE fee for engineering services performed under our JDLA with Samsung in the 2016 period due to our completion of the engineering services required under the initial phase of the agreement in 2016.

Cost of Sales, Gross Profit and Gross Margin

The increase in our cost of sales for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three and nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from increased costs associated with our increased net product revenues across all periods.  The increase in our gross margin for the three months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily because of a change in our product mix and more efficient utilization of our overhead costs. The decrease in our gross margin in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the nine months ended October 2, 2016 resulted primarily from the decrease of NRE revenues from the JDLA, partially offset by increased product revenue margins.  

Research and Development

The following tables present research and development expenses for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 2, 2016:

 

 

 

��

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Research and development

 

$

1,159

 

$

1,463

 

$

(304)

 

(21)

%

37


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Research and development

 

$

4,142

 

$

4,940

 

$

(798)

 

(16)

%

The decrease in research and development expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from decreases of (i) $0.2 million in headcount, overhead and travel expenses and (ii) $0.1 million in product research expenses. 

The decrease in research and development expenses in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from decreases of (i) $0.5 million in headcount, overhead and travel expenses (ii) $0.2 million in product research expenses and (iii) $0.1 million in professional and outside service fees.

Intellectual Property Legal Fees

The following tables present intellectual property legal fees for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Intellectual property legal fees

 

$

749

 

$

409

 

$

340

 

83

%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Intellectual property legal fees

 

$

2,129

 

$

2,255

 

$

(126)

 

(6)

%

The increase in intellectual property legal fees for the three months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from an increase in legal expenses incurred to defend our patent portfolio internationally. The decrease in intellectual property legal fees for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from a decrease in legal fees incurred for certain trade secret litigation and our establishment of the TRGP Agreement to finance the legal fees and costs incurred in the 2017 period in connection with certain of our legal proceedings against SK hynix.

Selling, General and Administrative

The following tables present selling, general and administrative expenses for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Selling, general and administrative

 

$

1,780

 

$

2,398

 

$

(618)

 

(26)

%

38


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

 

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Selling, general and administrative

 

$

5,645

 

$

6,822

 

$

(1,177)

 

(17)

%

The decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses for the three months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the three months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from decreases of (i) $0.4 million in sales and marketing headcount costs and related overhead and travel expenses and (ii) $0.3 million in fees for outside services, partially offset by a $0.1 million increase in bank fees related to the SVB Credit Agreement.

The decrease in selling, general and administrative expenses for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 as compared to the nine months ended October 1, 2016 resulted primarily from decreases of (i) $1.0 million in sales and marketing headcount costs and related overhead and travel expenses, (ii) $0.1 million in advertising and product evaluation costs, and (iii) $0.1 million in fees for outside services, partially offset by a $0.1 million increase in bank fees related to the SVB Credit Agreement.

Other Expense, Net

The following tables present other expense, net for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Interest expense, net

 

$

(135)

 

$

(159)

 

$

24

 

15

%

Other income, net

 

 

 -

 

 

19

 

 

(19)

 

100

%

Total other expense, net

 

$

(135)

 

$

(140)

 

$

 5

 

 4

%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

 

 

 

%

 

 

    

2017

    

2016

    

Change

    

Change

 

 

 

(in thousands, except percentages)

Interest expense, net

 

$

(421)

 

$

(428)

 

$

 7

 

 2

%

Other income, net

 

 

 2

 

 

17

 

 

(15)

 

88

%

Total other expense, net

 

$

(419)

 

$

(411)

 

$

(8)

 

(2)

%

Interest expense, net, for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and 2016in 2021 consisted primarily of interest payments under the SVIC Note and the SVB Credit Agreement, and the decrease between periods resulted primarily from lower amortization expense on the SVIC note and a reduction of interest expense on the SVB Credit Agreement, due$15 million secured convertible note issued to lower unused credit line fees.

Other income, net, for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016 consisted primarily of the settlement of an insurance claimSVIC in 2016 related to our facility in the PRC. 

Provision for Income Taxes

Our provision for income taxes was immaterial in all periods presented

39


The federal statutory rate was 34% for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016.  In all periods presented, we continued to provide a full valuation allowance against our net deferred tax assets, which consist primarily of net operating loss carryforwards.  In these periods, our effective tax rate differed from the statutory rate primarily due to the valuation allowance on newly generated loss carryforwards.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

Liquidity generally refers to the ability to generate adequate amounts of cash to meet our cash needs. We require cash to fund our operating expenses and working capital requirements, to make required payments of principal and interest under our outstanding debt instruments and, to a lesser extent, to fund capital expenditures.

Working Capital

The following table presents working capital and cash and cash equivalents as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 30,

 

December 31,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

Current assets(1)

 

$

20,152

 

$

19,253

Current liabilities

 

 

11,315

 

 

6,210

Working capital(1)

 

$

8,837

 

$

13,043


(1)

Includes cash and cash equivalents of $8,583 and $9,476 as of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively.

Our working capital decreased by $4.2 million during the nine months ended September 30, 2017. Our current assetsincreased by $0.9 million primarily from a $1.2 million increase in inventory costs to support the increase in our net product revenuesNovember 2015 and a $1.3 million increase in accounts receivable primarily related to increased product revenues, partially offset by a $0.9 million decrease in cash and cash equivalents attributable to our userevolving line of cash to fund our operations and by the net proceeds received from the 2017 Offering and a $0.7 million decrease in restricted cash that collateralized a standby letter of credit with one vendor.  Our current liabilities increased by $5.1 million primarily from a $3.7 million increase in accounts payable to purchase inventory and from legal expenses to defend our intellectual property and a $1.9 million increase in our borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement, to fund our operations, partially offset by a $0.4 million decrease in accrued payroll and related liabilities.

Cash Flows

The following table summarizes our cash flows foralong with the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nine Months Ended

 

 

September 30,

 

October 1,

 

    

2017

    

2016

 

 

(in thousands)

Net cash provided by (used in):

 

 

 

 

 

 

Operating activities

 

$

(6,974)

 

$

(14,244)

Investing activities

 

 

(78)

 

 

(317)

Financing activities

 

 

6,159

 

 

10,271

Net change in cash and cash equivalents

 

$

(893)

 

$

(4,290)

40


Operating Activities

Net cash used in operating activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was primarily the result of a net loss of $10.3 million, partially offset by (i) $1.5 million of net non-cash operating expenses, which primarily consisted of stock-based compensation, interest accrued on convertible debt depreciation and amortizationdiscounts and amortization of debt discounts, and (ii) $1.8 millionissuance costs on the SVIC Note. The SVIC note was paid off in the fourth quarter of net cash provided by operating activities due to changes2021 resulting in operating assets and liabilities, which were primarily from a $3.7 million increase in accounts payable and $0.7 million increase in restricted cash, partially offset by a $1.2 million increase in inventories and a $0.4 million decrease in accrued payroll and related liabilities. The increase in accounts payable between periods was primarily due to increased purchases of inventory. The increase in restricted cash between periods was primarily due to increasing our standby letter of credit with one vendor which is secured by restricted cash. The increase in inventories between periods was primarily due to our purchase of additional inventory to support the increase in our net product revenues. The decrease in accrued payroll and related liabilities between periods was primarily due to a reduction in headcount.

Net cash used in operating activitiesinterest expense for the nine months ended October 1, 2016first quarter of 2022. During the first quarter of 2022, other expense was primarilyconsistent compared with the resultsame quarter of a net loss of approximately $7.3 million2021.

Liquidity and approximately $8.4 million in net cash used in operating activities during the period due to changes in operating assets and liabilities, which were primarily from changes in deferred revenue, inventories, accounts payable and accrued expenses, restricted cash and accounts receivable, partially offset by approximately $1.5 million in net non-cash operating expenses primarily consisting of stock-based compensation, depreciation and amortization and amortization of debt discounts. 

Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and October 1, 2016 was the result of our purchases of property and equipment during the periods.

Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended September 30, 2017 was primarily the result of (i) $1.9 million in net borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement (ii) $4.4 million in net proceeds from the 2017 Offering and (iii) $0.2 million in proceeds from the exercise of stock options, partially offset by $0.3 million in payments of outstanding debt.  Net cash provided by financing activities for the nine months ended October 1, 2016 was primarily the result of the 2016 Offering, as defined and discussed under “Capital Resources” below, pursuant to which we raised net proceeds of approximately $10.3 million.

Capital Resources

Our primary sources of cash haveare historically consisted of proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities and revenues generatedreceipts from operations,revenues. In addition, we have received proceeds from non-recurring engineering and licensing of our patent portfolio, including product revenues and NRE revenues fromas a result of our JDLA with Samsung.entry into the SK hynix License Agreement, which we use to support our operations. We have also funded our operations with a revolving line of credit and term loans under a bank credit facility, a funding arrangement for costs associated with our legal proceedings against SK hynix and to a lesser extent, equipment leasing arrangements.

2017 ATM ProgramThe following tables present selected financial information as of April 2, 2022, and January 1, 2022 and for the first three months of 2022 and 2021 (in thousands):

April 2,

January 1,

    

2022

    

2022

Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash

$

58,330

$

58,479

Convertible promissory note and accrued interest, net

376

562

Working capital

48,652

52,613

Three Months Ended

April 2,

April 3,

    

2022

    

2021

Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities

$

1,217

$

(4,291)

Net cash used in investing activities

(221)

(41)

Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities

(1,145)

14,322

In November 2017,During the three months ended April 2, 2022, net cash provided by operating activities was primarily a result of net loss of $5.9 million, non-cash adjustments to net loss of $0.9 million, and net cash inflows from changes in operating assets and liabilities of $6.2 million driven predominantly by an increase in accounts payable due to higher inventory purchases to support increase in sales and higher legal fees to defend our patent portfolio, and a decrease in accounts receivable. Net cash used in financing activities during the three months ended April 2, 2022 primarily consisted of $1.8 million in net proceeds from issuance of common stock under the Second 2021 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreements, $0.1 million in proceeds from exercise of stock options, offset by $2.3 million in net repayments under the SVB Credit Agreement and $0.6 million in payments for taxes related to net share settlement of equity awards.

During the three months ended April 3, 2021, net cash used in operating activities was primarily a result of net loss of $4.0 million and non-cash adjustments to net loss of $0.6 million, offset by net cash outflows from changes in operating assets and liabilities of $0.9 million driven predominantly by an increase in inventories due to higher purchases

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to support increased sales, partially offset by an increase in accounts payable. Net cash provided by financing activities during the three months ended April 3, 2021 primarily consisted of $9.4 million in net proceeds from issuance of common stock under the Lincoln Park Purchase Agreements, $4.0 million in proceeds from exercise of warrants, $0.4 million in proceeds from exercise of stock options and $1.0 million in net borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement, partially offset by $0.3 million in payments of taxes related to net share settlement of equity awards.

Capital Resources

September 2021 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement

On September 28, 2021, we entered into an At The Market Salesthe September 2021 Purchase Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc.,Lincoln Park, pursuant to which we can offer andhave the right to sell our common stock, from time to time,Lincoln Park up to an aggregate sales proceeds of $9 million. The Sales Agreement is more fully described$75.0 million in part II – Item 5 – Other Information.

2017 Offering

On August 22, 2017, we completed the 2017 Offering for net proceeds to us of $4.4 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by us.

41


TRGP Agreement

On May 3, 2017, we entered into the TRGP Agreement, which generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with certain of our legal proceedings against SK hynix, including costs incurred since January 1, 2017 and costs to be incurred in the future in our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings, but excluding our subsequent ITC action and our proceedings in international courts. In the nine months ended September 30, 2017, TRGP directly paid $9.3 million of legal expenses we incurred in connection with the SK hynix proceedings.

2016 Offering

On September 23, 2016, we completed an underwritten registered public offering (the “2016 Offering”), pursuant to which we sold 9,200,000 shares of our common stock at a priceover the 36-month term of the September 2021 Purchase Agreement subject to the publicconditions and limitations set forth in the Second 2021 Purchase Agreement. As of $1.25 per share.  The net proceeds to us fromApril 2, 2022, $62.4 million remains available under the 2016 Offering were $10.3 million, after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses paid by us.September 2021 Purchase Agreement with Lincoln Park.

SVB Credit Agreement

On October 31, 2009, we entered into the SVB Credit Agreement, which provides that we may borrowfor a revolving line of credit of up to the lesser of (i) 80%$5.0 million. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, or (ii) $5.0 million, subject to certain adjustments as set forth in the SVB Credit Agreement. The SVB Credit Agreement expiresOn April 1, 2018.

We made net borrowings of $1.9 million under9, 2021, we entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement into accrue interest on advances at a per annum rate equal to the nine months ended Septembergreater of 2.25% above the Prime Rate or 5.50% and to extend the maturity date to December 30, 2017,2021. The amount available for borrowing may be increased to $7.0 million and the maturity date will be extended to April 29, 2022 upon our request, if we made no borrowings undermeet certain conditions.

On April 29, 2022, we entered into an amendment to the SVB Credit Agreement into accrue interest on advance at a per annum rate equal to the nine months ended October 1, 2016. greater of 0.75% above the Prime Rate or 4.25%. The borrowing base is limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments, and 50% of eligible inventory. The maximum amount available for borrowing was increased to $10.0 million and the maturity date to April 28, 2023.

As of September 30, 2017, we hadApril 2, 2022, the outstanding borrowings under the SVB Credit Agreement of $2.6 million. As of September 30, 2017 and December 31, 2016, we hadwere $4.7 million with additional borrowing availability of $0.1 million. During the three months ended April 2, 2022, we made net payments of $2.3 million under the SVB Credit Agreement of $0.1 million and $0.8 million, respectively.Agreement.

SVIC Note and SVIC Warrant

On November 18, 2015, we issued to SVIC the SVIC Note and the SVIC Warrant. The SVIC Note has an original principal amount of $15.0 million, accrues interest at a rate of 2.0% per year, is due and payable in full on December 31, 2021, and is convertible into shares of our common stock at a conversion price of $1.25 per share, subject to certain adjustments, on the maturity date of the SVIC Note. The SVIC Warrant grants SVIC a right to purchase up to 2,000,000 shares of our common stock at an exercise price of $0.30 per share, subject to certain adjustments, is only exercisable in the event we exercise our right to redeem the SVIC Note prior to its maturity date, and expires on December 31, 2025.  Proceeds from the SVIC Note were used to repay a former loan from a different lender.

Equipment Leasing Arrangements

We have in the past utilized equipment leasing arrangements to finance certain capital expenditures. Although equipment leases did not contribute material cash during the periods covered by this report, they continue to be a financing alternative that we may pursue in the future.

Sufficiency of Cash Balances and Potential Sources of Additional Capital

We believe our existing balance of cash balance,and cash equivalents together with cash provided by our operations andreceipts from revenues, borrowing availability under the SVB Credit Agreement, the equity financing available under September 2021 Lincoln Park Purchase Agreement, funds raised through other future debt and equity offerings and taking into account cash expected to be used in our operations, and the funding to be received under the TRGP Agreement, will be sufficient to meet our anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months.  Our capital requirements will depend on many factors, including, among others: the acceptance of, and demand for, our products and the component products we resell to customers directly; our levels of net product revenues and any other revenues we may receive, including NRE, license, royalty or other fees; the extent and timing of any investments in developing, marketing and launching new or enhanced products or technologies; the costs of developing, improving and maintaining our internal design, testing and manufacturing processes; the costs associated with defending and enforcing

42


our intellectual property rights; and the nature and timing of acquisitions and other strategic transactions in which we participate, if any.

Although we expect to be able to rely in the near term on our existing cash balance, cash provided by our operations, payments under the TRGP Agreement and borrowing availability under the SVB Credit Agreement, our estimates of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we anticipate. Further, some or all of our ongoing or planned investments may not be successful and could result in further losses. Until we can generate sufficient revenues to finance our cash requirements from our operations, which we may never do, we may need to increase our liquidity and capital resources by one or more measures, which may include, among others, reducing operating expenses, restructuring our balance sheet by negotiating with creditors and vendors, entering into strategic partnerships or alliances, raising additional financing through the issuance of debt, equity or convertible securities or pursuing alternative sources of capital, such as through asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements. Further, even if our near-term liquidity expectations prove correct, we may still seek to raise capital through one or more of these financing alternatives. However, we may not be able to obtain capital when needed or desired, on terms acceptable to us or at all.

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

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

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

Critical Accounting Policies and Use of Estimates

The preparation of our condensed consolidated financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosures of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the condensed consolidated financial statements, and the reported amounts of net sales and expenses during the reporting period. By their nature, these estimates and assumptions are

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subject to an inherent degree of uncertainty. We base our estimates and assumptions on our historical experience, knowledge of current conditions and our beliefs of what could occur in the future considering available information. We review our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Actual results may differ from our estimates, which may result in material adverse effects on our consolidated operating results and financial position.

Our critical accounting policies and estimates are discussed in Note 2 to the condensed consolidated financial statements in this report and in the notes to consolidated financial statements in Part II, Item 8 of our 2021 Annual Report and in the MD&A in our 2021 Annual Report. There have been no significant changes to our critical accounting policies since our 2021 Annual Report.

Item 3. 

Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk

Item 3. QuantitativeForeign Currency Exchange Risk

All of our sales and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Riskthe majority of our expenses are denominated in U.S. dollars. Since we operate in China, a percentage of our operational expenses are denominated in RMB and exchange volatility could positively or negatively impact those operating costs. Additionally, we may hold certain assets and liabilities in local currency on our consolidated balance sheet. As the operational expenses in RMB is immaterial, we do not believe that foreign exchange volatility has a material impact on our current business or results of operations.

Not applicable.

Item 4. 

Controls and Procedures

Item 4. Controls and Procedures

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, of the effectiveness of ourWe maintain disclosure controls and procedures (as definedthat are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in Rule 13a-15(e)reports we file or submit under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”)) as of the end of the period covered by this report.  Based upon this evaluation, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of September 30, 2017. Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act (i) is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the

43


time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”)and (ii) is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.

Our management conducted an evaluation, with the participation of our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) promulgated under the Exchange Act) as of the end of the period covered by this report. Based on this evaluation, due to the elimination of our audit committee in August 2020 and ineffective design and maintenance of controls over user access and program change management related to certain information technology (IT) systems that support the Company’s financial reporting processes, our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of April 2, 2022.

Notwithstanding the material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting, we have concluded that the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements included in this Form 10-Q fairly present, in all material respects, our financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods presented in conformity with U.S. GAAP.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

During our fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2017, thereThere were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) underthat occurred during the Exchange Act)quarter ended April 2, 2022 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Inherent LimitationsRemediation Initiatives

In an effort to remediate the identified material weaknesses and enhance our internal controls related to our lack of an independent board and audit committee, we continue to maintain our financial reporting process we followed to prepare consolidated financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP for audit committee meetings on Controlsa quarterly

23

A control system, no matterTable of Contents

and annual basis. We engage all departments groups to identify risks to the achievement of our goals as a basis for determining how well conceivedthe risks should be managed. In an effort to remediate the identified material weakness related to our ineffective design and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the benefitsmaintenance of controls must be considered relativeover user access and program change management related to their costs. Becausecertain IT systems, we hired a full-time Senior Director of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple errors. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and any design may not succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential conditions. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

In addition, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to risks that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions or deteriorationIT in the degreefourth quarter of 2021 with a primary mandate to focus on SOX compliance withand mitigation plan for 2022. Our Chief Executive Officer and sole director will oversee the controls.process to ensure all required disclosures are made in our consolidated financial statements on a quarterly and annual basis.

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PART II. OTHER INFORMATION

Item 1. 

Legal Proceedings

Item 1. Legal Proceedings

The information under “Litigation and Patent Reexaminations” in Note 7 to the condensed consolidated financial statements included in Part I, Item 1 of this report is incorporated herein by reference.

Item 1A. Risk Factors

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

Risks Related to Our Business, Operations and Industry

We face risks related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related protective public health measures;
We have historically incurred losses and may continue to incur losses;
The vast majority of our net product sales in recent periods have been generated from resales of component products, including products sourced from Samsung and SK hynix, and any decline in these product resales could significantly harm our performance;
We are subject to risks relating to our focus on developing our HybriDIMM and NVvault products for our target customer markets;
Sales to a small number of customers have historically represented a significant portion of our net product sales, and the loss of, or a significant reduction in sales to, any one of these customers could materially harm our business;
We are subject to risks of disruption in the supply of component products;
Our customers require that our products undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process without any assurance of sales;
If we are unable to timely and cost-effectively develop new or enhanced products that achieve customer and market acceptance or technologies we can monetize, our revenues and prospects could be materially harmed;
We face intense competition in our industry, and we may not be able to compete successfully in our target markets;
Our operating results may be adversely impacted by worldwide economic and political uncertainties and specific conditions in the markets we address and in which we or our strategic partners or competitors do business, including ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cyclical nature of and volatility in the memory market and semiconductor industry;
Our lack of a significant backlog of unfilled orders and the difficulty inherent in estimating customer demand makes it difficult to forecast our short-term requirements, and any failure to optimally calibrate our production capacity and inventory levels to meet customer demand could adversely affect our revenues, gross margin and earnings;
Declines in our average sale prices, driven by volatile prices for components and other factors, may result in declines in our revenues and gross margin;
Our manufacturing operations involve significant risks;
We depend on third parties to design and manufacture components for our products and the component products we resell, which exposes us to risks;
If our products or the component products we resell do not meet quality standards or are defective or used in defective systems, we may be subject to quality holds, warranty claims, recalls or liability claims;
If a standardized memory solution that addresses the demands of our customers is developed, our net product sales and market share may decline;
Our indemnification obligations for the infringement by our products of the rights of others could require us to pay substantial damages;
We depend on certain key employees, and our business could be harmed if we lose the services of any of these employees or are unable to attract and retain other qualified personnel;

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We rely on our internal and third-party sales representatives to market and sell our products and the component products we resell, and any failure by these representatives to perform as expected could reduce our sales;
Our operations could be disrupted by power outages, natural disasters, cyber attacks or other factors;
Difficulties with our global information technology systems, including any unauthorized access or cyber-attacks, could harm our business;
If we do not effectively manage any future growth we may experience, our resources, systems and controls may be strained and our results of operations may suffer; and
If we acquire businesses or technologies or pursue other strategic transactions or relationships in the future, these transactions could disrupt our business and harm our operating results and financial condition.

Risks Related to Laws and Regulations

We are exposed to additional business, regulatory, political, operational, financial and economic risks related to our international sales and operations;
Our failure to comply with environmental and other applicable laws and regulations could subject us to significant fines and liabilities or cause us to incur significant costs;
Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may cause us to incur additional expenses and could limit the supply and increase the cost of certain metals used in manufacturing our products;
We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting. If we are unable to remediate the material weakness, or if we identify additional material weaknesses in the future or otherwise fail to maintain an effective system of internal controls, we may not be able to accurately or timely report our financial condition or results of operations, which may adversely affect our business; and
We are required to comply with certain provisions of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, that place significant demands on our resources, and the transition to the higher reporting and control standards that applies to us as a “large accelerated filer” may cause management distraction and increased costs.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

We may be unsuccessful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio;
We are and expect to continue to be involved in other legal and administrative proceedings to enforce or protect our intellectual property rights and to defend against claims that we infringe the intellectual property rights of others;
If our proprietary rights are not protected, our customers or our competitors might gain access to our proprietary designs, processes and technologies, which could adversely affect our operating results; and
We may become involved in non-patent related litigation and administrative proceedings that may materially adversely affect us.

Risks Related to Capitalization and Financial Markets

We may not have sufficient working capital to fund our planned operations, and, as a result, we may need to raise additional capital in the future, which may not be available when needed, on acceptable terms or at all;
The price and trading volume of our common stock has and may continue to fluctuate significantly in reaction to real or perceived developments in our business;
We have incurred a material amount of indebtedness to fund our operations, the terms of which have required us to pledge substantially all of our assets as security. Our level of indebtedness and the terms of such indebtedness could adversely affect our operations and liquidity;

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There is a limited market for our common shares, and the trading price of our common shares is subject to volatility;
Future issuances of our common stock or rights to purchase our common stock, including pursuant to our equity incentive plans, could result in additional dilution to the percentage ownership of our stockholders and could cause the price of our common stock to decline;
Sales of our common stock, or the perception that such sales could occur, could cause the market price of our stock to drop significantly, regardless of the state of our business;
As a sole director, Chun K. Hong has significant control over all corporate decisions that may not be in the best interest of our other stockholders;
Anti-takeover provisions under our charter documents and Delaware law, as well as our rights agreement, could delay or prevent a change of control and could also limit the market price of our common stock; and
We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and any return to investors is expected to result, if at all, only from potential increases in the price of our common stock.

Risks Related to Our Business, Operations and Industry

We face risks related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related protective public health measures.

COVID-19 has spread globally and has resulted in authorities imposing, and businesses and individuals implementing, numerous unprecedented measures to try to contain the virus, such as travel bans and restrictions, quarantines, shelter-in-place/stay-at-home and social distancing orders, and shutdowns. These measures have impacted and may further impact our workforce and operations, the operations of our customers, and those of our respective vendors, suppliers, and partners. The ultimate impact and efficacy of government measures and potential future measures is currently unknown. In addition, the continued spread of COVID-19 variants, or the occurrence of other epidemics could result in a widespread health crisis that could adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that could affect demand for our products and further adversely impact our results of operations.

There are numerous uncertainties associated with the COVID-19 outbreak, including the number of individuals who will become infected, whether vaccination level will increase sufficiently to stop the spread of COVID-19 and its variants, and the extent of the protective and preventative measures that have been put in place by both governmental entities and other businesses and those that may be put in place in the future. Any or all of the foregoing uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial position and/or cash flows.

We have historically incurred losses and may continue to incur losses.

Since the inception of our business in 2000, we have only experienced onetwo fiscal year (2006)years (2006 and 2021) with profitable results. In order to regainsustain profitability, or to achieve and sustain positive cash flows from operations, we must reduce operating expenses and/or increase our revenues and gross margins.margin. Although we have in the past engaged in a series of

44


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

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

We believe that, taking into account our planned activities and our sources of capital, we have sufficient cash resources to satisfy our capital needs for at least the next 12 months. However, our estimatesThe vast majority of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we anticipate. Further, some or all of our ongoing or planned investments may not be successful and could resultnet product sales in further losses.

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

·

the  acceptance of, and demand for, our products and the component products we resell to customers directly;

·

our success, and that of our strategic partners, in developing and selling products derived from our technology;

·

the extent and timing of any investments in developing, marketing and launching new or enhanced products or technologies;

·

the costs of developing, improving and maintaining our internal design, testing and manufacturing processes;

·

the costs associated with defending and enforcing our intellectual property rights;

·

our results of operations, including our levels of net product revenues and any other revenues we may receive, including non-recurring engineering (“NRE”), license, royalty or other fees;

·

the amount and timing of vendor payments and the collection of receivables, among other factors affecting our working capital;

·

our receipt of cash proceeds from the exercise of outstanding stock options or warrants to acquire our common stock;

·

the nature and timing of acquisitions and other strategic transactions in which we participate, if any; and

·

the costs associated with the continued operation, and any future growth, of our business.

We expect to rely in the near term on cash provided by our operations; funds raised pursuant to recent issuances of debt and equity securities, such as our November 2015 issuance of convertible debt to an affiliate of Samsung Venture Investment Co., Samsung Venture Investment Co. (“SVIC”), and our September 2016 and August 2017 public offerings of common stock; our new funding arrangement with TR Global Funding V, LLC, an affiliate of TRGP Capital Management, LLC (“TRGP”), for costs associated with certain of our legal proceedings; and borrowing availability under our credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”). However, our estimates of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we

45


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

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

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

We have incurred debt under our convertible note issued to SVIC, our credit facility with SVB, and our new funding arrangement with TRGP. In connection with these debt and other arrangements, we have granted security interests to SVIC, SVB and TRGP in our various assets, such that all of our tangible and intangible assets, including our complete patent portfolio, are subject to one or more outstanding liens held by one or more of these parties. The SVIC and SVB debt instruments and the TRGP investment agreement contain customary representations, warranties and indemnification provisions, as well as affirmative and negative covenants that, among other things, restrict our ability to:

·

incur additional indebtedness or guarantees;

·

incur liens;

·

make investments, loans and acquisitions;

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consolidate or merge;

·

sell or exclusively license assets, including capital stock of subsidiaries;

·

alter our business;

·

change any provision of our organizational documents;

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engage in transactions with affiliates;

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·

make certain decisions regarding certain of our outstanding legal proceedings without consulting with or obtaining consent from certain of these parties; and

·

pay dividends or make distributions.

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

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

·

requiring us to dedicate a portion of our cash flows from operations and other capital resources to debt service, thereby reducing our ability to fund working capital, capital expenditures and other cash requirements;

·

increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic and industry conditions;

·

limiting our flexibility in planning for or reacting to changes and opportunities in our business and industry, which may place us at a competitive disadvantage; and

·

limiting our ability to incur additional debt when needed, on acceptable terms or at all.

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

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

The process of obtaining and protecting patents is inherently uncertain. In addition to the patent issuance process established by law and the procedures of the USPTO, we must comply with administrative procedures of the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (“JEDEC”) to protect our intellectual property within its industry standard-setting process. These procedures evolve over time, are subject to variability in their application and may be inconsistent with each other. Failure to comply with the USPTO’s or JEDEC’s administrative procedures could jeopardize our ability to claim that our patents have been infringed.

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

Making use of new technologies and entering new markets increases the likelihood that others might allege that our products or the component products we resell infringe on their intellectual property rights. The likelihood of this type

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of lawsuit may also be increased due to the limited pool of experienced technical personnel that we can draw upon to meet our hiring needs. As a result, a number of our existing employees have worked for our existing or potential competitors at some point during their careers, and we anticipate that a number of our future employees will have similar work histories. Moreover, lawsuits of this type may be brought, even if there is no merit to the claim, as a strategy to prevent usgenerated from hiring qualified candidates, drain our financial resources and divert management’s attention away from our business.

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

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relinquish patents or other protections of our technologies if they are invalidated, which would enable our competitors and others to freely use this technology;

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compete with products that rely upon technologies and other intellectual property rights that we have developed and that we believe we have the right to protect from third-party use;

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accept terms of an arrangement to license our technologies to a third party that are not as favorable as we might expect;

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cease manufacturing and/or selling products or using certain processes that are claimed to be infringing a third party’s intellectual property;

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pay damages (which in some instances may be three times actual damages), including royalties on past or future sales, if we are found to infringe a third party’s intellectual property;

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seek a license from a third -party intellectual property owner to use its technology in our products or the component products we resell, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all; or

·

redesign any products that are claimed to be infringing a third party’s intellectual property, which may not be possible to do in a timely manner, without incurring significant costs or at all.

Moreover, any litigation, regardless of its outcome, would involve a significant dedication of resources, including time and costs, would divert management’s time and attention and could negatively impact our results of operations. As a result, any current or future infringement claims by or against third parties could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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

On September 1, 2016, we took action to protect and defend our innovations by filing legal proceedings for patent infringement against SK hynix Inc., a South Korean memory semiconductor supplier (“SK hynix”), and two of its subsidiaries in the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) and in district court. We are seeking an exclusion order in the ITC that directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection to stop allegedly infringing SK hynix registered dual in-line memory module (“RDIMM”) and load reduced dual in-line memory modules ("LRDIMM") products from entering the United States. ITC investigations typically proceed on an expedited basis. The evidentiary hearing in the ITC investigation occurred in May 2017, with a final initial determination expected to be issued by the ITC in November 2017, but there can be no guarantee that our proceedings will follow such a timeline.

Intellectual property litigation is expensive and time‑consuming, regardless of the merits of any claim, and could divert management’s attention from operating our business. Even if we are successful at the ITC, we would then need to enforce the order which is expensive, time consuming and could divert management’s attention from operating

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our business. In addition, lawsuits in the ITC and in district courts are subject to inherent uncertainties due to the complexity of the technical issues involved, and we may not be successful in our actions. Moreover, if we are countersued by SK hynix and lose the suit, we could be required to pay substantial damages or lose some of our intellectual property protections. Furthermore, we may not be able to reach a settlement with SK hynix to license our patent portfolio, and even if we are able to reach a settlement, the terms of the arrangement may not be as favorable as we anticipated. Any of the foregoing could cause us to incur significant costs, decrease the perceived value of our intellectual property and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations.

We have recently taken steps to solidify our position and strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix. In May 2017, we established a funding arrangement with TRGP, which generally provides that TRGP will directly fund the costs incurred by us or on our behalf in connection with certain of our SK hynix proceedings (including our first ITC action and our U.S. district court proceedings, but excluding our subsequent ITC action and our proceedings in international courts), and in exchange for such funding, we have agreed to pay to TRGP the amount of its funding plus an escalating premium starting at a low-to-mid double-digit percentage of the amount of its funding if and when we recover any proceeds from the funded proceedings, and we have granted to TRGP a first priority lien on the claims underlying the funded proceedings and any proceeds received from the funded proceedings and a second priority lien on our patents that are the subject of the funded proceedings. We established this funding arrangement in order to provide us with increased security that we will be able to vigorously pursue our claims against SK hynix through their final resolution, but the arrangement also involves certain risks, including, among others, our obligation to use a portion of any proceeds we may receive from these proceedings to repay the funded amounts at a premium, which premium would increase the longer the proceedings remain unresolved, and our obligation to consult with or obtain consent from TRGP in connection with certain decisions or other matters relating to the SK hynix proceedings.  

In addition, in April 2017, we adopted a short-term rights agreement to implement a standard “poison pill.” In general terms, for so long as the rights issued under the rights agreement are outstanding, which is expected to be no longer than 12 months, the rights agreement prevents any person or group from acquiring a significant percentage of our outstanding capital stock or attempting a hostile takeover of our Company by significantly diluting the ownership percentage of such person or group. As a result, the rights agreement has a significant anti-takeover effect. Our board of directors approved the rights agreement as part of our strategy in connection with our proceedings against SK hynix, with the intent of disconnecting our market capitalization from the damages calculations and any settlement negotiations that may develop in connection with these proceedings. However, the rights agreement may not have the intended, or any, impact on these proceedings or any related settlement negotiations, but would have the anti-takeover effect of any standard “poison pill” and thus would involve the risks associated with these anti-takeover effects, which are described elsewhere in these risk factors.

We may be unsuccessful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio.

We have dedicated substantial resources to the development and protection of technology innovations essential to our business, and we expect these activities to continue for the foreseeable future. We also intend to aggressively pursue monetization avenues for our intellectual property portfolio, potentially including licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements. However, our revenues are currently generated by resales of component products and sales ofany decline in these product resales could significantly harm our products and we may never be successful in generating a revenue stream from our intellectual property, in which case our investments of time, capital and other resources into our intellectual property portfolio may not provide adequate, or any, returns.performance.

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

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significant distraction for management. In connection with any monetization avenues we may develop, our licenses and royalty revenue may be uncertain from period to period and we may be unable to attract sufficient licensing customers, which would materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

Our ability to establish licensing, royalty or similar revenues, and maintain or increase any such revenues we are able to establish, depends on a variety of factors, including the novelty, utility, performance, quality, breadth, depth and overall perceived value of our intellectual property portfolio, all as compared to that of our competitors, as well as our sales and marketing capabilities. If secured, licensing or royalty revenues may also be negatively affected by factors within and outside our control, including reductions in our customers’ sales prices, sales volumes and the terms of the license arrangements. If we are not successful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio, we may never recoup the costs associated with developing, maintaining, defending and enforcing this portfolio and our financial condition and prospects would be harmed.

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

The vast majority of our revenues in recent periods have been generated from resales of component products, including primarilySSDs, NAND flash that we purchase for the purpose of resale from Samsung and alternative suppliers. For our fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, resales ofDRAM products. We resell these component products accounted for approximately 21% and 86% of our net product revenues, respectively. We purchase many of these products, including primarily NAND flash, from Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”) under the terms of our Joint Development and License Agreement (“JDLA”) with Samsung in order to resell these products to end-customers that are not reached in Samsung’sthe distribution model,models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. We have also sourced these products from alternative suppliers to the extent sufficient product is not available from Samsung to meet customer demand.

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

We may experience supply shortages at any time and for a variety of reasons, including, among others, spikes in customer demand that cannot be satisfied, any problems that arise with Samsung’s or SK hynix’s manufacturing operations or facilities that cause disruptions or delays, including from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, or any failure to comply with the terms of the agreements regarding the supply of these products. If we choose, or if we are forced, to seek to supply the component products aswe resell from other suppliers, we may not be able to identify other suppliers that are available and able to produce the particular components with the specific product specifications and in the quantities our customers require, or we may not be able to make arrangements with any other suppliers in a percentagetimely manner to avoid delays in satisfying customer orders. Further, even if we are able to make arrangements with other suppliers for sufficient component products to replace any undersupply from Samsung or SK hynix, we may not be able to make these arrangements on financial and other terms comparable to those we have negotiated with Samsung or SK hynix. As a result, any inability to obtain sufficient component products from Samsung or SK hynix could increase our cost of sales for component product resales if we are forced to pay higher prices to obtain the products from other suppliers. Moreover, all of our totalsupply arrangements for these component products and any arrangements we may establish with other suppliers, are subject to the other supply and manufacturing risks discussed elsewhere in these risk factors.

Increased reliance on product revenues haveresales also has a significant negativesubstantial impact on our gross margin, asresults of operations. Because the cost of the component products we purchase for resale from Samsung or alternative suppliers is added to our cost of sales for these products. As a result,products, our gross margin on the resaleresales of component products is significantly lower than our gross margin on sales of our own memory subsystem products. Further, to the extent we are not able to procure sufficient component products for resale from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA to satisfy customer orders for these products, we would need to seek to procure these products from alternative suppliers, which may not be available on terms comparable to those we have negotiated with Samsung under the JDLA and may be subject to other supply and manufacturing risks discussed elsewhere in these risk factors. As a result, any inability to source sufficientincreased resales of component products from Samsung could increaseas a percentage of our cost oftotal product sales associated withhave a significant negative impact on our gross margin and gross margin percentage. This gross margin and gross margin percentage differential between memory product sales and component product resales of thesewould be amplified if our costs to purchase component products if we are forcedwere to pay higher prices to obtain these products from other suppliers.increase. The occurrence of any one or more of these risks could cause our performance to materially suffer.

Our performance has historically been substantially dependent on sales of NVvault, and we may never be able to replace the revenues lost from the rapid decline in NVvault sales in recent periods.

We have historically been substantially dependent on sales of our NVvault non-volatile dual in-line memory modules ("NVDIMM") used in cache-protection and data-logging applications, including our NVvault battery‑free, the flash‑based cache system. For our fiscal years ended December 27, 2014 and January 2, 2016, sales of NVvault accounted for 44% and 20% of total net product revenues, respectively. However, we have experienced a sharp decline in NVvault sales in recent periods, and sales of NVvault accounted for only 1% and 0.3% of total net product revenues in

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our fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 and the nine months ended September 30, 2017, respectively. This rapid decline has been due in large part to the loss of our former most significant NVvault customer, Dell, beginning in 2012. We recognized no NVvault sales to Dell in the year ended December 31, 2016 or the nine months ended September 30, 2017, and we expect no future demand from Dell for these products.  In order to leverage our NVvault technology and secure one or more new key customers, we continue to pursue additional qualifications of NVvault with other original equipment manufacturers (“OEMs”) and to target new customer applications, such as online transaction processing, virtualization, Big Data analytics, high speed transaction processing, high-performance database applications and in‑memory database applications. We also introduced EXPRESSvault in March 2011 and the next-generation of EXPRESSvault (EV3) in July 2015, and we continue to pursue qualification of the next-generation DDR3 NVvault and DDR4 NVvault with customers. Our future operating results will depend on our ability to commercialize these NVvault product extensions, as well as our other products such as HybriDIMM and other high‑density and high-performance solutions. However, HybriDIMM is still under development and may require additional investment and the services and attention of key employees who have competing demands on their available time. Further, although we believe our JDLA with Samsung may advance the development of our HybriDIMM product, our partnership with Samsung and any other steps we take to further the development of this or any of our other products could fail. Moreover, the rate and degree of customer adoption of our NVvault product extensions and other next-generation products has been slower and smaller than expected to date, and these products may never gain significant customer or market acceptance. If we are not successful in expanding our qualifications or marketing any new or enhanced products, we may never be able to secure revenues sufficient to replace lost NVvault revenues and our results of operations and prospects could be materially harmed.

We are subject to risks relating to our focus on developing our HybriDIMM and NVvault products and a lack of market diversification.for our target customer markets.

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

We have invested significant research and development time and costs intocapital in the design of application‑specificapplication-specific integrated circuits (“ASIC”) and hybrid devices, including our NVvault family of products and most recently our next-generation HybriDIMM memory subsystem. These products are subject to increasedsignificant risks, as compared to our legacy products. For example:including:

·

we are dependent on a limited number of suppliers for the dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“SSDs, DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”),ICs, NAND flash memory (“NAND flash”) and ASIC devices that are essential to the functionality of these products, and in the past, we have experienced supply chain

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chain disruptions and shortages of SSDs, DRAM and NAND flash required to create our NVvault family ofthese products as a result of issues that are specific to our suppliers or the industry as a whole;

·

HybriDIMM and some of our other next-generation products may require additional time including the services and attention of key employees who have competing demands on their available time and may require capital investment to bring the products to market;

our development and commercialization strategies for these products;
we are required to demonstrate the quality and reliability of our products are generally subject to a product approval and qualification processqualify them with our customers before purchases are made, which requires investments of time and we have experienced a longer qualification cycle than anticipated with someresources in significant and unpredictable amounts prior to the receipt of any revenues from these products, including our HyperCloud memory subsystems;

customers; and

·

our NVvault products or other new products, such as HybriDIMM, may contain currently undiscovered flaws, the correction of which could result in increased costs and time to market; and

market.

·

we are required to demonstrate the quality and reliability of our products to and qualify them with our customers, which requires a significant investment of time and resources prior to the receipt of any revenues from these customers.

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

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

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

SalesOur target markets are characterized by a limited number of large companies, and consolidation in one or more of these markets may further increase this concentration. As a result, sales to small numbers of customers have historically represented a substantial portion of our net product revenues.sales, and we expect this concentration to continue. Additionally, the composition of major customers and their respective contributions to our net product revenuessales have fluctuated and will likely continue to fluctuate from period to period as our existing and prospective customers progress through the life cycle of the products they produce and sell and experience resulting fluctuations in their product demand. For instance, approximately 13%We believe our performance depends in significant part on our ability to establish and 10% ofmaintain relationships with and effect substantial sales to our net product revenues in the three months ended September 30, 2017 were to two customers, each of which represented less than 10% of our net product revenues in the nine months ended September 30, 2017 and in all periods in 2016. Additionally, in the three and nine months ended October 1, 2016, approximately 17% and 17%, and 29% and 10% of our net product revenues in the respective periods were to two customers, neither of which purchased many products or contributed a meaningful portion of our revenues in the corresponding 2017 periods.large customers.

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

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a result of normal fluctuations in product demand or other factors, reductions in the prices at which we sell products to any of our customers, including as a result of price concessions or general declines in average sale prices, or difficulties collecting payments from any of them could significantly reduce our net product revenues and adversely affect our operating results.customers.

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Our ability to maintain or increase our net product revenuessales to our key customers depends on a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include our customers’ continued sales of servers and other computing systems that incorporate our memory subsystems, and our customers’ continued incorporation of our products or the component products we resell to these customers directly into their systems.systems, and our customers’ sales activity and business results. Because of these and other factors, sales to these customers may not continue and the amount of such sales may not reach or exceed historical levels in any future period.

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

Our ability to fulfill customer orders for or produce qualification samples of our memory subsystem products, as well as orders for the component products we resell, is dependent on a sufficient supply of field-programmable gate arrays (“FPGAs”),SSDs, FPGAs, ASICs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash, which are essential components of our memory subsystems. In addition, we purchase some of these component products from Samsung under the terms of the JDLA and from alternative suppliers for the purpose of resale to end-customers that are not reached in Samsung’s distribution model. We have no long‑term supply contracts for any of these component products. Further, there are a relatively small number of suppliers of these components, and we typically purchase from only a subset of these suppliers. As a result, our inventory purchases have historically been concentrated in a small number of suppliers, including an affiliate of Samsung and SK hynix, from which we obtained a large portion of our total inventory purchases in 2016 and the first nine months of 2017.component products purchased for resale. We also use consumables and other components, including printed circuit boards (“PCBs”),PCBs, to manufacture our memory subsystems, which we sometimes procure from single or limited sources to take advantage of volume pricing discounts.

From time to time, shortages in SSDs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash have required some suppliers to limit the supply of these components. In the past, we have experienced supply chain disruptions and shortages of SSDs, DRAM and NAND flash required to create certain of our HyperCloud, NVvault and Planar X VLPmemory subsystem products, and we have been forced to procure the component products that we resell to customers directly from alternativeother suppliers to the extent we aresufficient product is not able to procureavailable from Samsung sufficient quantitiesand SK hynix to meet customer demand or in the event of these products g to satisfy customer orders.other Samsung and SK hynix supply issues. We are continually working to secure adequate supplies of the components necessary to fill customers’ orders in a timely manner. If we are unable to obtain a sufficient supply of SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash or other essential components, as a result of a natural disaster, political unrest military conflict, medical epidemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, economic instability, equipment failure or other cause, to avoid interruptions or failures in the delivery of our products as required by our customers or the delivery of these components to customers to whom we resell them directly, these customers may reduce future orders for these products or not purchase these products from us at all, which wouldcould cause our net product revenuessales to decline and harm our operating results. In addition, our reputation could be harmed due to failures to meet our customers’ demands and, even assuming we are successful in resolving supply chain disruptions, we may not be able to replace any lost business and we may lose market share to our competitors. Further, if our suppliers are unable to produce qualification samples of our products on a timely basis or at all, we could experience delays in the qualification process with existing or prospective customers, which could have a significant impact on our ability to sell our products. Moreover, if we are not able to obtain these components in the amounts needed on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, we may not be able to develop or introduce new products, we may experience significant increases in our cost of sales if we are forced to procure these components from alternative suppliers and are not able to negotiate favorable terms with these suppliers, or we may be forced to cease our sales of products dependent on the components or resales of the components we sell to customers directly.

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

Declines in customer demand for our products in recent periods have caused us to reduce our purchases of SSDs, DRAM ICs and NAND flash for use as components in our products. Such declines or other fluctuations could continue

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in the future. If we fail to maintain sufficient purchase levels with some suppliers, our ability to obtain supplies of these raw materials may be impaired due to the practice of some suppliers to allocateof allocating their products to customers with the highest regular demand.

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

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

Our prospective customers generally test and evaluate our memory subsystems before purchasing our products and integrating them into their systems. This extensive qualification process involves rigorous reliability testing and evaluation of our products, which may continue for nine months or longer and is often subject to delays. In addition to qualification of specific products, some of our customers may also require us to undergo a technology qualification if our product designs incorporate innovative technologies that the customer has not previously encountered. Such technology qualifications often take substantially longer than product qualifications and can take over a year to complete. Qualification by a prospectiveEven after our products are qualified with existing or new customers, the customer may take several months to begin purchasing the product or may decide not to purchase the product at all, as qualification does not ensure any sales to that prospective customer, in which caseproduct sales. As a result, we wouldcould receive no or limited revenues in spite offrom a customer even after our investment of time and other resources in thisthe qualification process with this customer, which could adversely affect our operating results.

Even after successful qualification and sales of our products to a customer, because the qualification process is both product-specific and platform-specific, our existing customers sometimes require us to re-qualify our products or to qualify our new products for use in new platforms or applications. For example, as our OEM customers transition from prior generation architectures to current generation architectures, we must design and qualify new products for use by these customers. In the past, this design and qualification process has taken up to nine months to complete, during which time ourOur net product revenuessales to these customers declined significantly. Additionally, after our products are qualified with existing or new customers, the customer may take several months to begin purchasing the product or may decide not to purchase the product at all.can decline significantly during this re-qualification process.

Likewise, changes in our products, our manufacturing facilities, our production processes or our component suppliers may require a new qualification process. For example, whenif our memory, andSSDs, NAND flash and DRAM component vendorssuppliers discontinue production of these components, it may be necessary for us to design and qualify new products for our customers. As a result, some customers may require us, or we may decide, to purchase an estimated quantity of discontinued memory components necessary to ensure a steady supply of existing products until products with new components can be qualified. Purchases of this nature may affect our liquidity. Additionally, our estimationforecasts of quantities required during the transition may be incorrect, which could adversely impact our results of operations through lost revenue opportunities or charges related to excess and obsolete inventory.

We must devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualify our products with prospective customers in anticipation of sales. Significant delays or other difficulties in the qualification process could result in an inability to keep uppace with rapid technology change or new competitive products. If we delayexperience delays or do not succeed in qualifying a product with an existing or prospective customer, we would not be able to sell that product to that customer, which may result in our holding excess and obsolete inventory that we may not be able to sell to another customer and could reduce our net product revenuessales and customer base, any of which could materially harm our operating results and business.

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

Our industry is characterized by rapid technological change, evolving industry standards and rapid product obsolescence. As a result, continuous development of new technology, processes and product innovations is necessary in

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order to be successful. We believe that the continued and timely development of new products and technologies and improvement of existing products and technologies are critical to our business and prospects for growth.

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

·

retain and continue to attract new engineers with expertise in high-performance modular memory subsystems and our key technology competencies;

·

identify and adjust to the changing requirements and preferences of our existing and potential future customers;

customers and markets;

·

identify and adapt to emerging technological trends and evolving industry standards in our markets;

·

continue to develop and enhance our design tools, manufacturing processes and other technologies that allow uson which we rely to produce attractive and competitive products;

new products or product enhancements;

·

design and introduce cost-effective, innovative and performance-enhancing features that differentiate our products and technologies from those of our competitors;

·

secure licenses to enable us to use any technologies, processes or other rights essential to the manufacture or use of any new products or product enhancements we may design,develop, which licenses may not be available when needed, on acceptable terms or at all;

·

maintain or develop new relationships with suppliers of components required for any new or enhanced products and technologies;

·

qualify any new or enhanced products for use in our customers’ products; and

·

develop and maintain effective commercialization and marketing strategies.

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

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

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

Some of our customers and suppliers may have proprietary products or technologies that are competitive with our products or the components we resell to them or could develop internal solutions or enter into strategic relationships

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with, or acquire, other high-density memory module or component providers. Any of these actions could reduce our customers’ demand for our products or the component products we resell. SomeAdditionally, some of our significant suppliers of memory integrated circuitscould choose to sell component products to customers directly, which would adversely affect our ability to resell these products, or may be ablechoose to manufacture competitive memory subsystem products at lower costs by leveraging internal efficiencies,themselves or could choose to reduce our supply of memory integrated circuits,essential components of our products, which could adversely affect our ability to manufacture and sell our memory subsystemssubsystems.

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We believe our ability to compete in our current target markets and potential future markets will depend in part on aour ability to successfully and timely basis, ifdevelop, introduce and sell at all.

Certainattractive prices new and enhanced products or technologies and otherwise respond to changing market requirements, which we may not be able to do faster and better than our competitors. Moreover, many of our competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, marketing, distribution and other resources, broader product lines, lower cost structures, greater brand recognition, more influence on industry standards, more extensive or established patent portfolios and longer standing relationships with customers and suppliers. Some of our competitors may also have a greater ability to influence industry standards than we do. Additionally, some of our competitors may have more extensive or more established patent portfolios than we do. We may not be able to compete effectively against any of these organizations.

Our ability to compete in our current target markets and future markets will depend in large part on our ability to successfully develop, introduce and sell new and enhanced products or technologies on a timely and cost-effective basis and to respond to changing market requirements. We expect our competitors to continue to improve the performance of their current products and potentially reduce their prices. In addition, our competitors may develop future generations and enhancements of competitive products or new or enhanced technologies that may offer greater performance and improved pricing or render our technologies obsolete. If we are unable to match or exceed the improvements made by our competitors,compete effectively, then our market position and prospects could deteriorate and our net product revenues could decline.

A limited number of relatively large potential customers dominateOur operating results may be adversely impacted by worldwide economic and political uncertainties and specific conditions in the markets we address and in which we or our strategic partners or competitors do business, including ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cyclical nature of and volatility in the memory market and semiconductor industry.

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

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

During challenging economic times, our customers may face challenges gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impair their ability to make timely payments to us. This may negatively affect our liquidity and cash flows and require us to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts. Furthermore, our vendors may face similar issues gaining access to credit, which may limit their ability to supply components or provide trade credit to us.

We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or subsequent economic recovery, either generally or in our customer markets. If the economy or markets in which we operate experience such a slowdown, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. The combination of our lengthy sales cycle coupled with any challenging macroeconomic conditions could compound the negative impact of any such downturn on the results of our operations.

Our lack of a significant backlog of unfilled orders and the difficulty inherent in estimating customer demand makes it difficult to forecast our short-term requirements, and any failure to optimally calibrate our production capacity and inventory levels to meet customer demand could adversely affect our revenues, gross margin and earnings.

We make significant decisions regarding the levels of business we will seek and accept, production schedules, component procurement, personnel needs and other resource requirements based on our estimates of customer demand. We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers. Instead, our product sales are made primarily pursuant to stand-alone purchase orders that we often receive no more than two weeks in advance of the desired delivery date and that may be rescheduled or cancelled on relatively short notice. The short-term nature of the commitments by many of our customers and our customers’ ability to cancel or defer purchase orders for any reason reduces our backlog of firm orders and our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements for our products or the component products we resell. These facts, combined with the short turnaround times that apply to most orders, makes it difficult to predict our production and inventory needs and allocate production capacity and capital for inventory purchases effectively. As a

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result, we attempt to forecast the demand for the components needed to manufacture our products and to resell to customers directly, but any such forecasts could turn out to be wrong. Further, lead times for components vary significantly and depend on various factors, such as the specific supplier and the demand and supply for a component at any given time.

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

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

In addition, if our product demand forecasts are wrong, we may understate or overstate the provision required for excess and obsolete inventory. If our inventories are determined to be overvalued, we would be required to recognize additional expense in our cost of sales at the time of the determination. Conversely, if our inventories are determined to be undervalued, we may have over-reported our costs of sales in previous periods and would be required to recognize additional gross margin at the time the inventories are sold.

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

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

The prices customers pay for the products we sell.

Our targetsell can fluctuate due to many factors, including, among others, competitive conditions in our key customer markets, are characterized bychanges in customer requirements or preferences, volatility in the market prices for SSDs, DRAM ICs, NAND flash and other component products, and changes in manufacturing efficiencies or capacities. Market prices for component products have historically constituted a limited numbersubstantial portion of large companies. Consolidation in one or morethe total cost of our target markets may further increase this industry concentration.memory subsystems and in recent periods have constituted the vast majority of the cost of resales of these products to customers directly. As a result, fluctuations in the prices for these component products, due to overcapacity in worldwide supply or increased manufacturing efficiencies, implementation of new manufacturing processes or expansion of manufacturing capacity by component suppliers, among other factors, significantly impact our costs to sell our products or component products.

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

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Our manufacturing operations involve significant risks.

We maintain a manufacturing facility in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) at which we produce a portion of our products. These manufacturing activities require significant resources to maintain. For instance, we must continuously review and improve our manufacturing processes in order to maintain satisfactory manufacturing yields and product performance, try to lower our costs and otherwise remain competitive. As we manufacture new and more complex products, the risk of encountering delays, difficulties or higher costs increases. In addition, the start-up costs associated with implementing new manufacturing technologies, methods and processes, including the purchase of new equipment and any resulting manufacturing delays and inefficiencies, could negatively impact our results of operations.

Additionally, we could experience a prolonged disruption, material malfunction, interruption or other loss of operations at our manufacturing facility for any number of reasons, including the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as COVID-19, or cyber attacks, or catastrophic weather events, or we may need to add manufacturing capacity to satisfy any increased demand for our products. Under these circumstances, we may be forced to rely on third parties for our manufacturing needs, which could increase our manufacturing costs, decrease our gross margin, decrease our control over manufacturing processes, limit our ability to satisfy customer requirements and demand and delay new product development until we could secure a relationship with a third-party manufacturer, which we may not be able to do in a timely manner, on acceptable terms or at all. If any of these risks occur, our operations, performance and customer relationships could be severely harmed.

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

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

Components that are used in our products, as well as all of the component products we resell, are designed and manufactured by third parties. In addition, some of our memory subsystem products rely on significantly customized components. The ability and willingness of third parties to enter into these engagements with us and perform in accordance with these engagements is largely outside our control. If one or more of our design or manufacturing partners experiences a manufacturing disruption for any number of factors including labor disruptions, catastrophic weather events and the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as COVID-19, fails to dedicate adequate resources to the production of the components we use in our products or the components we resell, experiences financial instability or otherwise fails to perform its obligations to us in a timely manner or at satisfactory quality levels, our ability to bring products to market or deliver products to our customers, as well as our reputation, could suffer and our business and prospects could be materially harmed. In the event of any failure by our component manufacturers, we may have no readily available alternative source of supply for these components, since, in our experience, the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new design or manufacturing partner is substantial, and the time for our OEM customers to re-qualify our products with components from a new vendor is also significant. Additionally, even if an alternative manufacturer is available, we may not be able to engage the manufacturer on acceptable terms, which could result in increased costs, timing requirements or other adverse changes. Further, we may not be able to redesign the customized components used in our products to be manufactured by a new manufacturer, in which case we could infringe on the intellectual property of our current design or manufacturing partner when we manufacture the products with a new design or manufacturing partner. Such an occurrence could force us to stop selling certain of our products or could expose us to lawsuits, license payments or other liabilities.

Our dependence on third-party manufacturers exposes us to many other risks, including, among others: reduced control over delivery schedules, quality, manufacturing yields and costs; the potential lack of adequate capacity during periods of excess demand; limited warranties on products supplied to us; and potential infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property or the intellectual property of others. We are dependent on our manufacturing partners to

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manufacture components with acceptable quality and manufacturing yields, to deliver these components to us on a timely basis and at an acceptable cost and to allocate a portion of their manufacturing capacity sufficient to meet our needs. However, these component manufacturers may not be able to achieve these tasks. Additionally, our manufacturing partners may not continue to devote adequate resources to produce our products or the component products we resell, or continue to advance the process design technologies on which the customer qualifications of our products are based. Any of these risks could limit our ability to meet customer demand and materially adversely affect our business and operating results.

If our products or the component products we resell do not meet quality standards or are defective or used in defective systems, we may be concentrated among a small number of largesubject to quality holds, warranty claims, recalls or liability claims.

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

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

Warranty and product liability claims, product “quality holds,” product recalls, safety alerts or advisory notices, regardless of their coverage by insurance or their ultimate outcome, could have a material adverse effect on our success in establishingbusiness, performance and maintaining relationships withfinancial condition, as well as our ability to attract and effecting substantial sales to these potentialretain customers. Even if we establish and successfully maintain these relationships, our financial results will be largely dependent on these customers’ sales and business results.

If a standardized memory solution that addresses the demands of our customers is developed, our net product revenuessales and market share may decline.

Many of our memory subsystems are specifically designed for our OEM customers’ high-performance systems. In a drive to reduce costs and assure supply of their memory module demand, our OEM customers may endeavor to design JEDEC standard DRAM modules into their new products. Although we also manufacture JEDEC modules, this trend could reduce the demand for our higher-priced customized memory solutions, which would have a negative impact on our operating results. In addition, the adoption of a JEDEC standard module instead of a previously custom module might allow new competitors to participate in a share of our customers’ memory module business that previously belonged to us.

If our OEM customers were to adopt JEDEC standard modules, our future business may be limited to identifying the next generation of high-performance memory demands of OEM customers and developing solutions that address these demands. Until fully implemented, any next generation of products may constitute a significantly smaller market, which could reduce our revenues and harm our competitive position.

If we fail to protect our proprietary rights, our customers or our competitors might gain access to our proprietary designs, processes and technologies, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We rely on a combination of patent protection, trade secret laws and restrictions on disclosure to protect our intellectual property rights. We have submitted a number of patent applications regarding our proprietary processes and technology. It is not certain when or if any of the claims in our patent applications will be allowed. As of September 30, 2017, we had 70 U.S. and foreign patents issued, one German utility model and 38 pending patent applications

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worldwide. Although we intend to continue filing patent applications with respect to the new processes and technologies that we develop, patent protection may not be available for some of these processes or technologies, in which case they may remain unprotected from use by third parties, including our competitors.

Our efforts to protect our intellectual property rights may not:

·

prevent challenges to or the invalidation or circumvention of our intellectual property rights;

·

keep our competitors or other third parties from independently developing similar products or technologies, duplicating, reverse engineering or otherwise using our products or technologies without our authorization or designing around any patents that may be issued to us;

·

prevent disputes with third parties regarding ownership of our intellectual property rights;

·

prevent disclosure of our trade secrets and know‑how to third parties or into the public domain;

·

result in valid patents, including international patents, from any of our pending or future applications; or

·

otherwise adequately protect our intellectual property rights.

Monitoring for any unauthorized use of our technologies is costly, time-consuming and difficult. This is particularly true in foreign countries, such as the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), where we have established a manufacturing facility and where the laws may not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as applicable U.S. laws.

If some or all of the claims in our patent applications are not allowed or if any of our intellectual property protections are limited in scope by the USPTO, a court or applicable foreign authorities or are circumvented by third parties, we could face increased competition for our products and be unable to execute on our strategy of monetizing our intellectual property. Any of these outcomes could significantly harm our business, operating results and prospects.

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

Adverse changes in domestic and global economic and political conditions have made it extremely difficult for our customers, our vendors and us to accurately forecast and plan future business activities, and these conditions have caused and could continue to cause U.S. and foreign businesses to slow or decrease spending on our products and services and the products we resell to customers directly. For instance, the current political instability in Korea could impact our operations and financial condition as a result of our dependence on Samsung, a South Korean based company, as a key supplier and strategic partner, and our ongoing legal proceedings against SK hynix. In addition, sales of our products and the products we resell to customers directly are dependent upon demand by OEMs in the server, high-performance computing and communications markets, as well as by storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. These markets are characterized by wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. Additionally, these markets have been cyclical and have experienced significant downturns, often connected with or in anticipation of maturing product cycles, reductions in technology spending and declines in general economic conditions. During these downturns, product demand diminishes, production capacity exceeds demand, inventory levels increase and average selling prices decline, all of which would materially adversely impact our business and operating results. Additionally, such a downturn could decrease the perceived value of our intellectual property portfolio and result in reduced ability to pursue our goal of monetizing this portfolio.

We may experience substantial period-to-period fluctuations in our operating results due to factors affecting the markets in which we operate. A decline or significant shortfall in demand in any of these markets could have a material adverse effect on demand for our products and the products we resell to customers directly and, consequently, on our net product revenues. In addition, because many of our costs and operating expenses are relatively fixed, if we are unable to

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control our expenses adequately in response to reduced product revenues, our gross margins, operating income and cash flows would be negatively impacted.

During challenging economic times our customers may face issues gaining timely access to sufficient credit, which could impair their ability to make timely payments to us. This may impair our liquidity and cash flows and require us to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts. Furthermore, our vendors may face similar issues gaining access to credit, which may limit their ability to supply components or provide trade credit to us. We cannot predict the timing, strength or duration of any economic slowdown or subsequent economic recovery, either generally or in our markets. If the economy or markets in which we operate experience such a slowdown, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. Additionally, the combination of our lengthy sales cycle coupled with any challenging macroeconomic conditions could compound the negative impact of any such downturn on the results of our operations.

Our lack of a significant backlog of unfilled orders and the difficulty inherent in estimating customer demand makes it difficult to forecast our short-term requirements, and any failure to optimally calibrate our production capacity and inventory levels to meet customer demand could adversely affect our revenues, gross margins and earnings.

We make significant decisions regarding the levels of business we will seek and accept, production schedules, component procurement, personnel needs and other resource requirements based on our estimates of customer demand. We do not have long-term agreements with any of our customers. Instead, sales are made primarily pursuant to standard purchase orders that we often receive no more than two weeks in advance of the desired delivery date and that may be rescheduled or cancelled on relatively short notice. The short-term nature of the commitments by many of our customers and the fact that our customers may cancel or defer purchase orders for any reason reduces our backlog of firm orders and our ability to accurately estimate future customer requirements for our products or the component products we resell to customers directly. This fact, combined with the quick turn-around times that apply to most orders, makes it difficult to forecast our production and inventory needs and allocate production capacity efficiently. As a result, we attempt to forecast the demand for the components needed to manufacture our products and to resell to customers directly, but any such forecasts could turn out to be wrong. Further, lead times for components vary significantly and depend on various factors, such as the specific supplier and the demand and supply for a component at a given time.

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

Conversely, any rapid increases in demand by our customers could strain our resources and reduce our margins. If we underestimate customer demand, we may not have sufficient inventory of necessary components on hand to meet that demand. We also may not have sufficient manufacturing capacity at any given time to meet any demands for rapid increases in production of our products. These shortages of inventory and capacity could lead to delays in the delivery of our products or the component products we resell, which may force us to forego sales opportunities, reduce our net product revenues and damage our customer relationships.

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

Our industry is competitive and historically has been characterized by declines in average sales price, based in part on market prices for DRAM ICs, NAND flash and other component products, which historically have constituted a

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substantial portion of the total cost of our memory subsystems and in recent periods have constituted the vast majority of the cost of resales of these products to customers directly. Our average sales prices may decline due to several factors, including overcapacity in the worldwide supply of these components, increased manufacturing efficiencies, implementation of new manufacturing processes and expansion of manufacturing capacity by component suppliers.

Once our prices with a customer are negotiated, we are generally unable to revise pricing with that customer until our next regularly scheduled price adjustment. As a result, if market prices for essential components increase, we generally cannot pass the price increases on to our customers for products purchased under an existing purchase order. Consequently, we are exposed to the risks associated with the volatility of prices for these components and our cost of sales could increase and our gross margins could decrease in the event of price increases. Alternatively, if there are declines in the prices of these components, we may need to reduce our selling prices for subsequent purchase orders, which may result in a decline in our net product revenues.

In addition, since a large percentage of our product revenues are to a small number of customers, these customers have exerted, and we expect they will continue to exert, pressure on us to make price concessions. If not offset by increases in volume of sales or the sales of newly-developed products with higher margins, decreases in average sales prices could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results.

Our manufacturing operations involve significant risks.

We maintain a manufacturing facility in the PRC at which we produce most of our products. This internal manufacturing process allows us to utilize our own materials and processes, protect our intellectual property and develop the technology for manufacturing.     However, our manufacturing activities require significant resources to maintain. For instance, we must continuously review and improve our manufacturing processes in order to maintain satisfactory manufacturing yields and product performance, try to lower our costs and otherwise remain competitive. As we manufacture more complex products, the risk of encountering delays, difficulties or higher costs increases. The start-up costs associated with implementing new manufacturing technologies, methods and processes, including the purchase of new equipment and any resulting manufacturing delays and inefficiencies, could negatively impact our results of operations.

Additionally, we could experience a prolonged disruption, material malfunction, interruption or other loss of operations at our manufacturing facility or we may need to add manufacturing capacity to satisfy any increased demand for our products. Under these circumstances, we may be forced to rely on third parties for our manufacturing needs, which could increase our manufacturing costs, decreases our profit margin, decrease our control over manufacturing processes, limit our ability to meet customer demand and delay new product development until we could secure a relationship with a third-party manufacturer, which we may not be able to do in a timely manner, on acceptable terms or at all. If any of these risks were to occur, our operations, performance and customer relationships could be severely harmed. In addition, we may need to expand our existing manufacturing facility or establish a new facility. Any need to expand or replace our manufacturing facility would be expensive and time-consuming and could also subject us to factory audits by our customers that could themselves result in delays, unexpected costs or customer losses if we cannot meet the standards of any such audits. Further, we may not be able to replace or increase our manufacturing capacity at all. The occurrence of any of these events could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

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

Significant customized components, such as ASICs, that are used in HyperCloud and some of our other products, as well as all of the component products we resell, are designed and manufactured by third parties. The ability and willingness of third parties to enter into these engagements with us and perform in accordance with these engagements is largely outside of our control. If one or more of our design or manufacturing partners experiences a manufacturing disruption, fails to dedicate adequate resources to the production of our products or the components we purchase for resale, experiences financial instability or otherwise fails to perform its obligations to us in a timely manner or at satisfactory quality levels, our ability to bring products to market or deliver products to our customers, as well as

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our reputation, could suffer and our business and prospects could be materially harmed. In the event of any failure by our component manufacturers, we may have no readily available alternative source of supply for these components, since, in our experience, the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new design or manufacturing partner is substantial, and the time for our OEM customers to re-qualify our products with components from a new vendor is also significant. Additionally, if we need to replace one of our component manufacturers, we may not be able to do so in a timely manner, on acceptable terms or at all. Further, we may not be able to redesign the customized components used in our products to be manufactured by a new manufacturer, in which case we could infringe on the intellectual property of our current design or manufacturing partner when we redesign the custom components. Such an occurrence could force us to stop selling certain of our products or the component products we resell or could expose us to lawsuits, license payments or other liabilities.

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

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

Our customers require our products and the component products we resell to meet strict quality standards. If these products do not meet these standards, our customers may discontinue purchases from us until we are able to resolve the quality issues that are causing us to not meet the standards, which we may not be able to do. These “quality holds” could be costly and time-consuming to resolve and could have a significant adverse impact on our revenues and operating results.

If these products are defectively manufactured, contain defective components or are used in defective or malfunctioning systems, we could be subject to warranty and product liability claims, product recalls, safety alerts or advisory notices.

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

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

We may become involved in non‑patent related litigation and administrative proceedings that may materially adversely affect us.

From time to time, we may become involved in various legal proceedings relating to matters incidental to the ordinary course of our business, including commercial, employment, class action, whistleblower and other litigation and claims, as well as governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources and cause us to incur significant expenses. Furthermore,

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because litigation is inherently unpredictable, the results of these actions could subject us to monetary damages or other liabilities and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

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

As is common in our industry, we have a number of agreements in which we have agreed to defend, indemnify and hold harmless our customers and suppliers from damages and costs that may arise from the infringement by our products of third-party patents, trademarks or other proprietary rights. The scope of these indemnities varies, but may, in some instances, include indemnification for damages and expenses, including attorneys’ fees. The termthe duration of these indemnification obligationsindemnities is generally perpetual after execution of an agreement, and the maximum potential amount of future payments we could be required to make under these indemnification obligationsindemnities is often unlimited. Any indemnification claims by customers could require us to incur significant legal fees and could potentially result in our payment of substantial

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damages, and our insurance generally would not cover these fees or damages. As a result, the occurrence of any of these risks could result inhave a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

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

To date, we have been highly dependent on the experience, relationships and technical knowledge of certain key employees. We believe that our future success will be dependent on our ability to retain the services of these key employees, develop their successors and properly manage the transition of their roles should departures occur. The loss of these key employees or their inability to continue to provide their services could delay the development and introduction of new or enhanced products or technologies, negatively impact our ability to sell our existing products, limit our ability to pursue our other business goals and strategies and otherwise harm our business. We do not have employment agreements with any of these keyour employees other than Chun K. Hong, our President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairmansole member of our board of directors. We maintain “Key Man” life insurance on Mr. Hong, but we do not carry “Key Man” life insurance on anydirectors, and as a result most of our other employees.employees may terminate their employment with us at any time.

Our future success also depends on our ability to attract, retain and motivate highly skilled engineering, manufacturing and other technical and sales personnel. Competition for experiencedthese personnel is intense. We may not be successful in attracting new engineers or other technical personnel or in retaining or motivating our existing personnel. If we are unable to hire and retain engineerspersonnel with the skills necessary to keep pace with the evolving technologies in our markets, our ability to continue to provide our existing products and to develop new or enhanced products willand technologies would be negatively impacted, which wouldcould harm our business. In addition, a general shortage of experienced engineers or other technical personnel could lead to increased recruiting, relocation and compensation costs to attract such engineers,new recruits, which may exceed our expectations and resources. These increased costs may make hiring new engineers difficult or may increase our operating expenses.expenses or make these hires more difficult or impossible if increased recruiting costs exceed our resources.

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

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

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

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

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TheseOur sales representatives generally may terminate their relationships with us at any time. As a result, our performance depends in part on our ability to retain existing and attract additional sales representatives that will be able to effectively market and support our products or the component products we resell, effectively, especially in markets in which we

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

Economic,Our operations could be disrupted by power outages, natural disasters, cyber attacks or other factors.

Due to the geographic concentration of our manufacturing operations in our PRC facility and politicalour small number of component suppliers, including Samsung and SK hynix for many of the component products we resell, a disruption resulting from equipment or power failures, quality control issues, human errors, government intervention, cyber attacks or natural disasters, including earthquakes and floods, could require significant costs to repair and could interrupt or interfere with product manufacture and sale and cause significant delays in product shipments, which could harm our customer relationships, financial condition and results of operations. In the past, our PRC facility has suffered water damage as a result of heavy rains and floods, which forced us to temporarily halt manufacturing at the facility while necessary repairs or equipment replacements were made. This incident caused us to incur additional expenses because we were forced to shift our manufacturing activities to a third-party facility in the PRC to mitigate the disruption in product shipments to our customers. If manufacturing at the PRC facility is disrupted for similar or other reasons in the future, we may again be subject to increased expenses in order to engage a third-party manufacturer, or, if we are not able to secure alternative manufacturing capabilities, our ability to sell products and our relationships with our customers could be materially harmed. Additionally, we may be forced to bear significant costs in order to repair any damage to our manufacturing equipment and facility. Any of these outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

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

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

While our information technology systems include security measures designed to prevent unauthorized access, employee error, employee malfeasance or other causes, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers, could circumvent these measures and result in unauthorized access to these systems. Because the techniques used to gain unauthorized access to information technology systems evolve frequently and often are not recognized until successful, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventative measures in a timely manner. Any security breach could require significant resources to correct, if correction is possible, and could result in disruption to our business, misappropriation or loss of data, loss of confidence in us by our customers, damage to our reputation and legal liability. Further, any failure to implement appropriate security measures to protect our information or any breach or other failure of our systems that results in unauthorized access, manipulation, disclosure or loss of this information could result in our violation of any U.S. or foreign data protection laws that are applicable to us, including the California Consumer Privacy Act which went into effect in January 2020. These laws and their interpretation and application are

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constantly evolving, and they could be interpreted and applied in a manner that is inconsistent with our current practices or they could become more stringent over time. Efforts to comply with applicable data protection laws or any new interpretations of their application could involve significant time and substantial costs or require us to change our business practices and compliance procedures, and any failures to so comply could subject us to substantial civil or criminal fines or sanctions. Any of these outcomes could have a material negative impact on our business, performance and prospects.

Our independent registered public accounting firm conducted an audited of our internal control over financial reporting as of January 1, 2022 and determined that we have ineffective design and maintenance of controls over user access and program change management related to certain information technology (IT) systems that support our financial reporting processes. User and privileged access were not appropriately provisioned, and program changes were not adequately reviewed prior to being placed in production. As a result, process level automated controls and manual controls that are dependent on the completeness and accuracy of information derived from the affected IT systems were also ineffective because they could have been adversely impacted. This material weakness was due to us having an insufficient number of IT personnel to identify and assess risks associated with changes in the IT environment resulting in inappropriate assignment of user and privileged access as well as insufficient documentation for control operations. This weakness has the potential to increase the likelihood and severity of the risks we face with respect to our global information technology systems.

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

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

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

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

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

difficulties integrating the operations, technologies or products of acquired companies or working with third parties with which we may partner on joint development or collaboration relationships;
the diversion of management’s time and attention from the daily operations of our business;
insufficient increases in revenues to offset increased expenses associated with an acquisition or strategic transaction or relationship;
difficulties retaining business relationships with our existing suppliers and customers or the suppliers and customers of an acquired company;
overestimation of potential synergies or other benefits, or a delay in realizing these synergies or other benefits;
entering markets in which we have no or limited experience and in which competitors have stronger market positions;
the potential loss of our key employees or an acquired company;

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exposure to contingent liabilities of an acquired company;
depletion of cash resources to fund an acquisition or other strategic transaction or establish a strategic relationship, or dilution of existing stockholders or increased leverage relative to our earnings or to our equity capitalization if we issue debt or equity securities for these purposes;
adverse tax consequences; and
incurrence of material charges, such as depreciation, deferred compensation charges, in-process research and development charges, the amortization of amounts related to deferred stock-based compensation expense and identifiable purchased intangible assets or impairment of goodwill.

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

Risks Related to Laws and Regulations

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

Part of our growth strategy involves making salesWe sell products to foreign corporations and deliveringdeliver products to facilities located in foreign countries. To facilitate this process and to meet the long-term projected demand for our products, we have established a manufacturing facility in the PRC whichthat performs most of the manufacturing activities for our worldwide manufacturing activities. memory subsystem products.

Selling and manufacturing in foreign countries subjects us to additional risks not present with our domestic operations, as we are operating in business and regulatory environments in which we have limited experience.experience and that may impose materially different requirements. Further, the geographic distance from our headquarters in Irvine, California, compounds the difficulties of runningmaintaining a manufacturing operation in the PRC. For instance, we may not be able to maintain the desired amount of control over production capacity and timing, inventory levels, product quality, delivery schedules, manufacturing yields andor costs. Moreover, we will need to continue to overcome language and cultural barriers to effectively conduct these international operations. Our failure to meet applicable regulatory requirements or overcome cultural barriersFailures in any of these areas could result in legal consequences or production delays and increased turnaround times, which wouldcould adversely affect our business. In addition, changes to the labor or other laws of the PRC could increaseor the cost of employing the local workforce. The increased industrialization of the PRC, as well as general economic and political conditions in the PRC, including increased industrialization in recent years, natural disasters, public health crises, including the occurrence of a contagious disease or illness, such as COVID-19, and other catastrophic events, could also increase the cost of local labor or the other costs of doing businessemploying a local workforce or conducting our manufacturing operations in the PRC. Any of these factors could negatively impact theany cost savings we experience from locating our manufacturing facility in the PRC. Additionally, our management has limited experience creating or overseeing foreign operations generally, and the ongoing managementadministration and operation of our PRC facility may require our management team to divert substantial amounts of their time and attention by our management team, particularly if we encounter operational, legal or cultural difficulties or disruptions at our PRC facility.

To date, all of our net product revenuessales have been denominated in U.S. dollars. In the future, however, some of our net product revenuessales may be denominated in Chinese Renminbi (“RMB”). The Chinese government controls the procedures by which RMB is converted into other currencies, which generally requires government consent. As a result, RMB may not be freely convertible into other currencies at all times. If the Chinese government institutes changes in currency conversion procedures or imposes additional restrictions on currency conversion, our operations and our operating results could be negatively impacted. In addition, Chinese law imposes restrictions on the movement of funds outside of the PRC. If we need or decide to repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, we would be required to comply with the procedures and regulations of applicable Chinese law. Anylaw, and any failure to so comply with these procedures and regulations could adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition. Further, if we are able to repatriate funds from our Chinese operations, these funds would be subject to U.S. corporate income tax.taxes. In addition, fluctuations in the exchange rate between RMB and U.S. dollars may adversely affect our expenses, and results of operations, the value of our assets and liabilities and the comparability of our period-to-period results.

Our international operations and sales are subject to a number of additional risks, including, among others, timing and availability of export licenses; difficulties in accounts receivable collections; difficulties managing distributors; lack of a significant local sales presence in a number of markets; difficulties obtaining government

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approvals; compliance with anti-bribery, data protection and other applicable U.S. and foreign laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and similar anti-bribery laws in the non-U.S. jurisdictions in which we operate, as well as a wide variety of other complex foreign laws, regulations and treaties; and potentially adverse tax consequences. In addition, the United States or foreign countries may implement quotas, duties, tariffs, taxes or other charges or restrictions on the importation or exportation of our products or the component products we resell, which could lead to a reduction in sales and profitability in that country. The implementation of tariffs by the United States on goods manufactured in other countries, including PRC, could cause the costs of our products to increase, which could significantly impair the gross margin we receive and thereby harm our operating results significantly.

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

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Our international sales are subject to a number of additionalthese risks including regulatory risks, timing and availability of export licenses, difficulties in accounts receivable collections, difficulties in managing distributors, lack of a significant local sales presence, difficulties in obtaining governmental approvals, compliance with a wide variety of complex foreign laws and treaties and potentially adverse tax consequences. In addition, the United States or foreign countries may implement quotas, duties, tariffs, taxes or other charges or restrictions upon the importation or exportation of our products or the products we resell to customers directly, leading to a reduction in sales and profitability in that country. This risk of increased trade barriers or charges has become more pronounced following the results of the recent U.S. presidential election, as the trade policies of the current U.S. presidential administration, including withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and proposed revision to the North American Free Trade Agreement, could threaten or otherwise have a significant negative effect on our ability to continue to conduct our international operations in the manner and at the costs as we have in the past. Any increased costs or regulatory obstacles with respectrelated to our international operations, including our manufacturing facility in the PRC and our international sales, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and prospects for growth.

Our operations could be disrupted by power outages, natural disasters or other factors.

Due to the geographic concentration of our manufacturing operations in our PRC facility and our small number of component suppliers, including Samsung for the majority of the component products we resell to customers directly, a disruption resulting from equipment or power failures, quality control issues, human errors, government intervention or natural disasters, including earthquakes and floods, could require significant costs to repair and could interrupt or interfere with the manufacture of our products or the component products we resell to customers directly and cause significant delays in product shipments, which could harm our customer relationships, financial condition and results of operations. In July 2014, our PRC facility suffered water damage as a result of heavy rain and floods, which forced us to temporarily halt manufacturing at the facility while necessary repairs or replacements were made to the facility and to certain of our manufacturing equipment. This incident caused us to incur additional expenses, as we shifted our manufacturing activities to a third-party facility in the PRC to mitigate the disruption in product shipments to our customers. While we believe we were able to contain this disruption, we may not be able to secure alternative manufacturing capabilities if manufacturing at the PRC facility is disrupted in the future, in which case our relationships with our customers could be materially harmed. Additionally, while we were able to favorably resolve our claim with our insurance carrier with respect to the damage to our facility cause by the July 2014 incident, we may not experience the same outcome if a similar event occurs in the future, in which case we would be forced to bear the significant costs to repair any damage to our manufacturing equipment and facility.

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

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

We store data about our business, including certain customer data, information about our and our customer’s intellectual property and other proprietary information, on our global information technology systems. While our systems includes security measures designed to prevent unauthorized access, third parties may circumvent these measures and gain unauthorized access to our systems. This unauthorized access could be the result of employee error, employee malfeasance or other causes, including intentional misconduct by computer hackers. Because the techniques used to gain unauthorized access to information technology systems evolve frequently and generally are not recognized until successful, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Any

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security breach could result in disruption to our business, misappropriation or loss of data, significant resources to correct, loss of confidence in us by our customers, damage to our reputation, legal liability and a negative impact on our performance.

Our failure to comply with environmental and other applicable laws and regulations could subject us to significant fines and liabilities or cause us to incur significant costs.

We are subject to various and frequently changing U.S. federal, state and local and foreign laws and regulations relating to the protection of the environment, including laws governing the discharge of pollutants into the air and water, the management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the clean-up of contaminated sites. In particular, some of our manufacturing processes may require us to handle and dispose of hazardous materials from time to time. For example, in the past our manufacturing operations have used lead-based solder in the assembly of our products. Today, we use lead-free soldering technologies in our manufacturing processes, as this is required for products entering the European Union. We could incur substantial costs, including clean-up costs, civil or criminal fines or sanctions and third-party claims for property damage or personal injury, as a result of violations of or noncompliance with these and other environmental laws and regulations. Although we have not incurred significant costs to date to comply with these laws and regulations, new laws or changes to current laws and regulations to make them more stringent could require us to incur significant costs to remain in compliance.

We are also may be subject to a variety of laws and regulations relating to other matters, including workplace health and safety, labor and employment, foreign business practices (including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and applicable foreign anti-bribery laws), data protection, public reporting and taxation, among others. It is difficult and costly to manage the requirements of every authority having jurisdiction over our various activities and to comply with their varying standards. Additionally, any changes to existing regulations or adoption of new regulations may result in significant additional expense to us andor our customers. For example, the current presidential administration and Congress have proposed to make substantial changes to the taxation of business entities, but there remains significant lack of clarity regarding the likelihood, timing and details of any such tax reform or the impact of any potential tax reform on our or our customers’ respective businesses or results. Further, our failure to comply with any applicable laws and regulations may result in a variety of administrative, civil and criminal enforcement measures, including monetary penalties or imposition of sanctions or other corrective requirements, any of which could materially adversely affect our reputation and our business.

Regulations related to “conflict minerals” may cause us to incur additional expenses and could limit the supply and increase the cost of certain metals used in manufacturing our products.

In August 2012,The U.S. Congress has enacted laws, and the SEC has adopted rules, requiring disclosure of specified minerals, known as conflict minerals, that are necessary to the functionality or production of products manufactured or contracted to be manufactured by public companies. TheThese laws and rules require companies to verify and disclose whether or not such minerals, as used in a company’s products or their manufacture, originate from the Democratic Republic of Congo or an adjoining country. Because our products contain certain conflict minerals and we or our manufacturers use these conflict minerals in the manufacture of our products, we are required to comply with these laws and disclosure rules. To comply, with the rules, we are required to conduct a reasonable country of origin inquiry each year and, depending on the results of that inquiry, we may be required to exercise due diligence on the source and chain of custody of conflict minerals contained in or used to manufacture our products. Such due diligence must conform to a nationally or internationally recognized

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due diligence framework. We are also required to file a disclosure report with the SEC of each year relating to our conflict mineral use.

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

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internal controls, we may not be able to accurately or timely report our financial condition or results of operations, which may adversely affect our business.

OurA material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of our annual or interim condensed consolidated financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. As described in Part I, Item 4, Controls and Procedures, we have concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was ineffective as of April 2, 2022 due to two material weaknesses. The identified material weaknesses, at April 2, 2022, relates to the lack of an independent audit committee and ineffective design and maintenance of controls over user access and program change management related to certain information technology (IT) systems that support the Company’s financial reporting processes.

While the control deficiency identified did not result in any identified misstatements, a reasonable possibility exists that a material misstatement to the annual or interim condensed consolidated financial statements and disclosures will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

In an effort to remediate the identified material weakness and enhance our internal controls, our finance and accounting personnel are continuing to follow all of the same procedures that they undertook in preparation for independent audit committee meetings on a quarterly and annual basis. Our CEO and sole director will oversee these processes and review materials prepared by the finance and accounting staff as well as our independent auditors on a quarterly and annual basis. If our remedial measures are insufficient to address the material weakness, or if additional material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in our internal control over financial reporting occur in the future, we may not be able to timely or accurately report our results of operations or maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures. If we are unable to report financial information timely or accurately, or to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures, we could be required to restate our financial statements and be subject to, among other things, regulatory or enforcement actions, securities litigation, limitations on our ability to access capital markets, debt rating agency downgrades or rating withdrawals, or loss in confidence of our investors, any one of which could adversely affect the valuation of our common stock and our business prospects. We can give no assurance that the measures we have taken and plan to take in the future will remediate the material weakness identified or that any additional material weaknesses will not arise in the future due to a failure to implement and maintain adequate internal control over financial reporting.

We are required to comply with certain provisions of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as amended, that place significant and adverse effectdemands on our business.resources.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the related rules and regulations of the SEC, which we collectively refer to as Section 404, require us to evaluate our internal control over financial reporting and require management to report on the effectiveness of this internal control as of the end of each fiscal year. Effective internal control is necessary forIn addition, due to the increase in the value of our worldwide non-affiliate public float, we lost our status as a “smaller reporting company”

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under applicable SEC rules at the end of last fiscal year ending January 1, 2022. As a result, Section 404 requires us to produce reliable financial reports and is important in our effort to prevent financial fraud. In the course of our Section 404 evaluations, we orobtain an attestation report from our independent registered public accounting firm may identify significant deficiencies or material weaknesses inas to our internal control over financial reporting. If we fail to maintain an effective system of internal control over financial reporting or if management or our independent registered public accounting firm discover material weaknesses, we may be unable to produce reliable financial reports or prevent fraud, which could harm our financial condition and results of operations, result in a loss of investor confidence and negatively impact our stock price. Further, our

Our Section 404 evaluations may lead us to concludeconfirmed that enhancements, modifications orand changes to our internal control over financial reporting are necessary orand desirable. Implementing any such changes wouldrelated to ineffective design and maintenance of controls over user access and program change management related to IT systems may divert the attention of management, could involve significant time and costs and maycould negatively impact our financial results.

If we do not effectively managereporting functions during the transition, any future growth we may experience, our resources, systems and controls may be strained andof which could have a material negative effect on our results of operations may suffer.

Any future growth we may experience could strain our resources, management, information and telecommunication systems and operating and financial controls. To manage future growth effectively, including any expansion of volume in our manufacturing facility in the PRC, we must be able to improve and expand our systems and controls. We may not be able to do this in a timely or cost-effective manner. In addition, our officers have relatively limited experience in managing a rapidly growing business. As a result, they may not be able to manage any future growth we may experience. Any failure to manage any growth we may experience or improve or expand our existing systems and controls, or unexpected difficulties in doing so, could harm our business.

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

Risks Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

We may be unsuccessful in monetizing our intellectual property portfolio.

We evaluate opportunitiesdedicate substantial resources to acquire businesses or technologies ordeveloping technology innovations we believe are essential to our business. We intend to pursue other strategic transactions, including collaboration or joint development arrangements such as our JDLA with Samsung that might complement our current product offerings or enhancemonetization avenues for our intellectual property portfolio, potentially including licensing, royalty or technicalother revenue-producing arrangements. However, other than the license fee we received under the SK hynix License Agreement, we have not generated any such revenue stream from our intellectual property to date, and we may never be successful in achieving this objective.

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

Our ability to establish licensing, royalty or similar revenues, and maintain or increase any such revenues we are able to establish, depends on a variety of factors, including, among others, the novelty, utility, performance, quality, breadth, depth and overall perceived value of our intellectual property portfolio, all as compared to that of our competitors, as well as our sales and marketing capabilities. We have no experience acquiring other businessesEven if we are able to secure these revenues, they may be negatively affected by factors that are entirely or technologies. Acquisitionspartially outside our control, including reductions in our customers’ sales prices, sales volumes and the general state of their business, as well as the terms of the license arrangements.

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

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

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

Our business strategy includes litigating claims against others, such as our competitors and customers, to enforce our intellectual property, contractual and commercial rights, including, in particular, our patent portfolio and our trade secrets, as well as to challenge the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others. This or other similar

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proceedings could also subject us to counterclaims or countersuits against us, or the parties we sue could seek to invalidate our patents or other intellectual property rights through reexamination or similar processes at the USPTO or similar bodies. Further, any legal disputes with customers could cause them to cease buying or using our products or the component products we resell or delay their purchase of these products and could substantially damage our relationship with them.

Moreover, our ability to continue to pursue this strategy depends on our ability to obtain and protect patents, which is governed by an uncertain process. In addition to the patent issuance process established by law and the procedures of the USPTO, we must also comply with administrative procedures of the JEDEC to protect our intellectual property within its industry standard-setting process. These procedures evolve over time, are subject to variability in their application and may be inconsistent with each other. Any failure to comply with the USPTO’s or JEDEC’s administrative procedures could jeopardize our ability to claim that our patents have been infringed.

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

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

relinquish patents or other protections of our technologies if they are invalidated, which would enable our competitors and others to freely use this technology;
compete with products that rely on technologies and other intellectual property rights that we believe we have the right to protect from third-party use;
accept terms of an arrangement to license our technologies to a third party that are not as favorable as we might expect;
receive little or no returns for our time and capital investments in the litigation;
cease manufacturing and/or selling products or using certain processes that are claimed to be infringing a third party’s intellectual property;
pay damages (which in some instances may be three times actual damages), including royalties on past or future sales, if we are found to infringe a third party’s intellectual property;
seek a license from a third-party intellectual property owner to use its technology in our products or the component products we resell, which may not be available on reasonable terms or at all; or
redesign any products that are claimed to be infringing a third party’s intellectual property, which may not be possible to do in a timely manner, without incurring significant costs or at all.

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

If our proprietary rights are not protected, our customers or our competitors might gain access to our proprietary designs, processes and technologies, which could adversely affect our operating results.

We rely on a combination of patent protection, trade secret laws and restrictions on disclosure to protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights. We have submitted a number of patent applications regarding our

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proprietary processes and technology, many of which have resulted in issued patents. For our pending patent applications, it is uncertain when or if any of the claims in these applications will be allowed or result in issued patents, in which case the technologies or processes sought to be patented would remain unprotected from use by third parties. In addition, although we intend to continue filing patent applications with respect to new processes and technologies we develop, patent protection may not be available for some of these processes or technologies. Further, even if we are successful in obtaining patent protection, these protections could be limited in scope by the USPTO, a court or applicable foreign authorities or challenged by third parties by way of review or reexamination proceedings and subsequently invalidated, which would reduce the protections these patents are able to provide. Moreover, patent protection is limited as to duration and all of our issued patents will eventually expire, at which time the previously protected technologies would become widely available for use by third parties, including our competitors.

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

prevent challenges to or the invalidation or circumvention of our intellectual property rights;
keep our competitors or other third parties from independently developing similar products or technologies, duplicating, reverse engineering or otherwise using our products or technologies without our authorization or designing around any patents that may be issued to us;
prevent disputes with third parties regarding ownership of our intellectual property rights;
prevent disclosure of our trade secrets and know-how to third parties or into the public domain;
result in valid patents, including international patents, from any of our pending or future applications; or
otherwise adequately protect our intellectual property rights.

Moreover, monitoring for any unauthorized use of our technologies is costly, time-consuming and difficult. This is particularly true in foreign countries, such as the PRC, where we have established a manufacturing facility and where the laws may not protect our proprietary rights to the same extent as applicable U.S. laws.

If some or all of the claims in our patent applications are not allowed, if any of our issued patents or other intellectual property protections are limited, invalidated or circumvented by third parties, or if we are not able to obtain extensions of existing patents upon their expiration or issuance of new patents to maintain protections provided by expiring patents, we could face increased competition for our products and technologies and be unable to execute on our strategy of monetizing our intellectual property. Any of these outcomes could significantly harm our business, and operating results and prospects.

We may become involved in non-patent related litigation and administrative proceedings that may materially adversely affect us.

From time to time, we may become involved in various legal proceedings relating to matters incidental to the ordinary course of our business, including commercial, employment, class action, whistleblower and other litigation and claims, as well as governmental and other regulatory investigations and proceedings. Such matters can be time-consuming, divert management’s attention and resources and cause us to incur significant expenses. Furthermore, because litigation is inherently unpredictable, the results of these actions could subject us to monetary damages or other liabilities and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Related to Capitalization and Financial Markets

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

To support our activities in the near term, we expect to rely on cash generated from our business, the cash received under the SK hynix License Agreement and proceeds from issuances of debt and equity securities, including our equity line with Lincoln Park, and borrowing availability under our credit facility with SVB. Taking into account our planned activities and sources of capital, we believe we have sufficient cash resources to satisfy our capital needs for at least the next 12 months. However, our estimates of our operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect, and we may use our cash resources faster than we anticipate. Further, some or all of our

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ongoing or planned investments may not be successful and could further deplete our capital without immediate, or any, cash returns.

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

·

the costs associated with maintaining, defending and enforcing our intellectual property rights;

difficulties

the acceptance of, and demand for, our products and the component products we resell to customers;
our success, and that of our strategic partners, in integrating developing and selling products derived from our technology;
the extent and timing of any investments in developing, marketing and launching new or enhanced products or technologies;
the costs of developing, improving and maintaining our internal design, testing and manufacturing processes;
our results of operations, technologies or productsincluding our levels of acquired companies or working with third parties with whichnet product sales and any other revenues we may partner on joint developmentreceive, including non-recurring engineering, license, royalty or collaboration relationships;

other fees;

·

the amount and timing of vendor payments and the collection of receivables, among other factors affecting our working capital;

the diversion

our receipt of management’s time and attentioncash proceeds from the daily operationsexercise of the business;

outstanding stock options or warrants to acquire our common stock;

·

insufficient increases in revenues to offset increased expenses associated with an acquisitionthe nature and timing of acquisitions or other strategic transaction;

·

difficulties retaining businesstransactions or relationships with our existing suppliers and customers or the suppliers and customers of an acquired company;

·

overestimation of potential synergies or a delay in realizing these synergies;

·

entering markets in which we have no or limited experienceengage, if any; and in which competitors have stronger market positions;

·

the potential loss of key employeescosts associated with the continued operation, and any future growth, of our Company or an acquired company;

business.

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·

exposure to contingent liabilities of an acquired company;

·

depletion of cash resources to fund an acquisition or other strategic transaction, or dilution of existing stockholders or increased leverage relative to our earnings or to our equity capitalization if we issue debt or equity securities to fund the transaction;

·

adverse tax consequences; and

·

incurrence of material charges, such as depreciation, deferred compensation charges, in-process research and development charges, the amortization of amounts related to deferred stock-based compensation expense and identifiable purchased intangible assets or impairment of goodwill.

If anydebt, equity or convertible securities or pursuing alternative sources of capital, such as through asset or technology sales or licenses or other alternative financing arrangements. Further, even if our near-term liquidity expectations prove correct, we may still seek to raise capital through one or more of these risks were to occur,financing alternatives. However, we may not be able to realizeobtain capital when needed or desired, on terms acceptable to us or at all.

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

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Risks Related to Our Common Stock

The price and trading volume of our common stock hashave been volatile and may continue to fluctuate significantly.

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

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

·

the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic;

the results of legal proceedings in which we are involved;
our operating and financial performance and prospects, including our ability to achieve and sustain profitability in the future;

prospects;

·

investor perceptionperceptions of us and the industry in which we operate;

·

our ability to meet investor and analyst expectations for our operating results;

the availability and level of research coverage of and market-making in our common stock;

·

changes in earnings estimates or buy/sell recommendations by analysts;

·

any financial projections we may provide to the public, any changes to these projections or our failure to meet these projections;

·

our announcement of significant strategic transactions or relationships or the initiation of legal proceedings, including patent infringement actions;

·

the results of legal proceedings in which we are involved;

·

sales of newly issued common stock or other securities or the perception that such sales may occur; and

·

general political, economic and market conditions, including volatility or uncertainty in these conditions.

conditions; and
the other risk factors described in this report.

In addition, shares of our common stock and the public stock markets in general have experienced, and may continue to experience, extreme price and trading volume volatility, at times irrespective of the state of the business of any particular company. These fluctuations may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

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In 2007, following a dropvolatility in the overall market and the market price of our common stock,a particular company’s securities, securities litigation was initiatedcan sometimes be instituted against us. Given the historic volatility of our securities and securities in our industry, we may become engaged in this type of litigation again in the future. Securities litigation, like other types of litigation, is expensive and time-consuming, and if such litigation is instituted against us in the future, we may incur substantial costs, management’s attention and resources may be diverted, and we could be subject to damages in the event of unfavorable results.

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

The SVB debt instrument contains customary representations, warranties and indemnification provisions, as well as affirmative and negative covenants that, among other things, restrict our ability to:

incur additional indebtedness or guarantees;
incur liens;
make investments, loans and acquisitions;
consolidate or merge;
sell or exclusively license assets, including capital stock of subsidiaries;
alter our business;
change any provision of our organizational documents;
engage in transactions with affiliates;
make certain decisions regarding certain of our outstanding legal proceedings without consulting with or obtaining consent from certain of these parties; and
pay dividends or make distributions.

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

In the past we had incurred a funding arrangement with TR Global Funding V, LLC, an affiliate of TRGP Capital Management (“TRGP”). We arebelieve that the SK hynix License Agreement falls outside the scope of the TRGP Agreement and the First Amendment to the TRGP Agreement, and we do not currently in compliance with certain NASDAQ listing requirements,anticipate that we will be obligated to make payments to TRGP under the TRGP Agreement or the First Amendment to the TRGP Agreement.

Additionally, incurrence and if we fail to regain compliance by NASDAQ’s deadlines we may not be able to maintainmaintenance of debt could have material adverse consequences on our NASDAQ listing.business and financial condition, such as:

requiring us to dedicate a portion of our cash flows from operations and other capital resources to debt service, thereby reducing our ability to fund working capital, capital expenditures and other cash requirements;
increasing our vulnerability to adverse economic and industry conditions;
limiting our flexibility in planning for or reacting to changes and opportunities in our business and industry, which may place us at a competitive disadvantage; and
limiting our ability to incur additional debt when needed, on acceptable terms or at all.

On September 26, 2017, we receivedThere is a letter fromlimited market for our common shares, and the NASDAQ Stock Market (“NASDAQ”) notifying us that, because the bidtrading price of our common stock closed below $1.00 per share for 30 consecutive business days, we are no longer in compliance with NASDAQ’s minimum bid price rule, whichshares is a requirement for continued listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market. We have also experienced several other periods of noncompliance with this rule in recent years, including during 2015 and into early 2016 and during April and May of 2017. NASDAQ’s rules require that we regain compliance with the minimum bid price rule by March 26, 2018, subject to our potential eligibility for a 180-day extension of this deadline if we meet certain other NASDAQ listing standards. If we fail to regain compliance with the minimum bid price rule by the deadline, or if we regain compliance but we again fail to comply with this rule or any other NASDAQ requirement in the future, then we would receive additional deficiency letters from NASDAQ and ourvolatility.

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

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

We have historically funded our operations in large part with proceeds from equity and convertible debt financings, and we expect to continue to do so in the future. In addition to capital-raising purposes, we may also issue securities from time to time at prices and on other terms as we determine for acquiring other businesses or assets in exchange for shares of our common stock or other securities, issuing securities to collaborators in connection with strategic partnerships, attracting and retaining employees with equity compensation, or other purposes. If we sell these shares at a price that a stockholder may deem acceptable.

Our resultscommon stock or other equity or convertible debt securities in the future, our then-existing stockholders could be materially diluted by such issuances and new investors could gain rights, preferences and privileges senior to the holders of operations fluctuate significantly and are difficult to predict, and any failure to meet investor or analyst expectationsour common stock, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline.

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

Our operating results have fluctuated significantly

As of April 2, 2022, there were 231,028,600 shares of our common stock outstanding. In addition, 5,330,240 shares of our common stock are subject to outstanding stock options and 3,138,701 shares of our common stock are subject to outstanding unvested restricted stock units. All outstanding shares of our common stock are eligible for sale in the past,public market under applicable federal securities laws, subject in certain cases to the requirements of Rule 144 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and we expect they will continue to fluctuate from period-to-periodshares issued upon the exercise or conversion of outstanding stock options, warrants or convertible notes may also be eligible for sale in the future duepublic market, to a variety of factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors relating to our business that may contribute to these fluctuations include, among others, the amount and timing of sales of products, the prices we charge for products, changes in product mix, customer mixextent permitted by Rule 144 or other similar factors, the rate and timing of our billing and collections cyclesapplicable securities laws and the timingprovisions of the applicable stock option, warrant and amount of our commitments and other payments, as well as the other risk factors described in this report. In addition, our resultsconvertible note agreements. If these shares are sold, or if it is perceived that they may be impacted by events that do not recur regularly,sold, in the same amounts or at all in other periods, including events that may result in our incurrence of cash or non-cash charges or gains in certain periods. These fluctuations in our operating results may render period-to-period comparisons less meaningful, and investors should not rely onpublic market, the results of any one period as an indicator of future performance. If our results of operations in any period fall below the expectations of securities analysts or investors, thetrading price of our common stock could decline substantially. As a result of thefall.

Chun K. Hong has significant fluctuations of our operating results in prior periods, period-to-period comparisons of our operating results may not be meaningful and investors in our common stock should not rely on these comparisons.

Our principal stockholders have significant voting power and may take actionscontrol over all corporate decisions that may not be in the best interest of our other stockholders.

As of November 6, 2017, 7.2% of our outstanding common stock was held by our directors and officers, including 6.9% held by Chun K. Hong, ourOur President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairmanthe sole member of our board of directors. As a result, Mr.directors, Chun K. Hong, has the ability to exert substantial influencecontrol over all matters requiring approval by our stockholders and our board of directors, including the election and removal of directors, any proposed merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets and other significant corporate transactions. This concentration of control could be disadvantageous to other stockholders with interests different from those of Mr. Hong.

Anti-takeover provisions under our charter documents and Delaware law, as well as our recently adopted rights agreement, could delay or prevent a change of control and could also limit the market price of our common stock.

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Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change of control of our Company or changes in our board of directors that our stockholders might consider favorable. In addition, these anti-takeover provisions could limit the price that investors would be willing to pay for shares of our common stock. The following are examples of the anti-takeover provision that are included in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws as currently in effect:favorable, including:

·

our board of directors is authorized, without prior stockholder approval, to designate and issue preferred stock, commonly referred to as “blank check” preferred stock, which may have rights senior to those of our common stock;

·

stockholder action by written consent is prohibited;

·

nominations for election to our board of directors and the submission of matters to be acted upon by stockholders at a meeting are subject to advance notice requirements; and

·

our board of directors is expressly authorized to make, alter or repeal our bylaws.

In addition, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which may prohibit certain business combinations with stockholders owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock. Further, in April 2017, we adopted a rights agreement that would, under certain specified circumstances and for so long as the rights issued under the rights agreement are outstanding, give the holders of our common stock the right to acquire additional shares of our capital stock, which would make it more difficult for a third party to acquire a significant percentage of our outstanding capital stock or attempt a hostile takeover of our Company.

These and other provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and of Delaware law, as well as the existence of our rights agreement, could make it more difficult for stockholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our board of directors or initiate actions that are opposed by our board of directors, including a merger, tender offer, proxy contest or other change of control transaction involving our Company. Any delay or prevention of a change of control transaction or changes in our board of directors could prevent the consummation of a transaction in which our stockholders could receive a substantial premium over the then-current market price for our common stock. In addition, these anti-takeover provisions could reduce the price that investors are willing to pay for shares of our common stock.

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

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

We intend to use all available funds to finance our operations. Accordingly, while payment of dividends rests within the discretion of our board of directors, no cash dividends on our common shares have been declared or paid by us in the past and we have no intention of paying any such dividends in the foreseeable future. Any return to investors is expected to come, if at all, only from potential increases in the price of our common stock.

Item 5.Other Information

On November 13, 2017,April 29, 2022, we entered into an At Market Issuance Salesamendment to the SVB Credit Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc. (the “Agent”) to sell sharesextend the Revolving Line Maturity Date (as defined in the SVB Credit Agreement) and to make certain other revisions to the SVB Credit Agreement. Pursuant to the amendment, the principal amount outstanding will accrue interest on advance at a per annum rate equal to the greater of our common stock, with aggregate gross proceeds of up to $9,000,000, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under0.75% above the Prime Rate (as defined in the SVB Credit Agreement) or 4.25%, which interest shall be payable monthly. The Borrowing Base (as defined in the Agent will act as sales agent.

Under the Sales Agreement, we will set the parameters for the sale of shares, including the number of sharesSVB Credit Agreement) was modified to be issued, the time period during which sales are requested to be made, limitation on the number of shares that may be sold in any one trading day and any minimum price below which sales may not be made. Subject to the terms and conditions of the Sales Agreement, the Agent may sell the shares by methods deemed to be an “at-the-market” offering as defined in Rule 415 promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), including sales made directly on or through the NASDAQ Capital Market, the existing trading market for our common stock, sales made to or through a market maker other than on an exchange or otherwise, in negotiated transactions at market prices, or any other method permitted by law.  We cannot provide any assurances that we will issue any shares pursuant to the Sales Agreement. The Sales Agreement may be terminated by us upon notice to the Agent or by the Agent upon notice to us,

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or at any time under certain circumstances, including but not limited to 85% of eligible accounts receivable, subject to certain adjustments, and 50% of eligible inventory. Additionally, the occurrence of a material adverse change inmaximum amount available for borrowing was increased to $10.0 million and the Company.maturity date to April 28, 2023.

The Sales Agreement provides that the Agent will be entitled to compensation for its services in an amount equal to 3% of the gross proceeds from the sale of shares sold under the Sales Agreement. We have no obligation to sell any shares under the Sales Agreement, and may suspend solicitation and offers under the Sales Agreement. The shares will be issued pursuant to our shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-199446) and a Prospectus Supplement to be filed on November 14, 2017 with the SEC in connection with the offer and sale of the shares pursuant to the Sales Agreement. We have agreed in the Sales Agreement to provide customary indemnification and contribution to the Agent against certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act.

Item 6. Exhibits.Exhibits

The information required by this Item 6 is set forth on the Exhibit Index and is incorporated herein by reference.

Filed

Incorporated by Reference

Exhibit No.

Exhibit Description

Herewith

Form

File No.

Filing Date

3.1

Exhibit No.

Description

1.1+

At Market Issuance Sales Agreement, dated November 13, 2017, between Netlist, Inc. and B. Riley FBR, Inc.

3.1

Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Netlist, Inc. (incorporated by reference to exhibit number 3.1 of the registrant’s Quarterly Report on Form

10-Q filed with the SEC on

001-33170

August 15, 2017).

2017

3.1.1

Certificate of Amendment to the Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Netlist, Inc. (incorporated by reference to exhibit number 3.1.1 of the registrant’s Quarterly Report on Form

10-Q filed with the SEC on

001-33170

August 15, 2017).

2017

3.1.2

Certificate of Amendment of the Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Netlist, Inc.

8-K

001-33170

August 17, 2018

3.1.3

Certificate of Designation of the Series A Preferred Stock of Netlist, Inc. (incorporated by reference to exhibit number 3.1.2 of the registrant’s Quarterly Report on Form

10-Q filed with the SEC on

001-33170

August 15, 2017).2017

3.2

3.2

Amended and Restated Bylaws of Netlist, Inc. (incorporated by reference to exhibit number 3.1 of the registrant’s Current Report on Form 

8-K filed with the SEC on

001-33170

December 20, 2012).

2012

5.1+3.2.1

OpinionCertificate of Morrison & Foerster LLP.Amendment to Amended and Restated Bylaws of Netlist, Inc.

8-K

001-33170

December 29, 2017

23.1+10.1

Consent of Morrison & Foerster LLP (included in Exhibit 5.1).Amendment to Loan and Security Agreement, dated April 29, 2022, by and between Netlist, Inc. and Silicon Valley Bank

X

31.1

31.1+

Rule 13a-14(a) / 15d-14(a) Certification of Chief Executive Officer pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a) or Rule 15d-14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as adopted pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

X

31.2

31.2+

Rule 13a-14(a) / 15d-14(a) Certification of Chief Financial Officer pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a) or Rule 15d-14(a) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as adopted pursuant to Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

X

32+

32*

Certification bySection 1350 Certifications of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Section 1350, as adopted pursuant to Section 906 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

X

101.INS

101.INS+

Inline XBRL Instance Document

X

101.SCH+101.SCH

Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document

X

101.CAL+101.CAL

Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document

X

101.LAB+101.LAB

Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Label Linkbase Document

69


X

101.PRE+101.PRE

Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document

X

50

Filed

Incorporated by Reference

Exhibit No.

Exhibit Description

Herewith

Form

File No.

Filing Date

101.DEF

101.DEF+

Inline XBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document

X

104

Cover Page Interactive Data File (embedded within the Inline XBRL document)


+

Furnished herewith.

+ Filed herewith.

* Furnished herewith.

7051


SIGNATURES

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned thereunto duly authorized.

Date:May 09, 2022

Netlist, Inc.

Date: November 14, 2017

NETLIST, INC.

a Delaware corporation

(Registrant)

By:

/s/ Chun K. Hong

Chun K. Hong

President, Chief Executive Officer and Sole Director

Chairman of the Board

(Principal Executive Officer)

By:

/s/ Gail M. Sasaki

Gail M. Sasaki

Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

(Principal Financial Officer)

7152