ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
Resonant is a late-stage development company that has created an innovative software, intellectual property, or IP, and services platform that has the ability to increase designer efficiency, reduce the time to market and lower unit costs in the designs of filters for radio frequency, or RF, front-ends for the mobile device, automotive, medical, internet-of-things and related industries. The RF front-end, or RFFE, is the circuitry in a device responsible for analog signal processing and is located between the device’s antenna and its digital circuitry. The software platform we continue to develop is based on fundamentally new technology that we call Infinite Synthesized Networks®, or ISN®, to configure and connect resonators, the building blocks of RF filters. Filters are a critical component of the RF front-end used to select desired radio frequency signals and reject unwanted signals. Our ISN® platform allows us to develop unique, custom designs that address the increasing complexity of the RFFE due to increasing bandwidth requirements, such as by using carrier aggregation (the combining of multiple frequencies into a single data stream to increase throughput through higher data rates), or CA, by both reducing the size of the filter and improving performance. Our goal is to utilize our ISN® platform to support our customers in reducing their time to develop complex filter and module designs, to access new classes of filter designs, and to do it more cost effectively. Additionally, our ISN® platform has allowed us to expand our customer focus beyond just filter manufacturers by enabling a new class of customer - fabless filter manufacturers. These companies do not have their own internal filter fabrication facility, or fab, and typically already would be supplying other products in the RFFE to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and, as a result do not require a protracted new vendor qualification process in order to supply parts. Through our existing customer relationships, we are able to leverage our ISN® tools to deliver cutting edge filter designs to these fabless filter manufacturers.
We are commercializing our technology through the creation of filter designs that address the problems in the high growth RFFE industry created by the growing number of frequency bands in mobile and other RFFE enabled devices. The worldwide adoption of Long Term Evolution, or LTE, as the global standard, the transition to 5G, and the use of mobile devices to access the Internet, has resulted in massive proliferation of frequency bands which, when combined with CA for higher data rates and multiple input multiple output, or MIMO, has resulted in an ever-increasing number and complexity of filters in the RFFE. We have developed and continue to expand a series of single-band designs for frequency bands presently dominated by larger and more expensive bulk acoustic wave, or BAW, filters. We are also developing multiplexer filter designs for two or more bands to address the CA requirements of our customers. We are using our ISN® platform to efficiently integrate these designs into RF modules for our module customers. Currently, we are leveraging ISN® to develop these designs targeted for either the Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) or Temperature Compensated, Surface Acoustic Wave (TC-SAW) manufacturing processes. In 2018 we further extended ISN® for BAW designs, which has resulted in our invention of a resonator structure based on a combination of interdigital transducer (IDT) and piezoelectric membrane, which we call XBAR®, which exhibits performance parameters suitable for 5G and WiFi applications - high frequency operation, large bandwidth and high power reliability. Our success with XBAR® is dependent on our ability to develop high frequency filters utilizing these resonator structures that are successfully adopted by our targeted customers, which will be determined by our ability to show improved performance over competing products or significantly reduce the size and cost of their products.
We believe licensing our designs, either as prepaid royalties or royalties paid as products ship, is the most direct and effective means of validating our ISN® platform and IP to address this rapidly growing market. Our target customers make part or all of the RFFE. We intend to retain ownership of our designs, and we expect to be compensated through license fees and royalties based on sales of RFFE filters that incorporate our designs and leverage our ISN® platform.
Our customer engagement process typically begins with the execution of a Joint Development Agreement, or JDA, and License Agreement, or LA, for specific bands. Depending on the complexity of the design, we estimate that initial samples of products to OEMs, will occur typically within nine to thirty-six months following execution of a license agreement. We classify these new designs as either ISN® Ready (9-12 months), ISN® Pilot (12-18 months), ISN® Advanced (18-36 months) or ISN® Development (Custom). Following these development cycles, designs are manufactured, qualified by our customers and sampled to OEM customers. Our customers can take from three to six months to qualify a design and then the OEMs can take an additional three to six months, or longer, to qualify a design as fit for use, reliable and ready for mass production. The point at which an OEM begins taking product from our customers in mass production is typically when royalty revenues would begin. Our customer agreements typically provide for upfront design fees and royalty payments for each unit sold using our filter designs and typically last for a minimum of two years, but may be renewed for a longer period. More recently our agreements have included pre-paid royalties, which can be fully paid-up for a design, or a partial pre-pay with subsequent royalties when the part begins shipping.
In 2017, in order to further facilitate our fabless filter program, and to provide manufacturing stability across the supply chain, we embarked on the creation of our Foundry Program. Foundries joining Resonant’s program first complete a foundry evaluation process to ensure alignment with our customers for filter performance, manufacturing quality and capacity, and business practices. Once the evaluation is completed, the foundry runs a characterization lot, used to create a foundry process design kit, after which we are ready to start designs for manufacture in the foundry. Packaging/Back-end vendors can also join the program by completing a back-end evaluation process to match their capabilities with foundry partners and our customers. Through this program we enable a secure supply chain for all our customers.
In 2019, we began development of Filter IP Standard Library designs to enable faster time to market for our customers. Further, the first Filter IP Library design was incorporated into Cadence Design Systems, Inc.'s AWR design suite, allowing module designers access to Resonant filter designs. At Mobile World Congress we showed the first 5G filter based upon XBAR® technology - an n79 filter. Subsequently, we accepted a $7.0 million investment and signed a commercial agreement for the development and license of filters for four bands based on XBAR® technology, with the industry's largest provider of filters for the RFFE. The commercial agreement provides for our receipt of up to an aggregate of $9.0 million of contract consideration in the form of "pre-paid royalties" for the licensed designs and certain other intellectual property developed in the collaboration, payable in installments over a multi-year development period, with each installment conditioned upon our achievement of certain milestones and deliverables acceptable to our customer in its discretion. During 2020, we continued the development of filters under the commercial agreement, resulting in completion of the second milestone ahead of schedule in October. This milestone is significant as it recognizes achieving predetermined target performance, packaging and initial reliability. Completion of the milestone also resulted in the second payment from this customer. We have received a total of $4.5 million from this customer as of December 31, 2020. In accounting for this contract under ASC 606, we have determined the total contract consideration is to be recognized over time as the intellectual property is developed.
Early in 2020 we signed multiple new license agreements with a major foundry focused on the China market, further enhancing our foundry program. These agreements include both pre-paid royalties and royalty payments due upon shipment of parts for the licensed designs. In August of 2020 we demonstrated that XBAR® based filters could be manufactured using standard SAW foundry processing, a much simpler and lower cost process than is used for other BAW filter manufacturing. During the year we expanded our patent portfolio and ended the year with more than 300 issued and pending patents, with more than 150 patents protecting our XBAR® technology. The combination of progress developing XBAR®-based filters, advances in our foundry program and increasing shipments of our legacy designs resulted in record annual revenues in 2020 and more than 50 million filters shipped using ISN® designs since our inception.
We plan to continue to pursue filter design projects with existing and potential customers and other strategic partners. These types of arrangements offer complementary technology and market intelligence. In addition, we will continue to help develop a fabless filter eco-system to support the growth in filter volumes for our customers. We are also investigating the potential of licensing part or all of our ISN® software design suite to potential customers in the RFFE industry. We will continue to develop XBAR® technology for both mobile and non-mobile applications, including 5G, WiFi and Ultra-WideBand (UWB) applications, forming strategic partnerships with filter manufacturers and customers to bring the technology to market as quickly as possible. We intend to retain ownership of our technology, software, designs and related improvements. Our goal is to establish and leverage alliances with new and existing customers, who will help grow the market for our designs by integrating them with their own proprietary technology and products, or by using our software products for their own designs, thus combining their own particular strengths with ours to provide an extensive array of solutions.
Our History
Our inception date is May 29, 2012. We commenced business on July 6, 2012 and completed our initial public offering, or IPO, on May 29, 2014.
In July 2016, we acquired GVR Trade S.A., or GVR, a Swiss-based company specializing in the consultation and design of SAW and BAW devices. GVR is a wholly-owned direct subsidiary of Resonant.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, we moved our corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas to facilitate greater access to a technical and highly skilled workforce, while we continue to maintain facilities in Goleta and Burlingame, California where today the majority of our engineering talent resides. Our principal executive offices are located at 10900 Stonelake Blvd., Suite 100, Office 02-120, Austin, Texas 78759, and our telephone number is 805-308-9803.
Industry Background
Glossary
The following is a glossary of useful terms:
•4G—4th Generation is a mobile communications standard intended to replace 3G, allowing wireless Internet access at a much higher speed.
•5G—5th Generation is a mobile communications standard and is the latest iteration of cellular technology, engineered to greatly increase the speed and responsiveness of wireless networks.
•Band, channel or frequency band—a designated range of radio wave frequencies used to communicate with a mobile device.
•Bulk acoustic wave (BAW)—an acoustic wave traveling through a material exhibiting elasticity.
•Duplexer—a bi-directional device that connects the antenna to the transmitter and receiver of a wireless device and simultaneously filters both the transmit signal and receive signal.
•Carrier Aggregation (CA)—the aggregation, or adding together, of multiple carriers (frequency bands) to meet the LTE-Advanced specification requirements, allowing for increased transmission bandwidth delivery of higher data rates, improved capacity and more efficient use of a carriers fragmented spectrum.
•Filter—a series of interconnected resonators designed to pass (or select) a desired radio frequency signal and block unwanted signals.
•Resonator—a device that naturally oscillates (or resonates) at specific frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator can be either electromagnetic or mechanical (including acoustic). Resonators are the building blocks for filters.
•RF front-end (RFFE)—the circuitry in a mobile device responsible for the analog signal processing which is located between the antenna and the digital baseband.
•Surface acoustic wave (SAW)—an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate.
•Temperature-Compensated SAW (TC-SAW)—a SAW device which has additional material alterations to reduce its variation with changes in temperature.
•WiFi—a wireless networking technology that allows devices to interface to the Internet.
•Ultra-wideband (UWB)—a radio technology that uses very low energy signal for short-range, high-bandwidth communications over a large portion of the radio spectrum.
The Mobile Internet
The need for multiplexers, duplexers and other filters in the RFFE of mobile devices continues to grow rapidly due to rising consumer demand for always-on wireless broadband. Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets are quickly becoming the primary means of accessing the Internet. According to Cisco, there were 8.8 billion wireless devices in 2018, predicted to grow to 13.1 billion by 2023. To accommodate the increase in data usage, Cisco also predicts that WiFi hotspots will increase from 169 million in 2018 to 628 million by 2023.
The exponential growth in mobile data traffic is testing the limits of existing wireless bandwidth. Carriers and regulators have responded by opening new RF spectrum, driving up the number of frequency bands in mobile devices, with many of the most recent allocations being at higher frequencies than in the past, and of much wider bandwidths, thus pushing mobile phone designers to make more efficient use of spectrum.
According to Navian Inc., the market for RFFE filters in mobile devices was 45.5 billion filters in 2019 and will grow to an estimated 72.0 billion filters by 2024.
Figure 1—Projected growth of the market for RFFE filters including duplexers and multiplexers in mobile devices from 2019 through 2024 (in billions of filters). Source: Navian Inc.
In addition to RFFE filter unit growth, filter sales growth is expected to follow and was estimated to be $8.0 billion in 2019 and is forecasted to reach $12.2 billion by 2024, according to Navian.
Figure 2—Projected growth of the market for RF front-end filters, including duplexers and multiplexers, in mobile devices from 2019 through 2024 (in billions of dollars). Source: Navian Inc.
Adding RF spectrum to increase capacity and data-rate is not a complete solution. The added spectrum for 4G does not come in large contiguous blocks, but rather in small channels or bands of varying size and frequency. Thus, more data means more bands, and the result is a rapid and substantial increase in the number of bands in mobile devices. 5G introduces new challenges for filter performance and complexity, by adding much larger blocks of spectrum at higher frequencies (above 3GHz).
Challenges Faced by the Mobile Device Industry
The world is progressing toward ubiquitous RF coverage in which almost all devices will be connected, most wirelessly. Technology experts predict that by 2023 there will be over 29.3 billion connected devices operating worldwide and we will be measuring mobile usage in Exabytes. This overwhelming demand for wireless data has driven the carriers and regulators to open new spectrum bands.
This substantial and rapid increase in bands has created several significant problems, including a corresponding increase in the number of filters and duplexers in mobile devices. Traditional RF front-end solutions typically require one duplexer for each frequency band. The most recent iPhones support coverage for 22 FDD-LTE and 8 TDD-LTE bands, in addition to support for previous wireless technology generations, 3G and 2G, and most recently 5G coverage for sub-6GHz and mmWave. Each band requires a filter, either as an individual filter, a duplexer or a multiplexer, depending upon the spectrum and CA requirements. This increase in number and complexity of filters is dramatically driving up the cost of RF front-ends. In the latest global smartphones, filters, duplexers and multiplexers comprise more than half of the cost to the RF front-end, according to Mobile Experts. The dramatic increase in the number of filters required, which includes Chip Scale Package, or CSP, Wafer Level Package, or WLP, filters, duplexers, multiplexers, with multiple sizes and multiple packaging substrates, each requiring a new design, requires an increase in design capacity, or improved design efficiency. ISN® improves the design efficiency by accurately modeling the performance of acoustic wave filters.
The growing number of filters is also increasing the total size of the RF front-end. In some cases, size constraints require the OEM to fragment its product offering into multiple versions, each with a limited set of filters customized for a particular geographic region. Multiple versions of a mobile product increases manufacturing, inventory and distribution costs. In addition, consumers can find it difficult to roam between carriers and/or countries due to this splintering of bands and phone models. Phone OEMs would prefer to make one version of a product containing a full set of filters that can be electronically selected as required for a particular carrier network.
In addition, the higher frequency 4G bands tend to use relatively expensive BAW technology. Phone OEMs would prefer to use SAW manufacturing processes because of its lower cost and smaller size. However, conventional filter designs using SAW technology do not perform adequately in high frequency bands or in bands with closely spaced receive and transmit channels, typical of many new bands. With the introduction of 5G, which uses even higher frequencies and wider bandwidths, this problem is further exacerbated.
Adding to the complexity of the industry, mobile devices must now be capable of receiving from two, to as many as five, downlink bands simultaneously, known as downlink CA. This CA requirement creates the need for complex multiplexing filters, or multiplexers, which are significantly more complex than duplexers and effectively require four filters for each CA combination. In addition, during the transition to 5G, dual connectivity to both LTE and New Radio (NR) networks is required. 3rd Generation Partnership Project has identified over 400 worldwide band combinations, creating increased complexity and cost to RFFEs. In the case of a quadplexer, with four different frequency bands, within each band the signal loss must be minimized, while rejecting three bands often in close proximity. Duplexers must only reject a single band. Mobile Experts predicts that more than 2 billion terminals will be shipped supporting CA in 2024. This rising complexity in the industry is also aggravating the constraints on design capacity and resources.
In addition to the challenges described above, 5G will further exacerbate the problems of more demand for filters, filter designs, and more complexity and integration in the RFFE. 5G comprises three distinct segments:
•Enhanced mobile broadband: Increased bandwidth for extreme data-rates and capacity to support wireless video everywhere;
•Mission critical services: High reliability, low latency and high security for automotive, health and government; and
•Massive Internet-of-Things: Low cost, low energy, long life for wearables, smart home devices and interconnected devices.
All three of these segments require filters and will further accelerate the already substantial growth in the filter market.
Our Technology
RFFE module companies currently produce filters internally or purchase filters from third-party manufacturers, such as Broadcom, Murata, Taiyo-Yuden and RF360. These module companies and filter manufacturers design filters using their own
internal resources, which we believe are proving insufficient to meet the explosive growth in both total global filter demand and unique filter designs, as well as the increasingly complex filter requirements necessitated in part by crowded spectrum and carrier aggregation. We believe that our patented ISN® technology will enable us to design complex filter products with shortened design times and help our customers benefit from the use of more cost-effective manufacturing processes. ISN® can be summarized as a two-step process:
We use circuit models to optimize initial designs. Most of the filter industry models acoustic wave filters using a coupling-of-modes, or COM, model. In contrast, we use circuit models derived from the actual physics of acoustic wave filters. Circuit models are computationally much faster, which allows for very quick optimization of the many possible solutions that result from the synthesis process. We can quickly compare large numbers of different, optimized solutions before commencing the third step - lengthy but highly accurate simulations based on fundamental methods.
We use fundamental models to simulate final designs. Our highly accurate models are based entirely on fundamental material properties and dimensions, again unlike the common practice in the industry today. The precision and accuracy of our models allows for far fewer turns through the fab to reach the desired product performance. Because our models are fundamental, integration with our foundry and fab customers is eased due to the understanding of the basic material properties and dimensions of the fab.
Using our ISN® design platform, in 2018 we invented a new resonator technology, XBAR®, with fundamental properties matching the new wireless requirements of higher frequency, wider bandwidth and higher power operation, when compared to previous wireless generations. At Mobile World Congress in 2019 we demonstrated a 5G (n79) filter prototype with the required bandwidth to support 5G operation across the entire band. XBAR® technology is applicable to many current and projected wireless technologies which operate above 3GHz. Hence we are developing designs for both mobile and non-mobile applications for 5G and WiFi, and fully expect to extend this to UWB and 6G. In addition to the fundamental advantages of XBAR®, the straightforward processing for this BAW resonator, lends itself to low cost manufacturing.
Our Commercialization Plan
We will continue to pursue filter design projects with existing and potential customers and other strategic partners, and we believe licensing our designs is the most direct and effective means of delivering our solutions to the market and validating the technical advantages of our tools, IP and team. In addition, we will continue to help develop a fabless filter eco-system to support the growth in the filter volumes for our customers. We will continue to develop XBAR® technology for both mobile and non-mobile applications, including 5G, WiFi and Ultra-WideBand (UWB) applications, forming strategic partnerships with filter manufacturers and customers to bring the technology to market as quickly as possible. We intend to retain ownership of our technology, designs and related improvements and charge royalties based on sales of filters that incorporate our designs. We do not intend to manufacture or sell any physical products or operate as a contract design company developing designs for a fee. Our strategy is to establish and leverage alliances with customers, who will help grow the market for our designs by integrating them with their own proprietary technology and products, thus combining their own particular strengths with ours to provide an extensive array of solutions and to develop and license filter designs that offer improvements in the time to develop, cost, size and performance of RFFEs. The goal for our designs is to improve profit margins and increase market share for our customers.
Our customers are filter manufacturers, RFFE module manufacturers, RF active and passive component suppliers and potentially mobile handset OEMs. Currently, for most of our customers, we license specific, custom designs. In the fourth quarter of 2018 we introduced and announced the first customer for our standard IP filter library of products. In these cases we develop a standard design at one of our qualified foundries and customers can then license this design without paying for or waiting for completion of development, hence minimizing their cost and reducing time to market. We charge royalties at a fixed amount per filter or as a percentage of sales price. In October 2019, we announced a commercial agreement with the industry's largest provider of filters for the RFFE to develop and license filters based on XBAR® technology. In this case, we determined the total amount of royalties expected to result from the licenses being designed and discounted the rate in exchange for prepayment of the amount in advance. The customer agreed to pay up to an aggregate of $9.0 million for the licensed designs and certain other intellectual property developed in the collaboration, payable in installments over a multi-year development period, with each installment conditional upon our achievement of certain milestones and deliverables acceptable to our customer in its discretion. We expect to generate substantially all of our near-term revenues with these types of licensing arrangements. Each filter design and related royalty stream is expected to have a finite commercial life as mobile devices continue to evolve. Our plan is to offer our customers replacement designs as existing designs become obsolete. Revenue from our contracts may be recognized over time or at a point-in-time depending on the facts and circumstances of each contract.
Our products will be designed for manufacture with existing high-volume fabrication processes allowing rapid time to market, but we do not plan to manufacture or sell any physical components. Unlike a manufacturing company, we intend to
create designs for manufacturers, eliminating for us the costs and problems associated with manufacturing and inventory. This allows us to concentrate on our unique expertise, leaving the hardware manufacturers to drive their own economies of scale.
Single Band Designs
We continue to develop a series of SAW filter designs for RF frequency bands presently dominated by the larger and more expensive BAW filters. In 2020, we continued to develop single band, SAW filter designs for customers. Some of these filter designs are for duplexers that have historically been TC-SAWs or BAWs while others are for discrete SAW filters that may need improvements in performance, size or cost. The single band designs included WiFi Co-Existence filters, which pass licensed wireless frequencies, while protecting WiFi from interference, and designs for module applications which require wafer-level packaging (WLP) and modeling of the module board. We believe that, using our ISN® technology, combined with our experience and know-how, we can design innovative SAW filters that meet the performance requirements for many of these bands but at significantly less cost than that of BAW filters they would replace. These single band filter designs were the earliest opportunity for royalty revenues, and represented the nominal royalty revenues in 2018. Since 2018, we have continued to develop single band designs using TC-SAW processes in order to take advantage of the improved temperature stability.
Multiplexer Designs
Wireless carriers worldwide are experiencing increasing demand for higher data speeds. CA allows multiple data streams from different frequencies to be added together to provide increased data rate for the mobile users. However, CA further complicates the required filter characteristics. Quadplexers, (4-RF path multiplexer) as described above, enable CA on both receive and transmit paths and reduce the RFFE complexity by reducing the number of switches, but the complexity of the filters themselves increases dramatically. During 2018, we expanded our capability to optimize the performance of quadplexers on OEM phone-boards in order to help our customers demonstrate "real world" performance. During 2019, we expanded our capability to produce TC-SAW and high power quadplexer designs. We believe that our ISN® technology is ideally suited to these difficult filter design problems that cover a wide frequency range with much more demanding performance requirements.
Although some band combinations for aggregation will not require multiplexers, we believe that multiplexers are the best solution for bands in close frequency proximity. We are developing high performance multiplexer designs to address this growing market.
XBAR® Filters
Our ISN® technology enabled us to invent a new resonator technology, XBAR®. Large instantaneous bandwidth filters at high frequency (above 3GHz) are required for next generation wireless technologies, such as 5G, WiFi 6E and UWB, to support high data-rates. Filters using XBAR® resonators are ideally suited for these applications. During 2020, we continued to develop XBAR® filter designs for our partner, focused on the mobile market. In addition, we designed and had fabricated through our foundries XBAR® designs for 5G and WiFi non-mobile applications
Our immediate focus is to address the problems in the RFFE with innovative single-band and multiplex designs made possible with our ISN® technology. These designs present the greatest near-term potential for commercialization of our technology. We expect the trend towards spectrum proliferation, particularly with new 5G spectrum, in addition to CA and MIMO, will require complex filters and multiplexing. We believe our ISN® and XBAR® technology will enable cost effective designs for these applications.
We also believe that the power of Resonant ISN® tools and methodology will continue to enable fabless customers and filter foundries to newly enter or expand their participation in the supply chain for RF filters. In late 2016, we expanded our customer focus to include fabless filter manufacturers, which are companies that do not have their own internal filter fabrication facility. Typically, these companies already are supplying other products in the RFFE to the OEM, and as a result, do not require a protracted new vendor qualification process in order to supply parts. In 2017, to further facilitate our fabless filter program and to provide manufacturing stability across the supply chain to our fully integrated filter customers, we created our Foundry Program. Foundries joining the Foundry Program first complete a foundry evaluation process to ensure alignment with our customers for filter performance, manufacturing quality and capacity, and business practices. Once the evaluation is completed, the foundry runs a characterization lot, used to create a foundry process design kit, after which we are ready to start designs for manufacture in the foundry. Packaging/Back-end vendors also can join the program by completing a back-end evaluation process to match their capabilities with foundry partners and our customers. It is through this program that we can enable a secure supply chain for all our customers.
Intellectual Property
We have an active program protecting our proprietary technology. In protecting our technology, we make use of patent protection, trade secret protection, trademark protection and mask works protection. To maximize these protections, we maintain active intellectual property development and protection programs, including with respect to patents, trade secrets, trademarks and mask works.
Our patent portfolio reflects both the initial technology originated at and contributed to us by Superconductor Technologies Inc., or STI, as well as our own patent filings since our founding, and continues to be the result of an active and ongoing program to identify, protect and commercialize our intellectual property. This program includes the development of a comprehensive patent strategy. We engage in a thorough process of patent landscaping that provides an in-depth analysis of not only the markets we are addressing, but also adjacent markets, so that we can tactically and strategically protect our position in the market through patent filings. We also routinely use specialized outside firms to assist in these endeavors. These firms assist with invention identification, intellectual property strategy and competitive landscape analysis. Through our landscaping and advanced product development processes we have plans to file additional patents in 2021.
Our patent portfolio comprises more than 300 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, with more than 150 targeting 5G. This patent portfolio relates primarily to the following subject matters:
•Physical Implementation
•Design Synthesis and Optimization Speed
•Network Synthesis
•Image Design
•Circuit Designs
•Simulation Accuracy
•Next Generation Designs/Architectures
•Simplifying the RFFE
•XBAR
•Circuit Structure
•Critical Design Requirements
•Power handling and linearity
•Temperature dependence
•Yield Analysis
We have a formal trade secret program to identify and protect technologies and know-how that derive significant economic value from being secret. This program is managed to provide the optimal levels of protection and competitive advantage to us. We protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information by maintaining the secrecy of such information, including by requiring confidentiality agreements from all our employees, consultants and third parties having access to such information. We have a number of trade secrets already protected in this program and we expect to add more such trade secrets into the program in 2021.
We have also registered U.S. trademarks for ‘‘Resonant®’’, ‘‘ISN®”, “Infinite Synthesized Networks®’’, “XBAR®” and “PMTx®’’.
There can be no assurance that our pending patent applications or any future patent applications will be approved or will not be challenged successfully by third parties, that any issued patents will protect our technology or will not be challenged by third parties, or that the patents of others will not have an adverse effect on our ability to do business. Furthermore, there can be no assurance that others will not independently develop similar or competing technology or design around any patents that have been or may be issued to us.
Despite our efforts to maintain the secrecy of our trade secrets, there also can be no assurance that others will not gain access to our trade secrets, or that we can meaningfully protect our technology. Nor can there be assurances that we will succeed in enforcing our trade secrets in the event others improperly gain access to them. In addition, effective trademark, copyright and trade secret protection may be unavailable or limited in certain foreign countries. Although we intend to protect our rights vigorously, there can be no assurance that such measures will be successful.
Competition
To our knowledge, we have no direct competitors in the electronic design automation or licensing business that are exclusively focused on RFFEs. We have spent many years developing ISN®, and our own patented suite of design tools created specifically for this purpose. No comparable acoustic wave filter design tool exists in the market today to our knowledge. In
combination with our experienced design team, we believe we offer our customers a novel solution to the need for increasingly complex filter designs developed by an independent, stand-alone company that is not presently offered by any other company.
We have advantages that we believe present significant barriers to entry for potential competitors that desire to replicate our business model:
•a large and growing portfolio of patents and trade secrets;
•a suite of proprietary software design tools;
•a growing number of customers;
•a highly experienced design team; and
•a multi-year technology lead.
We do compete with the existing filter designs and design capabilities of the design teams at our customers and target customers and their filter manufacturers. We must demonstrate to our customers, target customers and their filter manufacturers, that switching to our designs will give them a competitive advantage by providing market entry or sufficiently improving the cost, size, and performance of their current products to justify our royalty rates.
The use of our patented ISN® tools, not only enables lower cost and smaller size SAW solutions for single band and multiplexer designs but also enables development of creative filter solutions for next generation RFFE architectures that, if successful will offer new, highly competitive solutions to many of the challenges facing the manufacturers of RFFE modules.
Human Capital Resources
We have 67 employees as of December 31, 2020, 48 of which are on our technical staff and 19 of which are devoted to finance, sales, marketing and administration matters. We compete for the limited number of highly talented RF filter engineers and work to attract and retain technical talent through offering competitive compensation and benefit packages. We are focused on retaining key contributors, developing our staff, and cultivating their commitment to our Company. We have three primary locations, in California and Texas, where our employees provide services. We also use several outside consultants.
Where You Can Find Other Information
Our principal executive offices are located at 10900 Stonelake Blvd., Suite 100, Office 02-120, Austin, Texas 78759, and our telephone number is 805-308-9803. We also have development offices in Goleta, California, Burlingame, California and Neuchatel, Switzerland and lease office space in Anyang, South Korea. Our website address is www.resonant.com. The information contained on, or that can be accessed through, our website is not a part of this report. Information we furnish or file with the SEC, including our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and any amendments to or exhibits included in these reports are available for download, free of charge, on our website soon after such reports are filed with or furnished to the SEC. Our SEC filings, including exhibits filed therewith, are also available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Investing in our common stock involves a high degree of risk. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and related notes, before investing in our common stock. If any of the following risks materialize, our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment.
Risks Specific to our Company
We may require additional capital to continue operations in the future, which capital may not be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all.
As of December 31, 2020, our accumulated deficit totaled $150.9 million. During 2020 our net loss totaled $28.4 million and we used $23.2 million of cash and investments for operating activities, the purchase of property and equipment and expenditures for patents. To date we have not generated significant revenues to enable profitability. We expect to continue to incur significant losses. These factors raise substantial doubt regarding our ability to continue as a going concern. At December 31, 2020 we had cash and cash equivalents of $25.0 million. Subsequent to December 31, 2020, but prior to publication of the financial statements included in this Form 10-K, we raised $4.1 million of cash from sales of common stock using our At-The-Market Equity Offering Sales Agreement. In the absence of a significant revenue increase we project these cash resources will provide sufficient funding into the first quarter of 2022. We are subject to the risks and uncertainties associated with a new business. Our continuance as a going concern is dependent on future profitability. We are actively pursuing expanding our technology portfolio, increasing our revenue opportunities by completing deliverables under current customer contracts and entering into new customer contracts, and efficiently managing operations and exploring cost saving opportunities. We may not be successful in these efforts. We may need to seek to raise additional capital from the sale of equity securities or incurrence of indebtedness. There can be no assurance that additional financing will be available to us on acceptable terms, or at all in which case we might be forced to make substantial reductions in our operating expenses which could adversely affect our ability to implement our business plan and ultimately our viability as a company. Even if available, such capital may be dilutive to existing stockholders. Our consolidated financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis which contemplates the realization of assets and satisfaction of liabilities in the normal course of business. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments relating to the recoverability and classification of recorded asset amounts or the amounts and classification of liabilities that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.
We have a history of operating losses and we may never achieve or maintain profitability or positive cash flows.
We have a limited operating history and utilize planned milestones for investors to evaluate our progress. We have generated minimal revenues and we have a history of losses from operations with an accumulated deficit as of December 31, 2020 of $150.9 million. Our operations have been funded with initial capital contributions, proceeds from the sale of equity securities and debt. We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to refine existing technology, develop new technology, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Our ability to generate revenues and achieve profitability and, ultimately, positive cash flows, may depend on whether we can obtain additional capital when we need it and will depend on whether we continue to refine our technology and find additional customers who will license our designs. There can be no assurance that we will ever generate meaningful revenues, or that the revenues we do generate will be sufficient to achieve profitability and positive cash flows.
Our business model is based on licensing filter designs, which is unproven. Historically, our target customers have relied on their own filter designs or purchased finished filters from a manufacturer, and have not licensed third-party designs. Consequently, we may not succeed in our licensing strategy, which would require us to adopt a new business model and would have a material adverse effect on our ability to generate revenues and potentially threaten our viability.
Our business model is based on licensing our proprietary filter designs. We do not intend to manufacture or sell any physical products or operate as a contract design company developing designs for a fee. We believe licensing our designs is the most direct and effective means of delivering our solutions to the market. We intend to retain ownership of our designs and charge royalties based on sales of filters and RFFE modules that incorporate our designs.
Our target customers either make part or all of the RFFE. These customers have historically used their own filter designs or purchased finished filters from a manufacturer. Our business model is new to the filter industry and remains unproven, as we have yet to receive meaningful royalty payments from our licensed designs. The failure to scale our business model would have a material adverse effect on our ability to generate revenues and potentially threaten our viability.
We may not be able to complete some of our designs because they do not meet our customers' expectations. Even if we succeed in developing a design that meets all of a customer's requirements, the customer could decline to use our design in their products. Further, our customer's product could fail in the marketplace. Any of these events would have a material adverse effect on our business and potentially threaten our viability.
We develop filter designs to meet our customers' stringent performance specifications. Our customers often ship pre-production samples of our designed filters to their customers for further evaluation. For some designs, mass production may commence. However, the filter qualification process is demanding and some designs will not result in volume production. If successfully developed and selected by our customer, our designs will compete against other technologies for inclusion in our customers’ products. Our customers’ final products will then compete against other products and technologies for inclusion in mobile devices in the marketplace. There can be no assurance that we can complete our designs, that our final designs will have acceptable performance and meet our customers’ specifications, or if our pre-production sample filter shipments will be selected for production. Even if our filter designs have acceptable performance, there are a number of other considerations influencing the customer’s decision whether to use our design, such as packaging type and manufacturing cost, many of which are beyond our control. The decision to use our designs is solely within our customers’ discretion. Further, if our filter design is selected by a customer for inclusion in its design or product, there is no guarantee that the customer’s design or product will be selected for inclusion in mobile devices or, even if selected, result in high-volume sales and meaningful revenues. The failure of a significant number of our designs to be selected at the design stage or the device stage would have a material adverse effect on our business and potentially threaten our viability.
We are not a filter manufacturer, and thus we are reliant on filter fabricators or manufacturers to manufacture filters from our designs. For some of our customers that will not themselves manufacture filters from our designs, we may be required to have our customer approve the filter manufacturer, and the customer will not license our design unless the manufacturer can demonstrate the ability to economically produce the filter in large volumes.
We are a filter design company and will not commercially manufacture any products. Our business model is to license our designs to customers, who will manufacture our designs themselves or rely on third party manufacturers, commonly referred to as foundries, to fabricate our designs for integration into the customer's overall product. We are dependent on foundries’ filter fabrication processes and capabilities for our filter designs. Even with a fully compliant filter design, the customer may not license our design unless the manufacturer can demonstrate the ability to economically produce the design in large volumes. We do not have any control over the manufacturer and cannot provide assurances that the manufacturer will have the necessary technology, skills and resources to successfully manufacture filters from our designs in commercial quantities. Additionally, foundries may refuse to manufacture filters from our designs. Many foundries offer potentially competitive filter technology as part of their standard product line or offer the services of in-house design teams which may consider us competition. In this case, our customers may face resistance by their foundries to manufacture our designs. The reluctance of foundries to manufacture our designs could adversely affect the market acceptance of our designs.
Our designs are complex, may contain latent defects, and may prove difficult to manufacture in commercial quantities. We will be relying on our customers and filter fabricators or manufacturers to build filters from our designs. Our business could fail if they encounter difficulties manufacturing filters in commercial quantities.
We develop complex filter designs, which is inherently challenging. Only a small number of our designed filters are currently in production, and therefore we cannot be certain our methods and testing procedures are adequate to detect latent design defects. If any of our designs contain latent defects, we may be unable to correct these problems. Additionally, we rely on our customers and filter fabricators or manufacturers to manufacture our designed filters. They will need to manufacture filters in commercial quantities at an acceptable cost, and we have little or no control over the manufacturing process. They must also operate and maintain sophisticated manufacturing equipment, and equipment failures can have adverse consequences on production volumes, yields and schedules. They may encounter difficulties in scaling up production, including problems with quality control, raw material and component supply shortages, low manufacturing yields, increased costs, shortages of qualified personnel and/or difficulties associated with compliance with regulatory requirements. Any of these problems may adversely affect the timing and amount of our future revenues. Additionally, if our customers and their suppliers encounter difficulties manufacturing filters from our designs in commercial quantities, our business could fail.
We develop and test our designs under laboratory conditions using low volume production samples. Once in production, our designs may not perform as well, or prove unreliable, due to manufacturing variations and operating conditions. This could adversely affect our business.
We develop and test our designs under laboratory conditions using low volume production samples. The transition from product development to commercial production requires high volume manufacturing which introduces product variations.
These variations can adversely affect performance and reliability. Similarly, our designs may not perform as well or prove sufficiently reliable under actual operating conditions. This could adversely affect our business.
Failures in the products or services of our customers, including those resulting from defects or errors, could result in decreased sales and harm our business.
Our success depends in large part on the demand for mobile wireless devices and other products that incorporate our proprietary filter designs. Our customers’ products are inherently complex and may contain defects or errors unrelated to our designs that are detected only when the products are in use. Any defects or errors in the products of our customers could result in product recalls or the discontinuation of those products, which could have an adverse impact on our operating results due to a delay or decrease in demand for our designs. Further, security failures, defects or errors in mobile wireless devices, such as the issues with the Galaxy Note 7 in 2016 that caused Samsung to discontinue that product, have led to increased scrutiny of component suppliers. If our customers do not perceive our designs to be of high quality, or if mobile device manufacturers do not perceive the products of our customers to be of high quality, or if we or our customers are unable or unwilling to comply with heightened quality assurance requirements of mobile device manufacturers, we may be unsuccessful in having our designed filters incorporated into finished products. In certain instances we perform failure analysis and reliability testing of our customers’ parts. If our analysis and testing prove to be faulty or insufficient, including due to failure of our laboratory equipment or human error, and our customers rely upon the results we provide, our reputation may be damaged, and customers may be reluctant to utilize our services or license our designs. This could harm our ability to attract customers and negatively impact our financial results, and may result in claims against us by our customers or others.
We have completed and continue to actively work on filter designs with, and expect to derive all of our revenues from, a small number of customers. Our failure to retain or expand customer relationships will have an adverse effect on our revenues.
We expect to derive our revenues from a small number of customers. Our failure to retain or expand customer relationships, or any problems we experience in collecting receivables from them, would harm our financial condition and results of operations. Additionally, our industry is experiencing consolidation among suppliers and manufacturers of RF front-end components and modules, including activities of module suppliers who vertically integrate by acquiring component suppliers and fabs. This may lead to fewer customers, reduced demand for our designs and replacement of our designed products by the consolidated company. Any of these possibilities could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We are a solutions company, providing designs based on our ISN® software platform, intellectual property and design team. We license our designs to manufacturers of RFFEs, RFFE sub-systems and components for mobile devices. If our designs do not achieve widespread market acceptance among RFFE manufacturers, we will not be able to generate the revenue necessary to support our business.
Achieving additional acceptance among RFFE manufacturers of our designs will be crucial to our continued success. We have a limited history of marketing designs and we may fail to generate significant interest in our designs. These and other factors may affect the rate and level of market acceptance, including our royalty fees and the cost of our designed filters relative to other competing designs and technologies, perception by RF front-end manufacturers and mobile device manufacturers, press and blog coverage, social media coverage and other publicity and public relations factors which are not within our control and regulatory developments related to manufacturing, marketing and selling our designs. If we are unable to achieve or maintain market acceptance, our business would be harmed.
Our designs may not gain widespread acceptance unless they offer greater benefits to our customers than offered by competing RF filter designs.
RF front-end manufacturers are primarily concerned with the cost, size and performance of RF filters. Our designs may not gain widespread acceptance unless, as compared to competing RF filter designs, they are smaller in size, can be fabricated at reduced cost or designed in less time, or improve performance. There can be no assurance that our SAW or TC-SAW filter designs will cost sufficiently less to manufacture than existing BAW filters, or can be designed in less time, to prove economically attractive to RF front-end manufacturers or that our filter designs will be smaller in size or perform better.
Our development cycles are long and our final designs may no longer remain competitive upon completion.
We operate in an industry which is subject to rapidly evolving technologies. Because our designs are expected to have long development cycles, we must anticipate changes in the marketplace and the direction of technological innovation and customer demands. To compete successfully, we will need to demonstrate the advantages of our designs and technologies.
Our intellectual property rights may not be adequate to protect our business
Our success depends significantly on our ability to obtain, maintain and protect our proprietary rights to the technologies used in products incorporating our technologies. We currently hold patents related to various elements of our technology and we also have patent applications currently pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and other patent offices around the world. No assurances can be given that any patent will be issued on our pending patent applications or any other application that we may file in the future or that, if such patents are issued, they will be sufficiently broad to adequately protect our technology. In addition, we cannot assure you that any patents that may be issued to us will not be challenged, invalidated, or circumvented.
Additionally, as we continue to expand our business in China, the application and interpretation of China’s intellectual
property right laws and the procedures and standards for granting trademarks, patents, copyrights, know-how or other
intellectual property rights in China will become more important to our business. Historically, China’s protection of intellectual
property rights has been less stringent and robust compared to other countries such as the United States, and consequently
intellectual property rights and confidentiality protections in China may not be as effective as in the United States or other
countries. Monitoring and preventing unauthorized use is also difficult and the measures we take to protect our intellectual
property rights may not be adequate. Accordingly, infringement of our intellectual property rights poses a serious risk of doing
business in China.
If we are unable to protect the confidentiality of our proprietary information and know-how, the value of our technology, products and services could be harmed significantly.
In addition to seeking patents for some of our technologies, we also rely on trade secrets, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, to maintain our competitive position. We seek to protect these trade secrets, in part, by entering into non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with parties who have access to them, such as our employees, consultants, collaborators, advisors, independent contractors and other third parties. We also enter into confidentiality, non-competition, non-solicitation, and invention assignment agreements with our employees and consultants that obligate them to assign to us any inventions developed in the course of their work for us. However, we cannot guarantee that we have executed these agreements with each party that may have or have had access to our trade secrets or that the agreements we have executed will provide adequate protection. Additionally, we also seek to preserve the integrity and confidentiality of our technologies and trade secrets by maintaining physical and electronic security of our premises and information technology systems. While we have confidence in these individuals, organizations and systems, agreements or security measures may be breached, and we may not have adequate remedies for such breaches. Furthermore, competitors may otherwise gain access to our trade secrets or independently develop substantially equivalent information and techniques. As a result, we may be forced to bring claims against third parties, or defend claims that they bring against us, to determine ownership of what we regard as our intellectual property. Monitoring unauthorized disclosure is difficult and we do not know whether the procedures that we have followed to prevent such disclosure are or will be adequate. Enforcing a claim that a party illegally disclosed or misappropriated a trade secret is difficult, expensive and time-consuming, and the outcome is unpredictable. In addition, some courts inside and outside the United States may be less willing or unwilling to protect trade secrets. If any of the technology or information that we protect as trade secrets were to be lawfully obtained or independently developed by a competitor, we would have no right to prevent them from using that technology or information to compete with us. If any of our trade secrets were to be disclosed to, or independently developed by, a competitor, our competitive position would be harmed.
Our proprietary rights may be difficult to enforce, which could enable others to copy or use aspects of our intellectual property without compensating us, thereby eroding our competitive advantages and harming our business.
Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect proprietary methods and technologies that we develop under the intellectual property laws of the United States, so that we can prevent others from using our inventions and proprietary information. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors might gain access to our technology, and our business might be adversely affected. We rely on trademark, copyright, mask works, trade secret and patent laws, confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our proprietary methods and technologies. We currently hold patents and have pending patent applications related to our technology solutions. Valid patents may not be issued from our pending applications, and the claims allowed on any issued patents may not be sufficiently broad to protect our technology or offerings and services. Any patents we currently hold or that may be issued to us in the future may be challenged, invalidated or circumvented, and any rights granted under these patents may not actually provide us with adequate defensive protection or competitive advantages. Additionally, the process of obtaining patent protection is expensive and time-consuming, and we may not be able to prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.
Policing unauthorized use of our technology is difficult. Additional uncertainty may result from changes to intellectual property legislation enacted in the United States, including the America Invents Act, and other countries and from interpretations of the intellectual property laws of the United States and other countries by applicable courts and agencies. In addition, the laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those of the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of our proprietary rights in such countries may be inadequate. From time to time, legal action by us may be necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights, to protect our trade secrets, to determine the validity and scope of the proprietary rights of others, or to defend against claims of infringement. Such litigation could result in substantial costs and the diversion of limited resources and could negatively affect our business, operating results and financial condition. If we are unable to protect our proprietary rights (including aspects of our technology platform) we may find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage to others who have not incurred the same level of expense, time and effort to create and protect their intellectual property.
Furthermore, we acquired some of the patents we currently hold from Superconductor Technologies, Inc., or STI. Although we believe we have obtained valid assignments of patent rights from STI and STI has obtained valid assignments of patent rights from all inventors, if an inventor did not adequately assign his or her patent right to STI or STI did not adequately assign its patent rights to us, a third party could obtain a license to the patent from such inventor or STI. This could preclude us from enforcing the patent against such third party. In addition, because we acquired our patents from STI, some of the inventors of our patents are not our employees and they are not obligated to assist us in prosecuting, maintaining, defending and enforcing such patents. Without the cooperation of the inventors of our patents, it may be difficult for us to prevail in any legal action involving the intellectual property rights under our patents. Additionally, the inventors may have information, trade secrets and know-how learned while at STI that is not our property and if disclosed could provide competitors with insights that allow them to invent around our patented technology.
Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to obtain adequate patent protection, or to prevent third parties from infringing upon, misappropriating or inventing around our intellectual property.
We may be subject to intellectual property rights claims by third parties, which are extremely costly to defend, could require us to pay significant damages and could limit our ability to use certain technologies.
Third parties may assert claims of infringement of intellectual property rights in proprietary technology against us for which we may be liable or have an indemnification obligation. Any claim of infringement by a third party, even those without merit, could cause us to incur substantial costs defending against the claim and could distract our management from our business.
Although third parties may offer a license to their technology, the terms of any offered license may not be acceptable and the failure to obtain a license or the costs associated with any license could cause our business, results of operations or financial condition to be materially and adversely affected. In addition, some licenses may be non-exclusive, and therefore our competitors may have access to the same technology licensed to us. Alternatively, we may be required to develop non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense and ultimately may not be successful. Furthermore, a successful claimant could secure a judgment or we may agree to a settlement that prevents us from licensing certain designs or performing certain services or that requires us to pay substantial damages, including treble damages if we are found to have willfully infringed the claimant’s patents or copyrights, royalties or other fees. Any of these events could seriously harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
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 in part by licensing our technology 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.
Our customer agreements include indemnity provisions and may expose us to substantial liability for intellectual property infringement and other losses.
Our customer agreements include indemnification provisions under which we agree to indemnify third parties for losses suffered or incurred as a result of claims of intellectual property infringement, damages caused by us to property or persons, or other liabilities relating to or arising from our designs, services, or other contractual obligations. The term of these
indemnity provisions generally survives termination or expiration of the applicable agreement. Large indemnity payments could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
We use highly specialized proprietary software as well as commercially available software pursuant to annual licenses, and the failure of this software or inability to renew any of these licenses could adversely affect our ability to design new RF filters and thus our potential for generating revenues.
We have developed and use highly specialized proprietary computer software in our design process. The failure of any of this software to perform as expected could adversely affect our ability to produce new RF filter designs and thus our potential for generating revenues. In addition to our proprietary software, we also use highly specialized but commercially available computer software in our design process. We do not own this software and use it under the terms of licenses. These licenses are made available to us at prices and on terms generally available to any customer. If we were unable to renew any of these software licenses, we would have to locate or develop alternative software. We cannot assure you that suitable alternative software would be available on commercially reasonable terms or could be developed by us at reasonable cost. The loss of any one of these software licenses could adversely affect our ability to produce new RF filter designs and thus our potential for generating revenues.
Risks Related to Our Industry
Our industry is subject to intense competition and rapid technological change, which may result in designs, products or new solutions that are superior to our designs under development. If we are unable to anticipate or keep pace with changes in the marketplace and the direction of technological innovation and customer demands, our designs may become less useful or obsolete and our operating results will suffer.
We operate in an industry which is subject to intense and increasing competition. Our future success will depend in large part on our ability to establish and maintain a competitive position in current and future technologies. Rapid technological development may render our designs and technologies obsolete. Many of our competitors have or may have greater engineering, sales, marketing, operational, corporate and financial resources, and more experience in research and development than we have. We cannot assure you that our competitors will not succeed in developing or marketing technologies or products that are more effective or commercially attractive than our designs or that would render our technologies and designs obsolete. We may not have or be able to raise or develop the financial resources, technical expertise, or support capabilities to compete successfully in the future. Our success will depend in large part on our ability to maintain a competitive position with our technologies.
The markets in which we compete are cyclical and any future downturn may delay or reduce the demand for our designs and resulting royalty revenue.
Historically, the markets in which we compete have experienced significant downturns, often connected with, or in anticipation of, declines in consumer demand for end-user products, the maturation of product cycles and declining general economic conditions. These downturns have been characterized by diminished product demand, production overcapacity, high inventory levels, accelerated erosion of average selling prices, bad debt, inventory charges, restructuring charges, and asset impairment charges. Any future downturn in the markets in which we compete, or changes in demand for our designs from our customers, could result in a significant delay in our realization of or reduction in our revenue and may also increase the volatility of the price of our common stock.
If our principal end markets fail to grow or experience declines, our revenue may not meet our business plan expectations.
Our initial designs are being incorporated into mobile wireless devices. Accordingly, demand for our designs is dependent on the ability of mobile wireless device manufacturers to successfully sell wireless devices that incorporate our designs. We cannot be certain whether these manufacturers will be able to create or sustain demand for their wireless devices that contain our designs or how long they will remain competitive in their business, if at all. The success of these mobile wireless device manufacturers and the demand for their wireless devices can be affected by a number of factors, including, but not limited to:
•market acceptance of their mobile wireless devices that contain our designs;
•the impact of slowdowns or declines in sales of mobile wireless devices in general;
•their ability to design products with features that meet the evolving tastes and preferences of consumers;
•fluctuations in foreign currency;
•relationships with wireless carriers in particular markets;
•the implementation of, or changes to, mobile wireless device certification standards and programs;
•technological advancements in the functionality and capabilities of mobile wireless devices;
•the imposition of restrictions, tariffs, duties, or regulations by foreign governments on mobile wireless device manufacturers;
•failure to comply with governmental restrictions or regulations;
•cost and availability of components for their products; and
•inventory levels in the sales channels into which mobile wireless device manufacturers sell their products.
Security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of our proprietary information, or other hacking attacks on our systems, could adversely affect our business.
Our industry is prone to cyber-attacks, with third parties seeking unauthorized access to our proprietary information and technology. Computer malware, viruses, and hacking and phishing attacks by third parties have become more prevalent in our industry and may occur on our systems in the future. We believe such attempts are increasing in number and in technical sophistication, and in some instances we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. Additionally, we may be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects. Although we have developed systems and processes that are designed to protect our proprietary information and to prevent other cybersecurity breaches, we cannot guarantee that such measures will provide absolute security.
Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches and improper access to or disclosure of our proprietary information could result in the loss or misuse of such proprietary information, which could harm our business and diminish our competitive position. Such attacks may also create system disruptions or cause shutdowns. Publicity about vulnerabilities and attempted or successful incursions could damage our reputation with customers and reduce demand for our products and services.
Affected private parties or government authorities could initiate legal or regulatory actions against us in connection with any security breaches, which could cause us to incur significant expense and liability or result in orders or consent decrees forcing us to modify our business practices. Any of these events could have a material and adverse effect on our business, reputation, and operating results.
Risks Related to Government Regulation
Our failure to comply with U.S. laws and regulations relating to the export and import of goods, technology, and software could subject us to penalties and other sanctions and restrict our ability to license and develop our filter designs.
We are obligated by law to comply with all U.S. laws and regulations governing the export and import of goods, technology, and services, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, the Export Administration Regulations, or EAR, regulations administered by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and regulations administered by the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives governing the importation of items on the U.S. Munitions Import List. Pursuant to these regulations, we are responsible for determining the proper licensing jurisdiction and export classification of our filter designs, and obtaining all necessary licenses or other approvals, if required, for exports and imports of technical data, and software, or for the provision of technical assistance or other defense services to or on behalf of foreign persons. We are also required to obtain export licenses, if required, before employing or otherwise utilizing foreign persons in the performance of our contracts if the foreign person will have access to export-controlled technical data or software. The violation of any of the applicable laws and regulations could subject us to administrative, civil, and criminal penalties.
These regulations could restrict our ability to license existing filter designs and develop new designs. For example, as a result of ITAR requirements, we are unable to supply certain products to China satellite companies or end users, which comprise a significant part of the overall satellite market. Changes in our designs or changes in export and import regulations may create delays in the introduction of our designs in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying products incorporating our designs throughout their global systems or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of product including our designs to certain countries altogether. Any change in export or import regulations or related legislation, shift in approach to the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, persons, or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our designs by, or our ability to export or license our designs to, existing or potential customers with international operations and decreased revenue. For example, in late 2020 the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security of the U.S. Department of Commerce placed a China-based customer of ours on the Bureau’s Entity List, which resulted in our suspending exports of our technologies to this customer while we seek a limited export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Any failure to comply with these laws could result in sanctions by the
U.S. government, including substantial monetary penalties, denial of export privileges, and debarment from government contracts.
Changes in China’s economic, political or social conditions or government policies, including rising tensions between China and the United States, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
Our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations may be significantly affected by the political, economic and social climate in China, including without limitation the rising tensions in the relationships between China, surrounding Asian countries, and the United States. As a result, our customers may incur increases in costs due to changes in tariffs, import or export restrictions (or other trade barriers), or unexpected changes in regulatory requirements, which could harm our business. Given the relatively fluid regulatory environment in China, there could be additional tax or other regulatory changes in the future. Such actions in the future, as well as other changes in Chinese laws and regulations, including actions in furtherance of China’s stated policy of reducing its dependence on foreign semiconductor manufacturers, could increase the cost of doing business in China, foster the emergence of Chinese-based competitors, decrease the demand for our customers’ products in China, or reduce the supply of critical materials for our customers’ products, which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
If we fail to comply with anti-bribery laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, we could be subject to civil and/or criminal penalties.
As a result of our international operations, we may be subject to anti-bribery laws, including the FCPA, which prohibits companies from making improper payments to foreign officials for the purpose of obtaining or keeping business. If we fail to comply with these laws, the U.S. Department of Justice, the SEC, or other U.S. or foreign governmental authorities could seek civil and/or criminal sanctions, including monetary fines and penalties against us or our employees, as well as additional changes to our business practices and compliance programs, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or financial condition.
Developments stemming from changes in Government administrations, both foreign and domestic, including the imposition of tariffs and export restrictions and other changes in government trade policies, could limit our ability to license our designs, which could adversely affect our business.
Changes in Government administration could result in changes to political, regulatory and economic laws, policies and conditions that could severely and negatively impact our business. For example, the Trump administration negotiated a new North American trade pact to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and has imposed tariffs on goods imported into the United States, including from China, which has imposed retaliatory tariffs affecting certain products manufactured in the United States. Our customers are located around the world, and we expect that international sales will comprise a substantial portion of total sales in the future. In addition, we expect that products utilizing our designs will be produced, assembled and tested at third-party manufacturing facilities located primarily in Asia. Changes in U.S. political, regulatory and economic conditions or laws and policies governing U.S. tax laws, foreign trade, manufacturing, and development and investment in the countries where we or our customers operate could adversely affect our operating results and our business. For example, imposition of tariffs on our customers’ products that are imported from China to the United States could harm sales of such products, which would harm our business. We cannot predict what actions may ultimately be taken with respect to tariffs or trade relations between the United States and China or other countries, what products may be subject to such actions, or what actions may be taken by the other countries in retaliation.
Changes in current laws or regulations or the imposition of new laws or regulations could impede the license of our designs or otherwise harm our business.
Wireless networks can only operate in the frequency bands, or spectrum, allowed by regulators and in accordance with rules governing how the spectrum can be used. The Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, in the United States, as well as regulators in foreign countries, have broad jurisdiction over the allocation of frequency bands for wireless networks. We therefore will rely on the FCC and international regulators to provide sufficient spectrum and usage rules. For example, countries such as China, Japan or Korea heavily regulate all aspects of their wireless communication industries, and may restrict spectrum allocation or usage. If this were to occur elsewhere, it would make it difficult for us to license our designs for use in mobile devices in that region.
Risks Related to Ownership of our Stock
The price of our common stock may be volatile and the value of your investment could decline
Technology stocks have historically experienced high levels of volatility. The trading price of our common stock may fluctuate substantially, depending on many factors, some of which are beyond our control and may not be related to our operating performance. These fluctuations could cause you to lose all or part of your investment in our common stock. Factors that could cause fluctuations in the trading price of our common stock include, but are not limited to, the following:
•the progress, completion or failure of efforts to design our commercial products;
•a customer decision regarding incorporation of our designs into a commercial product;
•the loss of any customer relationship;
•the addition of a new customer relationship;
•mergers and acquisitions involving us, our customers or our competitors;
•price and volume fluctuations in the overall stock market from time to time;
•significant volatility in the market price and trading volume of technology companies in general;
•fluctuations in the trading volume of our shares or the size of our public float;
•actual or anticipated changes or fluctuations in our results of operations;
•whether our results of operations meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors;
•actual or anticipated changes in the expectations of investors or securities analysts;
•litigation involving us, our industry, or both;
•regulatory developments in the United States, foreign countries, or both;
•general economic conditions and trends;
•major catastrophic events;
•lockup releases, sales of large blocks of our common stock;
•departures of key employees; or
•an adverse impact on the company from any of the other risks cited herein.
In addition, if the market for technology stocks or the stock market in general, experience a loss of investor confidence, the trading price of our common stock could decline for reasons unrelated to our business, results of operations or financial condition. The trading price of our common stock might also decline in reaction to events that affect other companies in our industry even if these events do not directly affect us. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company’s securities. Two putative class action lawsuits were filed in March 2015 against the Company and certain members of the Board of Directors and executives and subsequently settled. We may be the target of securities-related litigation in the future. Such litigation could divert our management’s attention and resources, result in substantial costs, and have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.
If we raise additional capital in the future, your ownership in us could be diluted.
Any issuance of equity we may undertake in the future to raise additional capital could cause the price of our common stock to decline, or require us to issue shares at a price that is lower than that paid by holders of our common stock in the past, which would result in those newly issued shares being dilutive. Any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing that we secure in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, including the ability to pay dividends, which could impair the value of our common stock. This may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities.
Our limited operating history makes it difficult to evaluate our business and prospects and may increase the risks associated with your investment.
We have only a limited operating history upon which our business and future prospects may be evaluated. We have encountered and will continue to encounter risks and difficulties frequently experienced by companies in rapidly developing and changing industries, including challenges related to recruiting, integrating and retaining qualified employees; making effective use of our limited resources; achieving market acceptance of our existing and future solutions; competing against companies with greater financial and technical resources; and developing new solutions. Our current operational infrastructure may require changes for us to scale our business efficiently with additional technical personnel and effectively to keep pace with demand for our solutions, and achieve long-term profitability. If we fail to implement these changes on a timely basis or are unable to implement them effectively, our business may suffer. We cannot assure you that we will be successful in addressing these and other challenges we may face in the future. As a company in a rapidly evolving industry, our business prospects depend in large part on our ability to:
•build a reputation for a superior solution and create trust and long-term relationships with our customers;
•distinguish ourselves from competitors in our industry;
•develop and offer competitive technologies that meet our customers’ needs as they change;
•respond to evolving industry standards and government regulations that impact our business;
•expand our business internationally; and
•attract, hire, integrate and retain qualified and motivated employees.
If we are unable to meet one or more of these objectives or otherwise adequately address the risks and difficulties that we face, our business may suffer, our revenue may decline and we may not be able to achieve growth or long-term profitability.
Our limited visibility into future demand for products incorporating our finished filter designs makes it difficult to forecast royalty revenue.
Our customers have had difficulty accurately forecasting their product sales volumes and the timing of new product introductions, which ultimately affects the royalties we expect to receive for sales of products incorporating our finished filter designs. Our limited visibility into the demand for our customers’ products makes it difficult for us to accurately forecast royalty revenues, which we expect will continue for the foreseeable future.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish inaccurate or unfavorable research reports about our business, our share price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our common stock will, to some extent, depend on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us should downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our business prospects, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.
We have never declared or paid any dividends on our common stock. We intend to retain any earnings to finance the operation and expansion of our business, and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the future. As a result, you may only receive a return on your investment in our common stock if the market price of our common stock increases.
Our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards (“NOLs”) and other tax attributes to offset future taxable income may be limited.
We have significant NOLs and R&D tax credits available to offset our future United States federal and state taxable income. Under Sections 382 and 383 of Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, if a corporation undergoes an “ownership change,” the corporation’s ability to use its pre-change NOLs and other pre-change tax attributes, such as R&D tax credits, to offset its post-change income and taxes may be limited. In general, an “ownership change” occurs if there is a cumulative change in our ownership by “5% shareholders” that exceeds 50 percentage points over a rolling three-year period. Similar rules may apply under state tax laws. In 2014 and 2017 ownership changes, as defined in Section 382 of the Internal Revenue Code, occurred which resulted in annual limitations on our federal net operating loss carryforwards; however, we believe it is more likely than not that none of the federal net operating loss carryforwards will expire as a result of the of limitations under Section 382. If we experience additional ownership changes as a result of future transactions in our stock, then we may be further limited in our ability to use our NOLs and other tax assets to reduce taxes owed on the net taxable income that we earn. Any such limitations on the ability to use our NOLs and other tax assets could adversely impact our business, financial condition and operating results. In addition, California and certain states have suspended use of NOLs for certain taxable years and other states are considering similar measures. As a result, we may incur higher state income tax expense in the future. Depending on our future tax position, continued suspension of our ability to use NOLs in states in which we are subject to income tax could have an adverse impact on our operating results and financial condition.
Our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage takeover attempts and lead to management entrenchment.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws contain provisions that could delay or prevent a change in control of our company. These provisions could also make it difficult for stockholders to elect directors that are not nominated by the current members of our board of directors or take other corporate actions, including effecting changes in our management. These provisions include:
•the ability of our board of directors to issue shares of preferred stock and to determine the price and other terms of those shares, including preferences and voting rights, without stockholder approval, which could be used to significantly dilute the ownership of a hostile acquirer;
•the exclusive right of our board of directors to elect a director to fill a vacancy created by the expansion of our board of directors or the resignation, death or removal of a director, which prevents stockholders from being able to fill vacancies on our board of directors;
•a prohibition on stockholder action by written consent, which forces stockholder action to be taken at an annual or special meeting of our stockholders;
•the requirement that a special meeting of stockholders may be called only by the chairman of our board of directors, the chief executive officer, the president (in the absence of a chief executive officer) or a majority vote of our board of directors, which could delay the ability of our stockholders to force consideration of a proposal or to take action, including the removal of directors;
•the requirement for the affirmative vote of holders of at least 66-2/3% of the voting power of all of the then-outstanding shares of the voting stock, voting together as a single class, to amend the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation relating to the management of our business or our amended and restated bylaws, which may inhibit the ability of an acquirer to effect such amendments to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt;
•the ability of our board of directors, by majority vote, to amend our amended and restated bylaws, which may allow our board of directors to take additional actions to prevent an unsolicited takeover and inhibit the ability of an acquirer to amend our amended and restated bylaws to facilitate an unsolicited takeover attempt; and
•advance notice procedures with which stockholders must comply to nominate candidates to our board of directors or to propose matters to be acted upon at a stockholders’ meeting, which may discourage or deter a potential acquirer from conducting a solicitation of proxies to elect the acquirer’s own slate of directors or otherwise attempting to obtain control of us.
In addition, as a Delaware corporation, we are subject to Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. These provisions may prohibit large stockholders, in particular those owning 15% or more of our outstanding voting stock, from merging or combining with us for a certain period of time.
General Risks
The ongoing, global coronavirus pandemic has significantly and adversely affected, and may continue to adversely affect, our business, financial position, results of operations and cash flows.
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (which causes the disease now known as COVID-19) was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and has since spread rapidly across the world, including in all or most of the countries in which we, our customers, and our suppliers operate. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, a global slowdown in economic activity, a decrease in demand for a broad variety of goods and services, disruptions in global supply chains, and significant volatility and disruption of financial markets. Because the severity, magnitude and duration of the pandemic and its economic consequences are uncertain, vary by region, are rapidly changing and difficult to predict, its full impact on our operations and financial performance, as well as its impact on our near-term ability to successfully execute our strategic objectives, remains similarly uncertain and difficult to predict. Further, the pandemic’s ultimate impact depends in part on many factors not within our control and which may vary by region (heightening the uncertainty as to the ultimate impact COVID-19 may have on our operations and financial performance), including, without limitation: restrictive governmental and business actions that have been and continue to be taken in response (including travel restrictions, work from home requirements, and other workforce limitations); economic stimulus, funding and relief programs and other governmental economic responses; the effectiveness of governmental actions; economic uncertainty in key global markets and financial market volatility; levels of economic contraction or growth; the impact of the pandemic on health and safety; the pace of recovery if and when the pandemic subsides; and how significantly the number of cases increases as economies reopen and restrictive governmental and business actions are relaxed.
Further, the COVID-19 pandemic has recently subjected our operations and financial performance to several risks, including those discussed below:
•Operations-related risks: Our business is facing increased operational challenges including a heightened need to protect employee health and safety, office shutdowns, workplace disruptions, and restrictions on the movement of people, both at our own offices and at those of our clients and suppliers. We are also experiencing, and expect to continue experiencing, client requests for engagement deferrals and other factors related directly and indirectly to the
COVID-19 pandemic that adversely impact our business. We expect that the longer the period of economic disruption continues, the more severe the negative impact will be on our operations and financial performance.
•Client-related risks: Our customers have been and will continue to be disrupted by quarantines and restrictions on employees’ ability to work and office closures. Such disruptions have and may continue to restrict our ability to provide products and services to our clients and have also and may continue to reduce demand for our products and services. In addition, COVID-19 has adversely affected the global economy and the economies and financial markets of many countries, which may result in further economic downturn that could affect demand for our products and services and impact our operations.
•Employee-related risks: We have experienced and expect to continue to experience disruptions to our operations resulting from quarantines, self-isolations, or other movement and restrictions on the ability of our employees to perform their jobs that may impact our ability to deliver our products and services in a timely manner or meet milestones or customer commitments.
The full extent of the effect of the pandemic on us, our customers, our supply chain and our business will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted with confidence, including the duration and severity of the outbreak or subsequent outbreaks. We may continue to experience the effects of the pandemic even after it has waned, and our business, results of operations and financial condition could continue to be affected. In particular, if COVID-19 continues to spread or re-emerges, particularly in the United States, Japan and China where our operations are most concentrated, resulting in a prolonged period of travel, commercial, social and other similar restrictions, we could experience, among other things:
•Adverse impacts on our operations and financial results caused by government and regulatory measures to contain or mitigate the spread of the virus, temporary closures of our facilities or the facilities of our customers or suppliers, which could impact our ability to timely meet our customers’ orders or negatively impact our supply chain;
•The failure of third parties on which we rely, including our suppliers, customers and external business partners, to meet their respective obligations to us, or significant disruptions in their ability to do so, which may be caused by their own financial or operational difficulties including bankruptcy or default;
•Disruptions or restrictions on our employees’ ability to work effectively, due to illness, quarantines, travel bans, shelter-in-place orders or other limitations;
•Interruptions to the operations of our business if the health of our executives, management personnel and other employees are affected, particularly if a significant number of individuals are impacted;
•Any accident, COVID-19 illness, or injury to our employees could result in litigation, development delays and harm to our reputation, which could negatively affect our business, results of operations and financial condition;
•Changes in prices of products and services may be impacted by worldwide demand and by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and such price increases could materially increase our operating costs and adversely affect our profit margin;
•Increased cybersecurity and privacy risks and risks related to the reliability of technology to support remote operations;
•Sudden and/or severe declines in the market price of our common stock; and
•Costs incurred and revenues lost during and from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic likely will not be recoverable.
The COVID-19 pandemic may also affect our operations and financial results in a manner that is not presently known to us or that we currently do not expect to present significant risks to our operations or financial results.
Our worldwide operations are subject to political, legal and economic risks and catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, war, acts of terrorism and epidemics that could disrupt the business of our customers or harm our facilities, which could have a material adverse effect on us.
Our customers are located around the world, including in the United States and Asia, and we expect that international sales will comprise a significant portion of total sales in the future. In addition, products utilizing our designs will be produced,
assembled and tested at third-party manufacturing facilities located primarily in Asia. Consequently, we are subject to political, legal and economic risks associated with operations in foreign countries, including, without limitation:
•expropriation;
•changes in a specific country’s or region’s political or economic conditions;
•changes in tax laws, trade protection measures and import or export licensing requirements;
•difficulties in protecting our intellectual property;
•difficulties in managing staffing and exposure to different employment practices and labor laws;
•changes in foreign currency exchange rates;
•restrictions on transfers of funds and other assets of our subsidiaries between jurisdictions;
•changes in freight and interest rates;
•disruption in air transportation between the United States and overseas facilities;
•loss or modification of exemptions for taxes and tariffs; and
•compliance with U.S. laws and regulations related to international operations, including export control and economic sanctions laws and regulations and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In addition, our worldwide operations (or those of our business partners) could be subject to natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, typhoons and volcanic eruptions, war, acts of terrorism, pandemic events and the spread of disease, all of which are outside of our control and could disrupt manufacturing or other operations. For example, our Goleta and Burlingame operations are located near major earthquake fault lines in California. Any conflict or uncertainty in the countries in which we operate, including public health issues, safety issues, natural disasters, disruptions of service from utilities, nuclear power plant accidents or general economic or political factors, could have a material adverse effect on our business. Any of the above risks, should they occur, could result in an increase in the cost of components, production delays, general business interruptions, delays from difficulties in obtaining export licenses for certain technology, tariffs and other barriers and restrictions, longer payment cycles, increased taxes, restrictions on the repatriation of funds and the burdens of complying with a variety of foreign laws, any of which could ultimately have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our future revenue is inherently unpredictable. As a result, as our revenues increase our operating results are likely to fluctuate from period to period, and we may fail to meet the expectations of our analysts and investors, which may cause volatility in our stock price and may cause our stock price to decline.
As we generate revenue, we expect our quarterly and annual operating results to fluctuate significantly due to a variety of factors, some of which are outside of our control. Factors that could cause our quarterly or annual operating results to fluctuate include:
•a downturn in the markets for our customers’ products;
•disruptions or delays in the manufacture of our designed filters, our customers’ products, or the products into which our customers’ products are incorporated, or in the supply of raw materials or product components used to produce such filters or products;
•a failure to anticipate changing customer product requirements;
•market acceptance of our designs;
•cancellations or postponements of previously placed orders for our customers’ products;
•increased financing costs or any inability to obtain necessary financing;
•the impact on our business of any cost reduction measures;
•a loss of key personnel or the shortage of available skilled workers;
•economic conditions in various geographic areas where we or our customers do business;
•the impact of political uncertainties, such as government sequestration and uncertainties surrounding the federal budget, customer spending and demand for products incorporating our designs;
•other conditions affecting the timing of orders of our customers’ products incorporating our designs;
•reductions in the royalty rates for our designs occasioned by a reduction in the prices for our customers’ products, increases in the costs of raw materials used to produce our customers’ products, or other factors;
•effects of competitive pricing pressures, including decreases in average selling prices of RF filters that compete with our filter designs, resulting in reduced royalty revenue;
•obsolescence of our designs;
•research and development expenses incurred with respect to new filter design introductions;
•natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, and floods;
•the emergence of new industry standards;
•the loss or gain of significant customers;
•the introduction of new designs and manufacturing processes;
•changes in technology;
•intellectual property disputes;
•customs (including tariffs imposed on products, or components thereof, into which our filter designs are incorporated, or the equipment used in the production of such products), import/export, and other regulations of the countries in which we do business;
•the occurrence of M&A activities; and
•acts of terrorism or violence and international conflicts or crises, including pandemic events and the spread of disease.
If we choose to acquire new businesses, products or technologies, we may experience difficulty in the identification or integration of any such acquisition, and our business may suffer.
Our commercial success depends on our ability to continually enhance and broaden our product offerings in response to changing customer demands, competitive pressures and technologies. Accordingly, we may in the future pursue the acquisition of complementary businesses, products or technologies instead of developing them ourselves. We do not know if we will be able to identify or complete any future acquisitions, or whether we will be able to successfully integrate any acquired business, product or technology or retain key employees. Integrating any business, product or technology we acquire could be expensive and time consuming, disrupt our ongoing business and distract our management. Moreover, we may fail to realize the anticipated benefits of any acquisition. If we are unable to integrate any acquired businesses, products or technologies effectively, our business will suffer. In addition, any amortization or charges resulting from acquisitions could adversely affect our operating results.
The loss of the services of our key management and personnel or the failure to attract additional key personnel could adversely affect our ability to operate our business.
A loss of one or more of our current officers or key employees could severely and negatively impact our operations. We have no present intention of obtaining key-man life insurance on any of our executive officers or management. Additionally, competition for highly skilled technical, managerial and other personnel is intense. As our business develops, we might not be able to attract, hire, train, retain and motivate the highly skilled managers and employees we need to be successful. If we fail to attract and retain the necessary technical and managerial personnel, our business may not grow, may suffer and might fail.
If our estimates or judgments relating to our critical accounting policies are based on assumptions that change or prove to be incorrect, our operating results could fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price.
The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in the consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances, as provided in Item 7--Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, the results of which form the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets, liabilities, equity, revenue and expenses that are not readily apparent from other sources. Our operating results may be adversely affected if our assumptions change or if actual circumstances differ from those in our assumptions, which could cause our operating results to fall below the expectations of securities analysts and investors, resulting in a decline in our stock price. Significant assumptions and estimates used in preparing our consolidated financial statements include those related to the fair values of equity instruments, other financial instruments and income taxes.
Changes in U.S. tax laws and regulations may have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flow, operating results, and financial condition.
Changes in tax laws and regulations, or changes in the interpretation of tax laws and regulations by federal or state authorities, may have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flows, operating results or financial condition. Changes in corporate tax rates and the deductibility of expenses included in future tax reform legislation could have a material impact on the future value of our deferred tax assets, could result in significant one-time costs or expenses in the current or future taxable years, and could increase our future U.S. tax expense. In addition, foreign governments or U.S. states may enact tax laws, or make changes to tax laws, that could result in further changes to taxation applicable to us and materially affect our operating results and financial condition.