ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS

In addition to other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the following risk factors should be carefully considered in evaluating our business as they may have a significant impact on our business, operating results and financial condition. If any of the following risks actually occurs, our business, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects could be materially and adversely affected. Because of the following factors, as well as other variables affecting our operating results, past financial performance should not be considered as a reliable indicator of future performance and investors should not use historical trends to anticipate results or trends in future periods.

If we fail to successfully develop, introduce and sell new products, eFPGA IP Product, SensiML Software subscriptions/licenses, and other new solutions or if our design opportunities do not generate the revenue we expect, we may be unable to compete effectively in the future and our future gross margins and operating results will be lower.

The market for differentiated consumer devices is highly competitive and dynamic, with short end market product life cycles and rapid obsolescence of existing products. To compete successfully, we must obtain access to advanced fabrication capacity and dedicate significant resources to specify, design, develop, manufacture and sell new or enhanced solutions that provide increasingly higher levels of performance, low power consumption, new features, meeting current and emerging industry standards, reliability and/or cost savings to our customers. Due to the short product life cycle of these devices, our revenue is subject to fluctuation in a short period of time and our ability to grow our business depends on accelerating our design win activity. We often make significant investments in solutions, sensor algorithm software and silicon platform development, selling and marketing, long before we generate revenue, if any, from our efforts. The markets we are targeting typically have higher volumes and greater price pressure than our traditional business. In addition, we quote opportunities in anticipation of future cost reductions and may aggressively price products to gain market share. In order to react quickly to opportunities or to obtain favorable wafer prices, we make significant investments in and commitments to purchase inventories and capital equipment before we have firm commitments from customers.

We expect our business growth to be driven by new products, which currently include EOS™, Quick AI, SensiML, ArcticLink® III, PolarPro®3, PolarPro II, PolarPro, Eclipse II products. We also launched a business that licenses our FPGA technology for use in other semiconductor companies’ SoCs and delivered our first eFPGA IP product ArcticPro™ in 2017. The new product revenue growth of our new products and eFPGA IP product needs to be strong enough to achieve profitability. The gross margin associated with our new products is generally lower than the gross margin of our mature products, due primarily to the price-sensitive nature of the higher volume mobile consumer opportunities that we are pursuing with new products and eFPGA IP product. Because the product life cycle of mobile products is short, we must replace revenue at the end of a product life cycle with sales from new design opportunities. While we expect revenue and gross profit growth from new products and eFPGA IP product will offset the expected decline in revenue and gross profit from our mature products, there is no assurance whether or when this will occur. In order to increase our revenue from its current level, we depend upon increased revenue from our existing new products, especially solutions based on our EOS S3, ArcticLink and PolarPro solution platforms, the eFPGA IP product and the development of additional new products and solutions.

If (i) we are unable to design, produce and sell new products, eFPGA IP, SensiML and other products and solutions that meet design specifications, address customer requirements and generate sufficient revenue and gross profit; (ii) market demand for our new products, eFPGA IP product and other products fails to materialize; (iii) we are unable to obtain adequate fabrication capacity on a timely basis; (iv) we are unable to develop new silicon platforms or solutions in a timely manner; or (v) our customers do not successfully introduce products incorporating our devices, or choose a competing offering, our revenue and gross margin of the new products and eFPGA IP product will be materially harmed, which could have an overall adverse and potentially disproportionate effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

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Two of our products target new unproven markets, and if these markets do not develop, or if our products do not meet their needs, the loss of or reduction in orders could adversely affect our revenue and harm our business financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

eFPGA: We have history and experience in developing, selling and supporting FPGA products and incorporating FPGA IP developed by us into our platform solutions. The eFPGA market is a developing market with unknown requirements and demand. Our current FPGA architectures and their performance may not be a good fit for the eFPGA Market. eFPGA IP is designed for specific foundry/process node combinations, and the ones we have chosen to target may be different from what our customers require. The software developed by us for eFPGA may be delayed or may not meet the needs of the eFPGA Market. The support required by a customer to incorporate the eFPGA may be much higher than expected which may delay new engagements or lead to high costs. The incorporated eFPGA IP may have an unexpected result in the customer’s chip leading to compensation demands. The expected NRE and royalty rates we expect to charge for the eFPGA may not be competitive, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

SensiML: Mainstream AI runs on powerful processors and large FPGAs. SensiML’s AI solution targets end point solutions that use low power processors. The end point AI market is a developing market with unknown requirements and demand. The current SensiML solution may not be a good fit to the evolving needs of the end-point AI market. The support required for customer evaluations and implementation may be higher than expected which may delay engagements and lead to higher costs. The expected SaaS licensing fees and royalty rates we expect to charge for the SensiML solutions may not be competitive, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

If our AI products are not low touch, the cost of addressing the fragmented AI market will be high which will delay market penetration, result in reduced revenues or require increased expenses, any of which could adversely affect our revenue and harm our business financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

The end point AI market consists of many different use cases, with each individual use case having a modest volume even though the aggregate volume is large. This is quite different from the mobile consumer market which consists of a few large customers and use cases. In order to scale in the fragmented AI end point market, our products will have to be extremely low touch so that the cost of support is low and scalable across many customers. The current EOS S3AI solution and SensiML solutions may not be sufficiently low touch to address this market in a cost-effective manner, or in the volume required. Higher than expected costs, or lower than expected volume may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We have incurred losses in the past years since 2011 and anticipate that we will incur continued losses through at least the next year, we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue or raise additional financing to fund future losses, and we may not be able to sustain sufficient liquidity to continue to operate as a going concern.

We have experienced net losses in the past years and expect such losses to continue through at least the year ending January 3, 2021 as we continue to develop new products, applications and technologies. Our new products and products currently under development have been generating lower gross margin as a percentage of revenue than our mature products due to the markets that we have targeted and the larger order quantities associated with these applications. Whether we can achieve cash flow levels sufficient to support our operations cannot be accurately predicted, and our investment portfolio is subject to a degree of interest rate and liquidity risk. Unless such cash flow levels are achieved, in addition to the proceeds that we received on June 21, 2019 from the sale of our equity securities, and the credit line we may be able to draw down from Heritage Bank of Commerce under the  Amended and Restated Loan and Security Agreement dated December 21, 2018 and the first amendment to the Amended and Restated Loan and Security Agreement dated November 6, 2019, by and between our company and Heritage Bank of Commerce, we may need to obtain additional funds through strategic divestiture, or sell debt or equity securities, or some combination thereof, to provide funding for our operations. Such additional funding may not be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all.

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If we are unable to generate sufficient sales from its new products or adequate funds are not available when needed, our liquidity, financial condition and operating results would be materially and adversely affected, and we may not be able to operate our business without significant changes in our operations or at all.

Our products are subject to a lengthy sales cycle and our customers may cancel or change their product plans after we have expended substantial time and resources in the design of their products.

Our customers often evaluate our products for six months or more before designing them into their systems, and they may not commence volume shipments for up to an additional six to twelve months, if at all. During this lengthy sales cycle, our potential customers may cancel or change their product plans. Customers may also discontinue products incorporating our devices at any time or they may choose to replace our products with lower cost semiconductors. In addition, we are working with leading customers in our target markets to define our future products. If customers cancel, reduce or delay product orders from us, or choose not to release products that incorporate our devices after we have spent substantial time and resources developing products or assisting customers with their product design, our revenue levels may be less than anticipated and our business, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

We currently depend on a limited number of significant customers, for a significant portion of our revenue and the loss of or reduction in orders from such significant customers could adversely affect our revenue and harm our business financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

A small number of end-customers represented a significant portion our total revenue in our fiscal year ended December 29, 2019. During our fiscal year ended December 29, 2019, two customers accounted for 13% and 10%, respectively, of our total revenue. We expect to maintain this high level of customer concentration as we continue to market our solutions to leading manufacturers of high-volume mobile applications. As in the past, future demand from these customers may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter. These customers typically order products with short requested delivery lead times, and do not provide a commitment to purchase product past the period covered by purchase orders, which may be rescheduled or canceled. In addition, our manufacturing lead times are longer than the delivery lead times requested by these customers, and we make significant purchases of inventory and capital expenditures in anticipation of future demand. If revenue from any significant customer were to decline substantially, we may be unable to offset this decline with increased revenue and gross margin from other customers and we may purchase excess inventories. These factors could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We may make a significant investment in long-lived assets for the production of our products based upon historical and expected demand. If demand for our products or gross margin generated from our products does not meet our expectations or if we are unable to collect amounts due from significant customers, we may be required to write-off inventories, provide for uncollectible accounts receivable or incur charges against long-lived assets, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We depend upon partnering with other companies to offer voice, motion, and other solutions into our platform.

In addition to working directly with our customers, we partner with other companies that are experts in certain technologies to create more complete solutions. The depth of these relationships varies depending on the partner and the dynamics of the end market being targeted, but these relationships are typically a co-marketing relationship that includes joint account calls, promotional activities and/or engineering collaboration and developments. The propriety code provided by these partners may be an integral part of the solutions that we offer our customers. If we are unable to obtain competitive pricing (NRE, royalty) and prompt quality support by our partner, our solution may not be competitive. In addition, if the quality of our partner’s solution does not meet our customer’s requirements, it may delay or prevent the incorporation of our product by the customer. There may also be delays and additional expenses to improve or update the partner’s solution to meet current market needs. If we are unable to maintain a close working relationship with our partners it would hinder our ability to continue to develop and introduce leading solutions effectively in the future, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

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We depend on our relationships with third parties to manufacture our new products.

We depend upon GLOBALFOUNDRIES, TSMC, Amkor and STAT-chipPAC to manufacture our new products. The inability of any one of these companies to continue manufacture of our new products for any reason would require us to identify and qualify a new foundry to manufacture our new products. This would be time consuming, difficult and result in unforeseen operational problems. Alternate foundries might not be available to fabricate our new products, or if available, might be unwilling or unable to offer services on acceptable terms and our ability to operate our business or deliver our products to our customers could be severely impaired.

We depend upon third parties for silicon IP, detailed registered-transfer level, or RTL, design, physical design, verification and assembly of our silicon platforms and any failure to meet our requirements in a timely fashion may adversely affect our time to market and revenue.

Our move to a variable cost or outsourced engineering development model allows us access to the best design resources for developing new silicon platforms. This includes access to leading edge silicon IP as well as RTL design and physical design expertise. However, outsourcing the design of a complex silicon platform typically involves multiple companies in multiple locations, which may increase the risk of costly design errors. Any delays or errors in the design of our new silicon platforms could significantly increase the cost of development as well as adversely affect our time to market, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We depend upon partnering with other companies to develop IP, reference platforms, algorithm and system software.

In addition to working directly with our customers, we partner with other companies that are experts in certain technologies to develop additional intellectual property, reference platforms, algorithms and system software to provide application solutions. We also work with mobile processor manufacturers and companies that supply sensor, storage, networking or graphics components for embedded systems. The depth of these relationships varies depending on the partner and the dynamics of the end market being targeted, but is typically a co-marketing relationship that includes joint account calls, promotional activities and/or engineering collaboration and developments, such as reference designs. If we are unable to license new technologies, maintain a close working relationship with our partners, fail to continue to develop and introduce leading technologies or if these technologies fail to generate the revenue we expect, we may not be able to compete effectively in the future, which may have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We depend upon third parties to fabricate, assemble, test and program our products, and to provide logistics services. Any problems at these third parties could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We contract with third parties to fabricate, assemble, test and program our devices, and vendors for logistics. In general, each of our devices is fabricated, assembled and programmed by a single supplier, and the loss of a supplier, transfer of manufacturing to a new location, expiration of a supply agreement or the inability of our suppliers to manufacture our products to meet volume, performance, quality and cost targets could have a material adverse effect on our business. Our relationship with our suppliers could change as a result of a merger or acquisition. If for any reason these suppliers or any other vendor becomes unable or unwilling to continue to provide services of acceptable quality, at acceptable costs and in a timely manner, our ability to operate our business or deliver our products to our customers could be severely impaired. We would have to identify and qualify substitute suppliers, which could be time consuming, difficult and result in unforeseen operational problems, or we could announce an end-of-life program for these products. Alternate suppliers might not be available to fabricate, assemble, test and program our devices or, if available, might be unwilling or unable to offer services on acceptable terms. In addition, if competition for wafer manufacturing capacity increases, if we need to migrate to more advanced wafer manufacturing technology, or if competition for assembly services increases, we may be required to pay or invest significant amounts to secure access to this capacity. The number of companies that provide these services is limited and some of them have limited operating histories and financial resources. In the event our current suppliers refuse or are unable to continue to provide these services to us, or if we are unable to secure sufficient capacity from our current suppliers on commercially reasonable terms, we may be unable to procure

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services from alternate suppliers in a timely manner, if at all. Moreover, our reliance on a limited number of suppliers subjects us to reduced control over delivery schedules, quality assurance and costs. This lack of control may cause unforeseen product shortages or may increase our cost to manufacture and test our products.

We utilize third party logistics services, including transportation, warehouse and shipping services. These service providers are subject to interruptions that affect their ability to service us, including the availability of transportation services, disruptions related to work stoppages, volatility in fuel prices and security incidents or natural events at manufacturing, shipping or receiving points or along transportation routes.

In the event any of our third party suppliers or vendors were to experience financial, operational, production or quality assurance difficulties resulting in a reduction or interruption in supply or providing services to us, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected.

If we fail to adequately forecast demand for our products, we may incur product shortages or excess product inventories.

Our agreements with certain suppliers require us to provide forecasts of our anticipated manufacturing orders, and place binding manufacturing commitments in advance of receiving purchase orders from our customers. We are limited in our ability to increase or decrease our forecasts under such agreements. Other manufacturers supply us with product on a purchase order basis. The allocation of capacity is determined solely by our suppliers, over which we have no direct control. Additionally, we may place orders with our suppliers in advance of customer orders to allow us to quickly respond to changing customer demand or to obtain favorable product costs. Furthermore, we provide our suppliers with equipment that is used to program our products to customer specifications. The programming equipment is manufactured to our specifications and has significant order lead times. These factors may result in product shortages or excess product inventories. Obtaining additional supply in the face of product, programming equipment or capacity shortages may be costly, or not possible, especially in the short-term since most of our products and programming equipment are supplied by a single supplier. If we fail to adequately forecast demand for our products, our business, the relationship with our customers, our results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

We entered into informal partnerships with certain third parties for the development of solutions. Our business could be adversely affected if such informal partnerships fail to grow as we expected.

Our approach to developing solutions for potential customers involves developing solutions for and aligning our roadmap with application processor, sensor, and flash memory vendors. We have entered into informal partnerships with other parties that involve the development of solutions that interface with their devices or standards. These informal partnerships also may involve joint marketing campaigns and sales calls. If the informal partnerships do not grow as expected or if they are significantly reduced or terminated by acquisition or other means, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely effected and we may be required to write-off related inventories and long-lived assets.

Our business could be adversely affected by undetected errors or defect in our products.

Difficulties encountered during the complex semiconductor manufacturing process can render a substantial percentage of semiconductor devices nonfunctional. New manufacturing techniques or fluctuations in the manufacturing process may change the performance distribution and yield of our products. We have, in the past, experienced manufacturing runs that have contained substantially reduced or no functioning devices, or that generated devices with below normal performance characteristics. Our reliance on third party suppliers may extend the period of time required to analyze and correct these problems. Once corrected, our customers may be required to redesign or re-qualify their products. As a result, we may incur substantially higher manufacturing costs, shortages of inventories or reduced customer demand.

Yield fluctuations frequently occur in connection with the manufacture of newly introduced products, with changes in product architecture, with manufacturing at new facilities, on new fabrication processes or in conjunction with new backend manufacturing processes. Newly introduced solutions and products are often more complex and

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more difficult to produce, increasing the risk of manufacturing related defects. New manufacturing facilities or processes are often more complex and take a period of time to achieve expected quality levels and manufacturing efficiencies. While we test our products, including our software development tools, they may still contain errors or defects that are found after we have commenced commercial production. Undetected errors or defects may also result from new manufacturing processes or when new intellectual property is incorporated into our products. If our products or software development tools contain undetected or unresolved defects, we may lose market share, experience delays in or loss of market acceptance, reserve or scrap inventories or be required to issue a product recall. In addition, we would be at risk of product liability litigation if defects in our products were discovered. Although we attempt to limit our liability to end users through disclaimers of special, consequential and indirect damages and similar provisions, we cannot assure you that such limitations of liability will be legally enforceable.

We may be unable to accurately estimate quarterly revenue, which could adversely affect the trading price of our stock.

Due to our relatively long product delivery cycle and the inability of our customers in the rapidly evolving mobile market to confirm product requirements on a timely basis, we may have low visibility to product demand or estimated revenue in any given quarter. If our customers cannot provide us with accurate delivery lead times, we may not be able to deliver product to our customers in a timely fashion. Furthermore, our ability to respond to increased demand is limited to inventories on hand or on order, the capacity available at our contract manufacturers and our capacity to program products to customer specifications. If we fail to accurately estimate customer demand, or if our available capacity is less than needed to meet customer demand, we may not be able to accurately estimate our quarterly revenue, which may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition, and our stock price could be materially fluctuate as a result.

We will be unable to compete effectively if we fail to anticipate product opportunities based upon emerging technologies and standards or fail to develop products and solutions that incorporate these technologies and standards in a timely manner.

We spend significant resources designing and developing silicon solution platforms, IP and software and reference designs, and adopting emerging technologies. We intend to develop additional products and solutions and to adopt new technologies in the future. If system manufacturers adopt alternative standards or technologies, if an industry standard or emerging technology that we have targeted fails to achieve broad market acceptance, if customers choose low power offerings from our competitors, or if we are unable to bring the technologies or solutions to market in a timely and cost-effective manner, we may be unable to generate significant revenue from our research and development efforts. As a result, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected, and we may be required to write-off related inventories and long-lived assets.

The semiconductor business is subject to downward price pressure.

The market for our products has been characterized by declining selling prices, and we anticipate that our average selling prices will decrease in future periods, although the timing and amount of these decreases cannot be predicted with any certainty. The pricing pressure in the semiconductor industry in past years has been due to a large number of factors, many of which were not easily foreseeable, such as currency crisis, industry-wide excess manufacturing capacity, weak economic growth, the slowdown in capital spending that followed the "dot-com" collapse, the reduction in capital spending by telecom companies and satellite companies, and the effects of the terrorism since September 11, 2001. Similar to past years, recent unfavorable economic conditions have resulted in a tightening of the credit markets. If signs of improvement in the global economy do not progress as expected and global economic conditions worsen, we may experience a decline in our average selling prices. In addition, our competitors have in the past, and may again in the future, lower prices in order to increase their market share. Continued downward price pressure in the industry may harm our competitive position and materially and adversely affect our financial condition, cash flows, and results of operations.

Our future operating results are likely to fluctuate and therefore may fail to meet expectations, which could cause our stock price to decline.

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Our operating results have varied widely in the past and are likely to do so in the future. In addition, our past operating results may not be an indicator of future operating results.

Factors that could cause our operating results to fluctuate include, without limitation: (i) successful development and market acceptance of our products and solutions; (ii) our ability to accurately forecast product volumes and mix, and to respond to rapid changes in customer demand; (iii) changes in sales volume or expected sales volume, product mix, average selling prices or production variances that affect gross profit; (iv) the effect of end-of-life programs; (v) a significant change in sales to, or the collectability of accounts receivable from, our largest customers; (vi) our ability to adjust our product features, manufacturing capacity and costs in response to economic and competitive pressures; (vii) our reliance on subcontract manufacturers for product capacity, yield and quality; (viii) our competitors’ product portfolio and product pricing policies; (ix) timely implementation of efficient manufacturing technologies; (x) errors in applying or changes in accounting and corporate governance rules; (xi) the issuance of equity compensation awards or changes in the terms of our stock plan or employee stock purchase plan; (xii) mergers or acquisitions; (xiii) the impact of import and export laws and regulations; (xiv) the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and general economic, market, political and social conditions in the countries where we sell our products and the related effect on our customers, distributors and suppliers; and (xv) our ability to obtain capital, debt financing and insurance on commercially reasonable terms. Although certain of these factors are out of our immediate control, unless we can anticipate and be prepared with contingency plans that respond to these factors, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected, which could cause our stock price to significantly fluctuate or decline.

In particular, since we derived in 2019 and expect to continue to derive a significant portion of our revenue from China, our business development plans, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected by significant political, social and economic developments in China. A slowdown in economic growth in China, such as due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus could adversely impact our customers, prospective customers, suppliers, distributors and partners in China, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of the operations and financial condition. There is no guarantee that economic downturns, whether actual or perceived, any further decrease in economic growth rates or an otherwise uncertain economic outlook in China will not occur or persist in the future, that they will not be protracted or that governments will respond adequately to control and reverse such conditions, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We may also encounter periods of industry wide semiconductor oversupply, resulting in pricing pressure, as well as undersupply, resulting in a risk that we could be unable to fulfill our customers' requirements. The semiconductor industry has historically been characterized by wide fluctuations in the demand for, and supply of, its products. These fluctuations have resulted in circumstances when supply of and demand for semiconductors has been widely out of balance. An industry wide semiconductor oversupply could result in severe downward pricing pressure from customers. In a market with undersupply of manufacturing capacity, we would have to compete with larger foundry and assembly customers for limited manufacturing resources. In such an environment, we may be unable to have our products manufactured in a timely manner, at a cost that generates adequate gross profit or in sufficient quantities. Since we outsource all of our manufacturing and generally have a single source of wafer supply, test, assembly and programming for our products, we are particularly vulnerable to such supply shortages and capacity limitations. As a result, we may be unable to fulfill orders and may lose customers. Any future industry wide oversupply or undersupply of semiconductors could therefore have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We may be unable to successfully grow our business if we fail to compete effectively with others to attract and retain our executive officers, and other key management or technical personnel.

We believe our future success depends upon our ability to attract and retain highly competent personnel. Our employees are at-will and not subject to employment contracts. We could potentially lose the services of any of our senior management personnel at any time due to a variety of factors that could include, without limitation, death, incapacity, military service, personal issues, retirement, resignation or competing employers. Our ability to execute current plans could be adversely affected by such a loss. We may fail to attract and retain qualified technical, sales,

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marketing and managerial personnel required to continue to operate our business successfully. Personnel with the expertise necessary for our business are scarce and competition for personnel with proper skills is intense.

In addition, new hires frequently require extensive training before they achieve desired levels of productivity. Additionally, attrition in personnel can result from, among other things, changes related to acquisitions, retirement and disability. We may not be able to retain existing key technical, sales, marketing and managerial employees or be successful in attracting, developing or retaining other highly-qualified technical, sales, marketing and managerial personnel, particularly at such times in the future as we may need to fill a key position. If we are unable to continue to develop and retain existing executive officers or other key employees or are unsuccessful in attracting new highly-qualified employees, our financial condition, cash flows, and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

We may have increasing difficulty attracting and retaining qualified outside board members.

The directors and management of publicly traded corporations are increasingly concerned with the extent of their personal exposure to lawsuits and shareholder claims, as well as governmental and creditor claims that may be made against them in connection with their positions with publicly held companies. Outside directors are becoming increasingly concerned with the availability of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance to pay on a timely basis the costs incurred in defending shareholder claims. Directors’ and officers’ liability insurance is expensive and difficult to obtain. The SEC and the Nasdaq Capital Market have also imposed higher independence standards and certain special requirements on directors of public companies. Accordingly, it may become increasingly difficult to attract and retain qualified outside directors to serve on our board of directors.

Our company’s global operations are subject to risks and uncertainties.

Most of our products are manufactured outside of the United States at manufacturing facilities operated by our suppliers in Asia and South Asia.

A significant portion of our total revenue comes from sales to customers located outside the United States. We anticipate that sales to customers located outside the United States will continue to represent a significant portion of our total revenue in future periods. In addition, most of our domestic customers sell their products outside of North America, thereby indirectly exposing us to risks associated with foreign commerce and economic instability. In addition to overseas sales offices, we have significant research and development activities in India.

International operations are subject to certain risks inherent in conducting business outside the U.S., such as changes in currency exchange rates, tax laws, price and currency exchange controls, export and import restrictions, environmental regulations, protection of intellectual property rights, nationalization, expropriation and other governmental action. Accordingly, our operations and revenue are subject to a number of risks associated with foreign commerce, including the following: (i) staffing and managing foreign offices; (ii) managing foreign distributors; (iii) collecting amounts due; (iv) political and economic instability; (v) foreign currency exchange fluctuations; (vi) changes in tax laws, import and export regulations, tariffs and freight rates; (vii) timing and availability of export licenses; (viii) supplying products that meet local environmental regulations; and (ix) inadequate protection of intellectual property rights. In addition, we incur costs in foreign countries that may be difficult to reduce quickly because of employee related laws and practices in those foreign countries. Our global operations also may be adversely affected by political events and domestic or international terrorist events and hostilities. Current events, including potential disruption caused by the COVID-19 virus outbreak first identified in China in December 2019, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, potential changes in immigration policies and tax reform proposals, create a level of uncertainty for multi-national companies. As U.S. companies continue to expand globally, increased complexity exists due to the possibility of renegotiated trade deals, revised international tax law treaties, and changes to the U.S. corporate tax code. These uncertainties could have a material adverse effect on our business and our results of operations and financial condition. As we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these and other risks.

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Rising concern of international tariffs, including tariffs applied to goods traded between the United States and China, could materially and adversely affect our business and results of operations.

Since the beginning of 2018, there has been increasing rhetoric, in some cases coupled with legislative or executive action, from several U.S. and foreign leaders regarding tariffs against foreign imports of certain materials. More specifically, there have been several rounds of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods taking effect in 2018 and 2019, some of which prompted retaliatory Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods. Approximately $1.8 million, or 15%, of our total revenue for the year ended December 30, 2018, and approximately $1.1 million, or 11%, of our total revenue for the year ended December 29, 2019, consisted of sales of our EOS S3 and FPGA products to both OEMs and ODMs in China. The institution of trade tariffs both globally and between the U.S. and China specifically carries the risk of negatively affecting China’s overall economic condition, which could have a negative impact on us as we derived and expect to continue to derive a significant amount of revenue from China. Imposition of tariffs could cause a decrease in the sales of our products to customers located in China or other customers selling to Chinese end users, which would directly impact our business and operating results.

Exchange rate fluctuations could adversely affect our company’s results of operations and financial condition.

We denominate sales of our products to foreign countries exclusively in U.S. dollars. As a result, any increase in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to the local currency of a foreign country will increase the price of our products in that country so that our products become relatively more expensive to customers in their local currency which may cause sales of our products in that foreign country to decline. If the local currency of a foreign country in which we conduct business strengthens against the U.S. dollar, our payroll and other local expenses will be higher, and since sales are transacted in U.S. dollars, would not be offset by any increase in revenue. To the extent any such risks materialize, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

Our solutions face competition from suppliers of ASSPs, suppliers of integrated application processors, low power FPGAs, low power MCUs, suppliers of ASICs, suppliers of eFPGA IP, and suppliers of sensor algorithm software whose software is running on competitors’ devices.

We face competition from companies that offer ASSPs. While it is difficult to provide a unique solution through the use of ASSPs, ASSPs generally are cost-effective standard products with short lead times. In certain design opportunities, ASSPs can be combined to achieve system design objectives. Manufacturers of integrated application processors often integrate new features when they introduce new products. A system designer could elect the use of an integrated processor that includes the features offered in our solutions and/or a widely accepted feature of our solutions could be integrated into a competitor’s ASSP. Some vendors offer low power FPGAs that can be adopted by a mobile device for hardware differentiation that is similar in functionality, physical size, power consumption and price to what we offer with our programmable logic-based solutions. We also face competition from low power MCU companies. While MCUs cannot be customized at the hardware level for product differentiation, they do have the ability to run custom software algorithms written in standard C code, which may yield similar functionality as what we can provide with our products. Companies that supply ASICs, which may be purchased for a lower price at higher volumes and typically have greater logic capacity, additional features and higher performance than our products. In addition, we face competition from companies that provide sensor algorithm software, which may be licensed directly by an OEM, or licensed for use through an MCU company. If we are unable to successfully compete with companies that supply ASSPs, lower power FPGAs, MCUs, ASICs, eFPGA IP, or sensor algorithm software in any of the following areas, our business, results of operations and financial condition will be materially adversely affected: (i) the development of new products, solutions and advanced manufacturing technologies; (ii) the quality, power characteristics, performance characteristics, price and availability of devices, programming hardware and software development tools; (iii) the ability to engage with companies that provide synergistic products and services, including algorithms that may be preloaded into our device at configuration; (iv) the incorporation of industry standards in our products and solutions; (v) the diversity of product offerings available to customers; and (vi) the quality and cost-effectiveness of design, development, manufacturing and marketing efforts.

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Our industry is in the midst of a consolidation phase which could result in stronger and better resourced competitors in the markets in which the company competes.

Mergers and acquisitions activity is at a high level in the semiconductor industry, as large companies have perceived attractive opportunities in today’s market to acquire new technologies and product lines by buying smaller companies. If our small and mid-sized competitors become targets of M&A activity and some of them are actually acquired by larger companies with much greater resources than us, we would face heightened competition that could result in lost sales and eroded margins.

We may not be able to achieve the anticipated synergies and benefits from business acquisitions, including our acquisition of SensiML Corporation.

Part of our business strategy is to acquire businesses that we believe can complement our current business activities, both financially and strategically. Acquisitions, including the SensiML Acquisition, involve many complexities, including, but not limited to, risks associated with the acquired business’ past activities, difficulties in integrating personnel and human resource programs, integrating technology systems and other infrastructures under the Company’s control, unanticipated expenses and liabilities, and the impact on our internal controls and compliance with the regulatory requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. There is no guarantee that our acquisitions will increase the profitability and cash flow of the Company, and our efforts could cause unforeseen complexities and additional cash outflows, including financial losses. As a result, the realization of anticipated synergies or benefits from acquisitions may be delayed or substantially reduced.

Litigation could adversely impact our consolidated financial position.

We have been and may be in the future involved in various litigation matters arising in the ordinary course of business, including, but not limited to, litigation relating to employment matters, commercial transactions, intellectual property matters, contracts, environmental matters and matters related to compliance with governmental regulations. Litigation is inherently uncertain and unpredictable. The potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, such factors as the costs and expenses of litigation and the time and attention required of management to attend to litigation. An unfavorable resolution of any particular legal claim or proceeding, and/or the costs and expenses incurred in connection with a legal claim or proceeding, could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

We may be unable to adequately protect our intellectual property rights and may face significant expenses as a result of future litigation.

Protection of intellectual property rights is crucial to our business, since that is how we keep others from copying our innovations and those of third parties that are central to our existing and future products. From time to time, we receive letters alleging patent infringement or inviting us to license other parties’ patents. We evaluate these requests on a case-by-case basis. These situations may lead to litigation if we reject the offer to obtain the license.

In the past, we have been involved in litigation relating to our alleged infringement of third party patents or other intellectual property rights. This type of litigation is expensive and consumes large amounts of management time and attention.

Because it is critical to our success that we continue to prevent competitors from copying our innovations, we intend to continue to seek patent and trade secret protection for our products. The process of seeking patent protection can be long and expensive, and we cannot be certain that any currently pending or future applications will actually result in issued patents or that, even if patents are issued, they will be of sufficient scope or strength to provide meaningful protection or any commercial advantage to us. Furthermore, others may develop technologies that are similar or superior to our technology or design around the patents we own. We also rely on trade secret protection for our technology, in part through confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants and other third parties. However, these parties may breach these agreements and we may not have adequate remedies for any breach. In any case, others may come to know about or determine our trade secrets through a variety of methods. In

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addition, the laws of certain territories in which we develop, manufacture or sell our products may not protect our intellectual property rights to the same extent as the laws of the United States.

The market price of our common stock may fluctuate significantly and could lead to securities litigation.

Stock prices for many companies in the technology and emerging growth sectors have experienced wide fluctuations that have often been unrelated to the operating performance of such companies. In the past, securities class action litigation has often been brought against companies following periods of volatility in the market price of its securities. In the future, we may be the subject of similar litigation. Securities litigation could result in substantial costs and divert management’s attention.

We may engage in manufacturing, distribution or technology agreements that involve numerous risks, including the use of cash, erosion of margins due to royalty obligations or revenue sharing and diversion of resources.

We have entered into and, in the future, intend to enter into agreements that involve numerous risks, including the use of significant amounts of our cash; royalty obligations or revenue sharing; diversion of resources from other development projects or market opportunities; our ability to collect amounts due under these contracts; and market acceptance of related products and solutions. If we fail to recover the cost of these or other assets from the cash flow generated by the related products, our assets will become impaired and our results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.

Our business is subject to political, economic and health risks, natural disasters and other catastrophic events, which could have a material adverse effect on our business operations.

Our operations and the operations of our suppliers are vulnerable to interruption by fire, earthquake, power loss, flood, terrorist acts and other catastrophic events beyond our control. In particular, our headquarters are located near earthquake fault lines in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, we rely on certain suppliers to manufacture our products and would not be able to qualify an alternate supplier of our products for several quarters. Our suppliers often hold significant quantities of our inventories, which, in the event of a disaster, could be destroyed. If there is an earthquake or other catastrophic even near our headquarters, our customers’ facilities, our distributors facilities or our suppliers’ facilities, our business could be seriously harmed.

In addition, any catastrophic event, such as the recent COVID-19 virus outbreak first identified in China, the failure of our computer systems or networks, including due to computer viruses, security breaches, war or acts of terrorism, could significantly disrupt our operations. Specifically, any prolonged health threat globally could adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that could impact our operating results. The occurrence of any of these events could also affect our customers, distributors and suppliers and produce similar disruptive effects upon their business, which would likely impact our sales and cause a decline in our revenue.

We do not maintain sufficient business interruption and other insurance policies to compensate us for all losses that may occur. Any losses or damages incurred by us as a result of a catastrophic event or any other significant uninsured loss could have a material adverse effect on our business.

There may be some potential effects of system outages or data security breaches, which could adversely affect our operations, financial results or reputation.

We face risks from electrical or telecommunications outages, computer hacking or other general system failure. We rely heavily on our internal information and communications systems and on systems or support services from third parties to manage our operations efficiently and effectively. Any of these are subject to failure. System-wide or local failures that affect our information processing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. In addition, a system failure or data security breach could also result in the unintentional disclosure of confidential information about us, our customers or our employees, which could result in our incurring costs for remedial or preventative actions, damage our reputation with customers and reduce demand for our products and services. Further, insurance coverage does not generally protect from

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normal wear and tear, which can affect system performance. Any applicable insurance coverage for an occurrence could prove to be inadequate. Coverage may be or become unavailable or inapplicable to any risks then prevalent.

Our Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws and Delaware law contain provisions that could discourage a takeover that is beneficial to stockholders.

Provisions of our Certificate of Incorporation, our Bylaws and Delaware law could have the effect of discouraging takeover attempts that certain stockholders might deem to be in their interest. These anti-takeover provisions may make us a less attractive target for a takeover bid or merger, potentially depriving shareholders of an opportunity to sell their shares of common stock at a premium over prevailing market prices as a result of a takeover bid or merger.

Changes to existing accounting pronouncements or taxation rules or practices may cause adverse revenue fluctuations, affect our reported financial results or how we conduct our business.

Generally accepted accounting principles in the United States, or GAAP, are promulgated by, and are subject to the interpretation of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, and the SEC. New accounting pronouncements or taxation rules and varying interpretations of accounting pronouncements or taxation practices have occurred and may occur in the future. Any future changes in accounting pronouncements or taxation rules or practices may have a significant effect on how we report our results and may even affect our reporting of transactions completed before the change is effective. In addition, a review of existing or prior accounting practices may result in a change in previously reported amounts. This change to existing rules, future changes, if any, or the questioning of current practices may adversely affect our reported financial results, our ability to remain listed on the Nasdaq, or the way we conduct our business and subject us to regulatory inquiries or litigation.

If, in the future, we conclude our internal control over financial reporting is not effective, investors could lose confidence in the reliability of our financial statements, which could result in a decrease in the value of our common stock.

As directed by Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the SEC adopted rules requiring public companies to include a report of management on the companies’ internal control over financial reporting in their annual reports on Form 10-K, including an assessment by management of the effectiveness of the filing company’s internal control over financial reporting. In addition, the independent registered public accounting firm auditing a public company’s financial statements must attest to the effectiveness of the company's internal control over financial reporting. There is a risk that in the future we may identify internal control deficiencies that suggest that our controls are no longer effective. This could result in an adverse reaction in the financial markets due to a loss of confidence in the reliability of our financial statements, which could cause the market price of our common stock to decline and make it more difficult for us to finance our operations.

Both our customers and we are subject to laws, regulations and similar requirements, changes to which may adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.

Both our customers and we are subject to laws, regulations and similar requirements that affect our business, results of operations and financial condition, including, but not limited to, the areas of commerce, import and export control, financial disclosures, intellectual property, income and other taxes, anti-trust, anti-corruption, labor, environmental, health and safety. Our compliance in these areas may be costly, especially in areas where there are inconsistencies between the various jurisdictions in which we operate. While we have implemented policies and procedures to comply with laws and regulations, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, suppliers or agents will not violate such laws and regulations or our policies. Any such violation or alleged violation could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, cash flows and results of operations. Any changes or potential changes to laws, regulations or similar requirements, or our ability to respond to these changes, may significantly increase our costs to maintain compliance or result in our decision to limit our business, products or jurisdictions in which we operate, any of which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. Federal and state regulatory agencies, including the United States Federal Communications Commission and the various state public utility commissions and public service commissions, regulate most of our domestic telecommunications customers. Similar government oversight also exists in the international market.

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While we may not be directly affected by this legislation, such regulation of our customers may negatively impact our business. For instance, the sale of our products may be affected by the imposition upon certain of our customers of common carrier tariffs and the taxation of telecommunications services. These regulations are continuously reviewed and changed by the various governmental agencies. Changes in current or future laws or regulations, in the United States or elsewhere, could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act includes provisions regarding certain minerals and metals, known as conflict minerals, mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and adjoining countries. These provisions require companies to undertake due diligence procedures and report on the use of conflict minerals in its products, including products manufactured by third parties. Compliance with these provisions has caused and will continue to cause us to incur costs to determine whether our supply chain is conflict free and we may face difficulties if our suppliers are unwilling or unable to verify the source of their materials. Our ability to source these minerals and metals may also be adversely impacted. In addition, our customers may require that we provide them with a certification and our inability to do so may disqualify us as a supplier.

We have implemented import and export control procedures to comply with United States regulations but we are still exposed to potential risks from import and export activity.

Our products, solutions, technology and software are subject to import and export control laws and regulations, which, in some instances, may impose restrictions on business activities, or otherwise require licenses or other authorizations from agencies such as the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of the Treasury. These restrictions may impact deliveries to customers or limit development and manufacturing alternatives. We have import and export licensing and compliance procedures in place for purposes of conducting our business consistent with U.S. and applicable international laws and regulations, and we periodically review these procedures to maintain compliance with the requirements relating to import and export regulations. If we are not able to remain in compliance with import and export regulations, we might be subject to investigation, sanctions or penalties by regulatory authorities. Such penalties can include civil, criminal or administrative remedies such as loss of export privileges. We cannot be certain as to the outcome of an evaluation, investigation, inquiry or other action or the impact of these items on our operations. Any such action could adversely affect our financial results and the market price of our common stock.

We have entered and will continue to enter into strategic licensing and collaborative partnerships and relationships with third parties. The anticipated benefits of these partnerships and relationships may never materialize and these partnerships and relationships may instead disrupt our business and harm our financial condition.

We have entered into strategic licensing and collaborative partnerships and relationships with third parties and will continue to enter into such partnerships and relationships with the goal of acquiring or gaining access to new and innovative semiconductor products and technologies, as well as other technologies which can be used to add to the differentiation of our emerging products, on a timely basis. Negotiating and performing under these arrangements involves significant time and expense, and we cannot assure you that the anticipated benefits of these arrangements will ever materialize or that the products or technologies involved will ever be commercialized or that, as a result, we will not have written down a portion or all of our investment. The arrangements with some third parties contain conditions and contingencies (such as a condition to raise a certain amount of capital), and we cannot assure you that we will meet all the conditions under these arrangements. We may end up with owing various obligations and commitments to third parties related to these arrangements. Such arrangements can magnify several risks for us, including loss of control over the development and development timeline of products being developed with third parties. Accordingly, we face increased risk that development activities may result in products that are not commercially successful or that are not available in a timely fashion. In addition, any third party with whom we enter into a development, product collaboration or technology licensing arrangement may fail to commit sufficient resources to the project, change its policies or priorities and abandon or fail to perform its obligations related to the collaboration. The failure to timely develop commercially successful products through our development projects or strategic investment activities as a result of any of these and other challenges could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. Other challenges and risks presented by use of strategic partnerships include the acquisition of a partner with which we have a strategic relationship by an unaffiliated third party that either delays or jeopardizes the original intent of the partnering relationship or investment.

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Cyberattacks through security vulnerabilities could lead to disruption of business, reduced revenue, increased costs, liability claims, or harm to our reputation or competitive position.

Security vulnerabilities may arise from our hardware, software, employees, contractors or policies we have deployed, which may result in external parties gaining access to our networks, datacenters, cloud datacenters, corporate computers, manufacturing systems, and or access to accounts we have at our suppliers, vendors, and customers. They may gain access to our data or our users’ or customers’ data, or attack the networks causing denial of service or attempt to hold our data or systems in ransom. The vulnerability could be caused by inadequate account security practices such as failure to timely remove employee access when terminated. To mitigate these security issues, we have implemented measures throughout our organization, including firewalls, backups, encryption, employee information technology policies and user account policies. However, there can be no assurance these measures will be sufficient to avoid cyberattacks. If any of these types of security breaches were to occur and we were unable to protect sensitive data, our relationships with our business partners and customers could be materially damaged, our reputation could be materially harmed, and we could be exposed to a risk of litigation and possible significant liability.

Further, if we fail to adequately maintain our infrastructure, we may have outages and data loss. Excessive outages may affect our ability to timely and efficiently deliver products to customers or develop new products and solutions. Such disruptions and data loss may adversely impact our ability to fulfill orders, patent our intellectual property or protect our source code, and interrupt other processes. Delayed sales or lost customers resulting from these disruptions could adversely affect our financial results, stock price and reputation.

Effective May 25, 2018, the European Union, or EU, implemented the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, a broad data protection framework that expands the scope of current EU data protection law to non-European Union entities that process, or control the processing of, the personal information of EU subjects. The GDPR allows for the imposition of fines and corrective action on entities that improperly use or disclose the personal information of EU subjects, including through a data security breach. The State of California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, or CCPA, effective on January 1, 2020, which contains requirements similar to GDPR for the handling of personal information of California residents, commencing on January 1, 2020.

Our and our collaborators’ and contractors’ failure to fully comply with GDPR, CCPA and other laws could lead to significant fines and require onerous corrective action. In addition, data security breaches experienced by us, our collaborators or contractors could result in the loss of trade secrets or other intellectual property, public disclosure of sensitive commercial data, and the exposure of personally identifiable information (including sensitive personal information) of our employees, customers, collaborators and others.

Unauthorized use or disclosure of, or access to, any personal information maintained by us or on our behalf, whether through breach of our systems, breach of the systems of our suppliers or vendors by an unauthorized party, or through employee or contractor error, theft or misuse, or otherwise, could harm our business. If any such unauthorized use or disclosure of, or access to, such personal information was to occur, our operations could be seriously disrupted, and we could be subject to demands, claims and litigation by private parties, and investigations, related actions, and penalties by regulatory authorities. In addition, we could incur significant costs in notifying affected persons and entities and otherwise complying with the multitude of foreign, federal, state and local laws and regulations relating to the unauthorized access to, or use or disclosure of, personal information. Finally, any perceived or actual unauthorized access to, or use or disclosure of, such information could harm our reputation, substantially impair our ability to attract and retain customers and have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

If we do not maintain compliance with the listing requirements of the Nasdaq Capital Market, our common stock could be delisted, which could, among other things, reduce the price of our common stock and the levels of liquidity available to our stockholders.

Our common stock was originally listed on the Nasdaq Global Market and was transferred to the Nasdaq Capital Market (the “Nasdaq”) on July 22, 2019. In order to maintain that listing, we must satisfy minimum financial and other continued listing requirements and standards, including those regarding director independence and

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independent committee requirements, minimum stockholders' equity, minimum share price, and certain corporate governance requirements.

On January 18, 2019, we were notified in writing by the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC  that the average closing bid price of our common stock was below the criteria of the continued listing standards of the Nasdaq Global Market, as the average per share closing price of our common stock over a consecutive 30-trading day period was less than $1.00. To regain compliance, we undertook steps to obtain shareholder approval and the approval of our Board of Directors to effect a reverse stock split of our outstanding shares of common stock, at a ratio of 1-for-14. The Reverse Stock Split was effected on December 23, 2019. On January 9, 2020, the Company received a letter from Nasdaq stating that the Company had regained compliance with the Bid Price Rule and it considered the matter closed.

There can be no assurances that we will be able to maintain compliance with the applicable listing standards of Nasdaq. In the event that our common stock is delisted from Nasdaq and is not eligible for quotation on another market or exchange, trading of our common stock could be conducted in the over-the-counter market or on an electronic bulletin board established for unlisted securities, such as the Pink Sheets or the OTC Markets. In such event, it could become more difficult to dispose of, or obtain accurate price quotations for, our common stock, and there would likely also be a reduction in our coverage by securities analysts and the news media, which could cause the price of our common stock to decline further. Also, it may be difficult for us to raise additional capital if we are not listed on a major exchange.