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UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
(Mark One)
☑	ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED January 1, 2022
	or
☐	TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM __________ TO __________

 

Commission file number: 000-18032

 

 

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

Delaware	93-0835214
(State of Incorporation)	(I.R.S. Employer Identification Number)
5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon	97124-6421
(Address of principal executive offices)	(Zip Code)

 

Registrant's telephone number, including area code: (503) 268-8000

________________________________________________________

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

________________________________________________________

 

(Title of Class)	(Trading Symbol)	(Name of each exchange on which registered)
Common Stock, $.01 par value	LSCC	Nasdaq Global Select Market

 

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

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐    No ☑

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes ☐    No ☑

 

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

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☑    No ☐

 

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

 

Large accelerated filer ☑	Accelerated filer ☐	Non-accelerated filer ☐
Smaller reporting company ☐	Emerging growth company ☐

 

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

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑

 

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

 

Aggregate market value of voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of July 3, 2021	$	6,695,294,586
Number of shares of common stock outstanding as of February 17, 2022	137,689,935

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The information required by Part III of this Report, to the extent not set forth herein, is incorporated herein by reference from the registrant's definitive proxy statement relating to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, which definitive proxy statement shall be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year to which this Report relates.

 

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Table of Contents

 

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These involve estimates, assumptions, risks, and uncertainties. Any statements about our expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, or future events or performance are not historical facts and may be forward-looking. We use words or phrases such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” "possible," “predict,” “projects,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “continue,” “ongoing,” “future,” “potential,” and similar words or phrases to identify forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about: our target or expected financial performance and our ability to achieve those results; future impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including as a result of actions by governments, businesses, and individuals in response to the situation, on consumer, industrial, labor, and financial markets, our business operations, supply chain and partners, financial performance, results of operations, financial position, and the achievement of our strategic objectives; our business strategy; our opportunities to increase our addressable market; our expectations and strategies regarding market trends and opportunities, including market segment drivers such as 5G infrastructure deployments, cloud and enterprise servers, client computing platforms, industrial Internet of Things, factory automation, automotive electronics, smart homes and prosumers; our beliefs about who we may compete with and how we are differentiated from those competitors; our expectations regarding our customer base; our expectations regarding product offerings; our gross margin growth and our strategies to achieve gross margin growth and other financial results; our future investments in research and development, and our research and development expense efficiency; our ability to take advantage of the process technology development efforts of semiconductor foundries and apply those technologies when they become most economically beneficial to us and to our customers; whether we will experience seasonality or cyclicality; our expectations about our patent portfolio, including the expiration of patents, whether, when and where we will make future filings, and the value of the patents generally and to our business; our ability to attract and retain personnel and their importance to our performance; future financial results or accounting treatments; our judgments involved in accounting matters, including revenue recognition, inventories and cost of revenue, and income taxes; actions we may take regarding the design and continued effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting; our use of cash; our beliefs regarding the adequacy of our liquidity, capital resources and facilities; whether we will consider and act upon acquisition opportunities to extend our product, technology and product offerings; expected synergies from the acquisition of Mirametrix, Inc.; the expected costs of our restructuring plans; our expectations regarding taxes, including unrecognized tax benefits, and tax adjustments and allowances; whether we will pursue future stock repurchases and how any future repurchases will be funded; our ability to prevent and respond to information technology system failures, security breaches and incidents, cyber-attacks or fraud; the impact of laws and regulations addressing privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity and our ability to comply with the same; and our beliefs regarding legal proceedings.

These forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements expressed in the forward-looking statements. The key factors, among others, that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements include the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions by governments, businesses, and individuals in response to the situation, the effects of which may give rise to or amplify the risks associated with many of these factors listed here; global economic conditions and uncertainty, including as a result of trade-related restrictions or tariffs; the concentration of our sales in certain end markets, particularly as it relates to the concentration of our sales in the Asia Pacific region; market acceptance and demand for our existing and new products; market and technology trends; our ability to license or sell our intellectual property; any disruption of our distribution channels; the impact of competitive products and pricing; the effect of any downturn in the economy on capital markets and credit markets; our failure to prevent or adequately respond to information technology system failures, security breaches and incidents, cyber-attacks, or fraud; unanticipated taxation requirements or positions of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service or other taxing authority; unanticipated effects of tax reform; or unexpected impacts of accounting guidance. In addition, actual results are subject to other risks and uncertainties that relate more broadly to our overall business, including those more fully described herein and that are otherwise described from time to time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including, but not limited to, the items discussed in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

You should not unduly rely on forward-looking statements because our actual results could differ materially from those expressed by us. In addition, any forward-looking statement applies only as of the date of this filing. We do not plan to, and undertake no obligation to, update any forward-looking statements to reflect new information or new events, circumstances or developments, or otherwise.

PART I

Item 1. Business

Overview

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Lattice,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) develop technologies that we monetize through differentiated programmable logic semiconductor products, system solutions, design services, and licenses. Lattice is the low power programmable leader. We solve customer problems across the network, from the Edge to the Cloud, in the growing Communications, Computing, Industrial, Automotive, and Consumer markets. Our technology, long-standing relationships, and commitment to world-class support enable our customers to create a smart, secure, and connected world.

Our field programmable gate array ("FPGA") devices enable us to provide our customers with a strong, growing base of control, connect, and compute technologies. We believe there are multiple growth areas that will allow us to increase our addressable market. In particular, we believe there are several emerging trends in servers, infrastructure, and smart devices that are opportunities for Lattice:

To serve these emerging needs, customer solutions require power efficiency, memory bandwidth, processing power, and the ability to integrate complex functionality into a highly compact footprint. These requirements align to the capabilities of our FPGA devices. Our flexible, low power, small form factor, easy to use FPGAs put us in a unique position to meet these growing market needs.

Our Markets and Customers

We sell our products globally in three end market groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. We also provide Intellectual Property ("IP") licensing and services to these end markets.

In the Communications and Computing Market, our solutions play key roles in computing systems such as servers and client devices, 5G wireless infrastructure, switches / routers, and other related applications.

Our Communications and Computing customers need to address a variety of challenges.

Lattice FPGAs solve these customer problems. Our FPGAs are optimized for input/output ("I/O") expansion, hardware acceleration, and hardware management. Our FPGAs consume power at very low rates, which reduces operating costs and supports the continued miniaturization of consumer devices. Their small form factor enables higher functional density in less space. Finally, our FPGAs are I/O rich, which allows for more connections with system application specific integrated circuits ("ASICs") and application specific standard products ("ASSPs").

Examples of where our products enable intelligent automation in the Industrial and Automotive Market include Industrial Internet of Things ("IoT"), machine vision, robotics, factory automation, advanced driver assistance systems ("ADAS"), and automotive infotainment.

Our Industrial and Automotive customers face numerous challenges:

Our product portfolio helps solve these challenges. Our small-sized, low-power FPGAs not only provide the I/O expansion, bridging, connectivity, and processing inherent in FPGAs, but they also form the backbone of several integrated solutions, including motor control, complete High Definition ("HD") camera and DVR solutions on a single FPGA device, and Human-Machine Interfaces ("HMI") on a chip.

In the Consumer Market, you can find our solutions making products smarter and thinner, including smart home devices, prosumer devices, sound bars, high end projectors, Augmented Reality ("AR") / Virtual Reality ("VR"), and wearables.

Our Consumer customers are driven by the need to deliver richer and more responsive experiences. They typically require:

Lattice FPGAs bring multiple benefits to these customers. An FPGA’s parallel architecture enables faster processing than competing devices, such as microcontrollers, allowing for a user experience with shorter pauses and fewer delays. Our FPGAs are among the most power efficient in the industry, enabling the application processor and other high-power components to remain dormant longer, resulting in longer battery life. Finally, with some of the industry’s smallest packages, we enable thinner end products.

Our proprietary solutions help our customers get their products to market faster than typical development cycles. With re-programmability and flexibility, our FPGAs inherently allow our customers to have quicker product development. The time-to-market advantages of Lattice's solutions are critical given the shorter product life cycles and higher competition in our customers’ end markets.

Our Products, Services, and Competition

We are focused on delivering FPGAs and related solutions to help solve our customers' problems. We also serve our customers with IP licensing and various other services.

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (“FPGAs”)

FPGAs are regular arrays of logic that can be custom-configured by the user through software. This programmability allows our customers flexibility and reduced time to market while allowing us to offer the chips to many different customers in many different markets. Four product families anchor our FPGA offerings:

To enable our customers to get to market faster we support our FPGAs with IP cores, reference designs, development kits, and design software. We are investing in our design software, such as Lattice Radiant™, to deliver best-in-class tools that enable predictable design convergence, and Lattice Propel™ for unparalleled ease in creating embedded processor-based designs. We have developed integrated system-level solution stacks, such as Lattice sensAI™ for Edge AI applications, as well as Lattice mVision™ for low power embedded vision, Lattice Sentry™ for implementing hardware security, and Lattice Automate™ for industrial automation and robotics. We combine all of these elements to solve specific customer problems such as the need to quickly implement low power AI inferencing in Edge applications. Further, we have application software such as Glance by Mirametrix™ that allows users to control the AI experience of their end systems.

Depending on the application, we may compete with other FPGA vendors, as well as producers of ASICs, ASSPs, and microcontrollers. We believe that Lattice has developed products and solutions with differentiated advantages.

Legacy Semiconductor Products

We also sell Video Connectivity ASSPs, although we are not developing new products in this area and their support requirements are minimal.

IP Licensing and Services

Lattice has a broad set of technological capabilities and many U.S. and international patents. We generate revenue from our technology portfolio via upfront fees and on-going royalty payments through the following activities:

Research and Development

We place a substantial emphasis on new product development, where return on investment is the key driver. We believe that continued investment in research and development is required to maintain and improve our competitive position. Our research and development activities are focused on new proprietary products, advanced packaging, existing product enhancements, software development tools, soft IP cores, and application focused hardware and software solutions. These research and development activities occur primarily at our sites in Hillsboro, Oregon; San Jose, California; Montreal, Canada; Shanghai, China; and Muntinlupa City, Philippines.

We believe that a continued commitment to research and development is essential to maintaining product leadership and providing a strong cadence of innovative new product offerings and, therefore, we expect to continue to make significant future investments in research and development.

Operations

We operate as a fabless semiconductor provider and, therefore, we do not manufacture our own silicon products. We maintain strategic relationships with large, established semiconductor foundries to source our finished silicon wafers. This strategy allows us to focus our internal resources on product and market development and eliminate the fixed cost of owning and operating manufacturing facilities. We are able to take advantage of the ongoing advanced process technology development efforts of semiconductor foundries and apply those technologies when they become most economically beneficial to us and to our customers.

We rely on third party vendors to provide cost-effective and efficient supply chain services. Among other activities, these outsourced services relate to direct sales logistics, which include order fulfillment, inventory management and warehousing, and the shipment of inventory to third party distributors.

Wafer Fabrication

Lattice partners with Samsung Semiconductor ("Samsung") to develop and manufacture the first low-power FPGA on 28nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator ("FD-SOI") technology, which is used in our Nexus platform of FPGA products. We partner with United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC") and its subsidiary United Semiconductor Japan Corporation ("USJC") to manufacture our products on its 130nm, 90nm, 65nm, and 40nm CMOS process technologies, as well as embedded flash memory in these process nodes. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (“TSMC”) manufactures our 350nm, 130nm, 55nm and 40nm products. Seiko Epson ("Epson") manufactures our 500nm, 350nm, 250nm and 180nm products.

We source silicon wafers from our foundry partners, Samsung, UMC, USJC, TSMC, and Epson, pursuant to agreements with each company and their respective affiliates. We negotiate wafer volumes, prices, and other terms with our foundry partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.

Assembly

All of our assembly and test operations are performed by industry-leading outsourced assembly and test suppliers ("OSATs") with our primary supplier being Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. ("ASE"). We perform certain test operations as well as reliability and quality assurance processes internally during the development process. We have achieved and maintained ISO9001:2015 Quality Management Systems Certification and released a line of products qualified to the AEC-Q100 Reliability Standard in support of Automotive product offerings in addition to ISO26262 certification on both Automotive products and software.

After wafer fabrication and initial testing, we ship wafers to independent subcontractors for assembly. During assembly, wafers are separated into individual die and encapsulated in plastic packages. We have qualified two major assembly partners, ASE and Amkor Technology ("Amkor") and are second sourced where volume and customer requirements are necessary. All ASE and Amkor manufacturing of our products is in Asia. We negotiate assembly prices, volumes, and other terms with our assembly partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.

We currently offer an extensive list of standard products in lead (Pb) free packaging. Our lead-free products meet the European Parliament Directive entitled "Restrictions on the use of Hazardous Substances" ("RoHS"). A select and growing subset of our RoHS compliant products are also offered with a "Halogen Free" material set.

Testing (Sort and Final Test)

We electrically sort test the die on most wafers prior to shipment for assembly. Wafer sort testing is primarily performed by ASE in Taiwan and Malaysia, Amkor in Japan, and our second source, King Yuan Electronics Co. (“KYEC”) in Taiwan.

Following assembly, but prior to customer shipment, each product undergoes final testing and quality assurance procedures. Final testing is performed by ASE and Amkor.

Sales and Revenue

We generate revenue by monetizing our technology designs and patents through product and technology sales. This involves distribution channel and direct sales of silicon-based hardware and silicon-enabling products, as well as the licensing or sale of IP that we have developed or acquired, some of which we use in our products, and certain design services that we may provide.

Sales and Customers

We primarily sell our products to customers from Lattice Semiconductor Corporation or our wholly-owned subsidiary, Lattice SG Pte. Ltd. Independent distributors are significant customers, and a substantial portion of our sales are made into this channel. Additionally, we sell both directly and through a network of independent manufacturers' representatives. We also employ a direct sales management and field applications engineering organization to support our end customers and indirect sales resources. End customers for our products are primarily Original Equipment Manufacturers ("OEMs") in the Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer end markets. Our sales team attempts to drive multi-generational design wins within these OEMs and leverages our distribution partners to grow our broad customer base.

We provide global technical support to our end customers with engineering staff based at our headquarters, product development centers, and selected field sales offices. We maintain numerous domestic and international field sales offices in major metropolitan areas.

In fiscal years 2021, 2020, and 2019, sales to distributors accounted for approximately 87%, 83%, and 82%, respectively, of our net revenue. We depend on our distributors to sell our products to end customers, complete order fulfillment, and maintain sufficient inventory of our products. Our distributors also provide technical support and other value-added services to our end customers. We have two global distributors. We also have regional distribution in Asia, Japan, and Israel, and we sell through three major on-line distributors. Revenue from foreign sales as a percentage of total revenue was 88%, 89%, and 89% for fiscal 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively. We assign revenue to geographies based on ship-to location of our customers. Both foreign and domestic sales are denominated in U.S. dollars.

Backlog

Our backlog consists of orders from distributors and certain OEMs that generally require delivery within the next year. Historically, our backlog has not been a predictor of future sales or customer demand for the following reasons:

Seasonality

We periodically experience variability in our sales volumes and financial results due to seasonal trends in the end markets we serve, the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, and general economic conditions.

IP, Patents, and Licensing

We seek to protect our products, technologies, and IP primarily through patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademark registrations, licensing restrictions, confidentiality agreements, and other approaches designed to protect proprietary information. We hold numerous United States and international patents and have patent applications pending in the United States and internationally. In addition to protecting innovations designed into our products, our ownership and maintenance of patents is an important factor in the determination of our share of the royalties from the implementation of the HDMI standard. Our current patents will expire at various times between 2022 and 2040, subject to our payment of periodic maintenance fees. We believe that our patents have value, and we expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions, as we deem appropriate. We have acquired various licenses from third parties to certain technologies that are implemented in IP cores or embedded in our products. These licenses support our continuing ability to make and sell these products to our customers. While our various IP rights are important to our success, we believe our business as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular patent or license, or any particular group of patents or licenses.

Human Capital Management

We provide a safe and positive work environment for our employees that emphasizes respect for individuals and ethical conduct, learning and development, facilitated by a direct employee engagement model. The health and safety of our employees is of utmost important to us. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have taken actions to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and our business. We implemented social distancing policies at our locations around the world as appropriate, including working from home and eliminating substantially all travel. Recognizing and respecting our global presence, we strive to maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce everywhere we operate. As of January 1, 2022, we had 856 employees worldwide.

We believe our employees are the foundation of our success and that our future growth depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain key technical, sales, and management personnel, particularly highly-skilled engineers involved in the design, development, and support of new and existing products and processes. In order for us to attract the best talent, we provide a collaborative, diverse, inclusive, and innovative work environment, competitive compensation, and recognition to give our employees the opportunity to grow. We are focused on developing diverse teams and continuing to build an inclusive culture that inspires leadership, encourages innovative thinking, and supports the development and advancement of all.

Our human capital management objectives include identifying, recruiting, incentivizing, and integrating our existing and future employees. We strive to attract and retain talented employees by offering competitive compensation and benefits that support their health, financial, and emotional well-being. Our compensation philosophy is based on rewarding each employee’s individual contributions and striving to achieve equal pay for equal work. We use a combination of fixed and variable pay including base salary, bonuses, performance awards, and stock-based compensation. The principal purposes of our equity incentive plans are to attract, retain, and motivate employees through the granting of stock-based compensation awards. We offer employees benefits that vary by country and are designed to address local laws and cultures and to be competitive in the marketplace.

Corporate Information and Public Information Availability

Our corporate headquarters are located at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, and our website is www.latticesemi.com. Information contained or referenced on our website is not incorporated by reference into, and does not form a part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol LSCC.

We make available, free of charge through the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.latticesemi.com, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those reports and statements as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. You may also obtain free copies of these materials by contacting our Investor Relations Department at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, telephone (503) 268-8000. Our SEC filings are also available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov.

Our Investor Relations website also provides notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance and other items that may be material or of interest to our investors, including SEC filings, press releases, earnings releases, and webcasts of our earnings calls. Further, corporate governance information, including our corporate governance policies, director code of ethics, code of conduct, board committee charters, conflict minerals report and conflict minerals policy, is also available on the investor relations section of our website.

The content on any website referred to in this filing is not incorporated by reference into this filing unless expressly noted otherwise.

ITEM 1A. Risk Factors

The following risk factors and all of the other information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K should be carefully considered in their entirety before making an investment decision relating to our common stock. If any of the risks described below occur, our business, financial condition, operating results, and cash flows could be materially adversely affected, and the trading price of our common stock could decline. The risks and uncertainties described below are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not presently known to us or that we currently deem to be immaterial also may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results. Continuing effects from the COVID-19 pandemic and containment measures, and related impacts to economic and operating conditions, may further affect the volatility or degree of known and unknown risks.

Risk Factor Summary

Factors Related to Economic, Legal, Regulatory & Political Business Conditions

Factors Related to Manufacturing our Products

Factors Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

Factors Related to Overall General Business & Operations

Factors Related to Our Markets and Product Development

Factors Related to Our Sales and Revenue

Factors Related to Strategic Transactions

Factors Related to Economic, Legal, Regulatory & Political Business Conditions

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition in a material way.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to mutate and affect the populations of the United States as well as many countries around the world. The outbreak has resulted in significant governmental measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 variants, including, among others, restrictions on travel, manufacturing and the movement of employees in many regions of the world, and the imposition of remote or work-from-home mandates in many of the countries in which we operate, including the United States and the Philippines. The majority of our products are manufactured, assembled, and tested by third parties in Asia. We also have other operations in China, the Philippines, and the United States. In addition, we rely on third party vendors for certain logistics and shipping operations throughout the world, including in Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. As remote and work-from-home conditions in our offices continue, we face new challenges, including the integration of new employees, current employees moving to new geographies and time zones, and uncertainty with respect to future work arrangements. Due to these and other challenges and uncertainties related to the makeup and structure of our workforce and workplace, we may experience delays in product development, a decreased ability to support our customers, reduced design win activity, and overall lack of productivity.

Pandemics and epidemics such as the current COVID-19 outbreak or other widespread public health problems could negatively impact our business. If, for example, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to progress in ways that significantly disrupt the manufacture, shipment, and buying patterns of our products or the products of our customers, this may materially negatively impact our operating results, including revenue, gross margins, operating margins, cash flows and other operating results, and our overall business. Disruptions to manufacturing and shipping could also constrain our supplies, leading to operational delays, disruptions and, potentially, inflation. Our customers may also experience closures of their manufacturing facilities or inability to obtain other components, either of which could negatively impact demand for our solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the overall economy and, as a result of the foregoing, could negatively impact our operating results and may do so in a material way. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic may increase or change the severity of our other risks reported in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including that:

The impact of COVID-19 may exacerbate the risk factors listed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, or cause them to change in importance. Developments related to the pandemic and to vaccine rollout have been rapidly changing, and additional impacts and risks may arise that we are not aware of or able to appropriately respond to currently. The ultimate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations and financial performance depends on many factors that are not within our control, including, but not limited, to: governmental, business, and individuals’ actions that have been and continue to be taken in response to the pandemic; general economic uncertainty in key global markets; volatility in financial markets, labor markets, and supply chains; global economic conditions and levels of economic growth; and the pace of recovery when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. As of the filing of this Annual Report, the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic will affect our business continues to be highly uncertain and dependent on future developments that are inherently unpredictable, which makes forecasting demand and providing guidance especially difficult. Accordingly, our expectations are subject to change without warning and investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on them.

Our global business operations expose us to various economic, legal, regulatory, political, and business risks, which could impact our business, operating results and financial condition.

We have significant domestic and international operations. Our international operations include foreign sales offices to support our international customers and distributors, which account for the majority of our revenue, and operational and research and development sites in China, the Philippines, and other Asian locations. In addition, we purchase our wafers from foreign foundries; have our commercial products assembled, packaged, and tested by subcontractors located outside of the United States; and rely on international service providers for inventory management, order fulfillment, and direct sales logistics.

Our domestic and international business activities are subject to economic, political and regulatory risks, including volatility in the financial markets; fluctuations in consumer liquidity; changes in interest rates; price increases for materials and components; trade barriers or changes in trade policies; political instability; acts of war or terrorism; natural disasters; economic sanctions; weak economic conditions; environmental regulations; labor regulations; labor markets; import and export regulations; tax or freight rates; duties; trade restrictions; interruptions in transportation or infrastructure; anti-corruption laws; domestic and foreign governmental regulations; potential vulnerability of and reduced protection for intellectual property; disruptions or delays in production or shipments; and instability or fluctuations in currency exchange rates, any of which could lead to decreased demand for our products or a change in our results of operation. Uncertainty about future political and economic conditions makes it difficult for us to forecast operating results and to make decisions about future investments. Any or all of these factors could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations in the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted precautionary government regulations limiting certain travel and business as well as precautionary business measures, such as those we adopted, like remote work-from-home operations for many employees. The COVID-19 pandemic and related responses have exacerbated many of the risks listed above, including but not limited to, causing fluctuations in consumer liquidity and volatility in financial markets, increases in inflation, interruptions in transportation and infrastructure, and disruptions to labor markets. Although our business has not been materially impacted by supply chain constraints, inflation, or labor market disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic may still lead to events outside of our control which could have a material adverse impact on our business, operating results, and financial condition. Additionally, in the future, the operations of customers and of the Company may be affected by this and similar public health matters.

If we fail to comply with the many laws and regulations to which we are subject, both within the United States and internationally, we may be subject to significant fines, penalties or liabilities for noncompliance, which could harm our business and financial results. For example, effective May 2018, the European Union adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which established new requirements regarding the handling of personal data and non-compliance monetary penalties of up to the higher of 20 million Euros or 4% of worldwide revenue. California also recently adopted the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which imposes significant fines and penalties for violations. In November 2020, California voters approved the California Privacy Rights Act, which extends and expands the CCPA. Other states in the United States have proposed, and in certain cases enacted, legislation similar to the CCPA. Other countries outside of the European Union, including the United Kingdom, China, and Brazil, also have enacted robust legislation addressing privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity and providing for substantial penalties for noncompliance. We anticipate that our efforts to comply with evolving laws and regulations addressing privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity will be a rigorous and time-intensive process that may increase our cost of doing business and may require us to change our policies and practices.

Any inability or perceived inability to adequately comply with applicable laws or regulations could result in claims, demands, and litigation by private actors or governmental authorities, investigations and other proceedings by governmental authorities, injunctive relief, fines, penalties, and other liabilities, any of which may harm our reputation and market position and could adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our business could suffer as a result of tariffs and trade sanctions or similar actions.

The imposition by the United States of tariffs, sanctions or other restrictions on goods imported from outside of the United States or countermeasures imposed in response to such government actions could adversely affect our operations or our ability to sell our products globally, which could adversely affect our operating results and financial condition. The materials subject to these tariffs may impact the cost of raw materials used by our suppliers or in our customers’ products. The imposition of further tariffs by the United States on a broader range of imports, or further retaliatory trade measures taken in response to additional tariffs, could increase costs in our supply chain or reduce demand of our customers’ products, either of which could adversely affect our results of operations.

Our customers or suppliers could also become subject to U.S. regulatory scrutiny or export restrictions. For example, in 2019 the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against one of our customers in China and imposed a licensing requirement on this customer with a policy of denial for some items, which has limited our ability to do business with this customer. In 2020, the U.S. imposed additional regulatory restrictions on the sale of U.S. controlled technology to customers in China, including establishing additional licensing requirements for the sale of U.S.-originated technology for certain applications or to companies that participate in the Chinese national security supply chain and limiting the fabrication of devices for certain Chinese companies where U.S. technology is involved in the fabrication process. Furthermore, in August 2020 the U.S. established additional licensing requirements for one of our China customers and its affiliates that limit any sales of products to that customer or for that customer’s products absent a license. The U.S. government may add additional Chinese companies to its restricted entity list or impose additional licensing requirements that we may be unable to meet in a timely manner or at all.

Where license requirements are imposed, there can be no assurance that the U.S. government will grant licenses to permit the continuation of business with these customers. Future sanctions similar to those imposed in the past and to those recently imposed could adversely affect our ability to earn revenue from these and similar customers. In addition, the imposition of sanctions on customers in China may cause those customers to seek domestic alternatives to our products and those of other United States semiconductor companies. Further, the Chinese government has developed an unreliable entity list, which limits the ability of companies on the list to engage in business with Chinese customers. We cannot predict what impact these and future actions, sanctions or criminal charges could have on our customers or suppliers, and therefore our business. If any of our other customers or suppliers become subject to sanctions or other regulatory scrutiny, if our customers are affected by tariffs or other government trade restrictions, or if we become subject to retaliatory regulatory measures, our business and financial condition could be adversely affected.

Factors Related to Manufacturing our Products

We rely on a concentrated number of subcontractors to supply and fabricate silicon wafers and to perform assembly and test operations for our semiconductor products. If they are unable to do so on a timely and cost-effective basis in sufficient quantities and using competitive technologies, we may incur significant costs or delays.

We rely on a concentrated number of independent foundries in Asia to supply and fabricate silicon wafers for our semiconductor products, including Samsung Semiconductor, United Microelectronics Corporation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, and Seiko Epson. Our success is dependent upon our ability to successfully partner with our foundry and OSAT partners and their ability to produce wafers and finished semiconductor products with competitive prices and performance attributes, including smaller process geometries, which ability may be impacted by labor market disruptions and rising inflation. Establishing, maintaining and managing multiple foundry and OSAT relationships requires the investment of management resources and costs.

If we fail to maintain our foundry and OSAT relationships, if these partners do not provide facilities and support for our development efforts, if they are insolvent or experience financial difficulty, if their operations are interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, or if we elect or are required to change foundries or OSATs, we may incur significant costs and delays. If our foundry or OSAT partners are unable to, or do not, manufacture sufficient quantities of our products at acceptable yields, we may be required to allocate the affected products among our customers, prematurely limit or discontinue the sales of certain products, or incur significant costs to transfer products to other foundries or OSATs, which could adversely affect our customer relationships and operating results.

Our margins are dependent on our achieving continued yield improvement.

We rely on obtaining yield improvements and corresponding cost reductions in the manufacture of existing products and on introducing new products that incorporate advanced features and other price/performance factors that enable us to increase revenues while maintaining acceptable margins. To the extent that such cost reductions and new product introductions do not occur in a timely manner, because of inflation, increases in personnel costs, employee turnover, or other factors, or that our products do not achieve market acceptance or market acceptance at acceptable pricing, our forecasts of future revenue, financial condition, and operating results could be materially adversely affected.

Shortages in, or increased costs of, wafers and materials could adversely impact our gross margins and lead to reduced revenues.

Worldwide manufacturing capacity for silicon wafers is relatively inelastic. If the demand for silicon wafers or assembly material exceeds market supply, or if suppliers increase prices to cover the cost of rising inflation, our supply of silicon wafers or assembly material could quickly become limited or prohibitively expensive. We typically have short-term wafer supply agreements that do not ensure long-term supply or allocation commitments. A shortage in manufacturing capacity could hinder our ability to meet product demand and therefore reduce our revenue. In addition, silicon wafers constitute a material portion of our product cost. If we are unable to purchase wafers at favorable prices, due to supply constraints, inflation, or other factors, our financial condition and results of operations will be adversely affected.

We may be subject to warranty claims and other costs related to our products.

In general, we warrant our products for varying lengths of time against non-conformance to our specifications and certain other defects. Because our products, including hardware, software, and intellectual property cores, are highly complex and increasingly incorporate advanced technology, our quality assurance programs may not detect all defects, whether these are specific manufacturing defects affecting individual products or these are systematic defects that could affect numerous shipments. Inability to detect a defect could result in a diversion of our engineering resources from product development efforts, increased engineering expenses to remediate the defect, and increased costs due to customer accommodation or inventory impairment charges. On occasion, we have also repaired or replaced certain components, made software fixes, or refunded the purchase price or license fee paid by our customers due to product or software defects. Our insurance may be unavailable or inadequate to protect against these issues. If there are significant product defects, the costs to remediate such defects, net of reimbursed amounts from our vendors, if any, or to resolve warranty claims may adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations and may harm our reputation.

Factors Related to Intellectual Property and Litigation

The intellectual property licensing component of our business strategy increases our business risk and fluctuation of our revenue and margins.

Our business strategy includes licensing our intellectual property to companies that incorporate it into their technologies that address multiple markets, including markets where we participate and compete. Our Licensing and services revenue may be impacted by the introduction of new technologies by customers in place of the technologies we license, changes in the law that may weaken our ability to prevent the use of our patented technology by others, the expiration of our patents, and changes of demand or selling prices for products using licensed patents. We cannot assure that our licensing customers will continue to license our technology on commercially favorable terms or at all, or that these customers will introduce and sell products incorporating our technology, accurately report royalties owed to us, pay agreed upon royalties, honor agreed upon market restrictions, or maintain the confidentiality of our proprietary information, or will not infringe upon or misappropriate our intellectual property. Our intellectual property licensing agreements are complex and may depend upon many factors that require significant judgments, including completion of milestones, allocation of values to delivered items and customer acceptance.

Our sale of patents and intermittent significant licensing transactions can cause material fluctuations in our revenue and gross margins.

We have generated revenue from the sale of certain patents from our portfolio in the past, generally for non-core technology that we are no longer actively developing. While we plan to continue to monetize our patent portfolio through sales of non-core patents, we may not be able to realize adequate interest or prices for those patents. Accordingly, we cannot provide assurance that we will continue to generate revenue from these sales. In addition, although we seek to be strategic in our decisions to sell patents, we might incur reputational harm if a purchaser of our patents sues one of our customers for infringement of the purchased patent, and we might later decide to enter a space that requires the use of one or more of the patents we sold. In addition, as we sell groups of patents, we no longer have the opportunity to further sell or to license those patents and receive a continuing royalty stream.

Our Licensing and services revenue fluctuates, sometimes significantly, from period to period because it is heavily dependent on a few key transactions being completed in a given period, the timing of which is difficult to predict and may not match our expectations. Licensing and services revenue may include revenue from the sales of patents, which may be difficult to complete and which may have complex terms for the payment which affects revenue recognition. Because of its high margin, the Licensing and services revenue portion of our overall revenue can have a disproportionate impact on gross profit and profitability. In addition, generating revenue from patent sales and intellectual property licenses is a lengthy and complex process that may last beyond the period in which our efforts begin, and the accounting rules governing the recognition of revenue from patent sales and intellectual property licensing transactions are increasingly complex and require significant judgment. As a result, the amount of license revenue recognized in any period may differ significantly from our expectations.

Litigation and unfavorable results of legal proceedings could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

From time to time we are subject to various legal proceedings and claims that arise out of the ordinary conduct of our business. Certain claims may not yet be resolved, including but not limited to any that are discussed under "Note 15 - Contingencies" contained in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, and additional claims may arise in the future. Results of legal proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty. Regardless of merit or outcome, claims or litigation may be both time-consuming and disruptive to our operations and cause significant expense and diversion of management attention and we may enter into material settlements to avoid these risks. Should we fail to prevail in certain matters or enter into a material settlement, we may be faced with significant monetary damages or injunctive relief against us that could materially and adversely affect our financial condition and operating results and certain portions of our business.

Our participation in the HDMI standard is evolving. We no longer act as agent for the HDMI standard, and our share of adopter fees and royalties for the HDMI standard is subject to variability.

We acted as agent of the HDMI consortium until December 31, 2016 and were responsible for promoting and administering the specification. We received all of the adopter fees paid by adopters of the HDMI specification in connection with our role as agent. In September 2016, the Founders of the HDMI consortium, of which we are a member, amended the Founders Agreement resulting in changes to our role as agent for the HDMI consortium and to the model for sharing adopter fee revenues. Under the terms of the agreement, our role as the agent was terminated effective January 1, 2017 and a new independent entity was appointed to act as the new HDMI licensing agent with responsibility for licensing and the distribution of royalties among Founders. As a result of the amended model for sharing adopter fee revenue, we are entitled to a share of the adopter fees paid by parties adopting the HDMI standard.

We share HDMI royalties with the other HDMI Founders based on an allocation formula, which is reviewed generally every three years. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, the HDMI Founders adopted a new agreement covering the five-year period beginning January 1, 2018. The amount of our portion of the royalty allocation is dependent on the royalties generated by adopter sales of royalty-bearing HDMI technology, which are subject to variability in economic trends particularly in the market for consumer electronics.

If we are unable to adequately protect our new and existing intellectual property rights, our financial results and our ability to compete effectively may suffer.

Our success depends in part on our proprietary technology and we rely upon patent, copyright, trade secret, mask work, and trademark laws to protect our intellectual property. We intend to continue to protect our proprietary technology, however, we may be unsuccessful in asserting our intellectual property rights or such rights may be invalidated, violated, circumvented, or challenged. From time to time, third parties, including our competitors, have asserted against us patent, copyright, and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to us. Third parties may attempt to misappropriate our intellectual property through electronic or other means or assert infringement claims against us in the future. Such assertions by third parties may result in costly litigation, indemnity claims, or other legal actions, and we may not prevail in such matters or be able to license any valid and infringed patents from third parties on commercially reasonable terms. This could result in the loss of our ability to import and sell our products or require us to pay costly royalties to third parties in connection with sales of our products. Any infringement claim, indemnification claim, or impairment or loss of use of our intellectual property could materially adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Factors Related to Overall General Business & Operations

Our business depends on the proper functioning of internal processes and information technology systems. A failure of these processes and systems, data breaches, cyber-attacks, or cyber-fraud may cause business disruptions, compromise our intellectual property or other sensitive information, or result in losses.

We rely on various information technology ("IT") networks and systems to manage our operations, including financial reporting, and we regularly make changes to improve them as necessary by periodically implementing new, or upgrading or enhancing existing, operational and IT systems, procedures, and controls. These systems are supported by subcontractors, and they may also be subject to power and telecommunication outages or other general system failures. The legal, regulatory and contractual environments surrounding information security, data privacy, and data protection are complex and evolving. We continue to commit significant resources to implementing new systems to standardize our processes worldwide and to develop our capabilities in these areas. We are focused on realizing the full analytical functionality of these conversions, which can be extremely complex, in part, because of the wide range of legacy systems and processes that must be integrated.

In the normal course of business, we may implement new or updated IT systems and, as a result, we may experience delays or disruptions in the integration of these systems, or the related procedures or controls. The policies and security measures established with our IT systems may be vulnerable to security breaches and incidents, cyber-attacks, or fraud. We may also encounter errors in corruption or loss of data, an inability to accurately process or record transactions, and security or technical reliability issues. All of these could harm our ability to conduct core operating functions such as processing invoices, shipping and receiving, recording and reporting financial and management information on a timely and accurate basis, and could impact our internal control compliance efforts. If the technical solution or end user training are inadequate, it could limit our ability to manufacture and ship products as planned. We have various systems that remain that may be nearing the end of their useful life or vendor support, which will ultimately need to be replaced. Moreover, the proper functioning of the internal processes that the IT systems and networks support relies on qualified employees. Competition for qualified employees has generally increased across the economy in the United States, which, if we experience employee turnover, could lead to disruptions in our processes, inadequate end user training or difficulty updating our IT systems and networks.

We maintain sensitive data on our networks and the networks of our business partners and third-party providers, including proprietary and confidential information relating to our intellectual property, personnel, and business, and that of our customers and third-party providers. Companies have been increasingly subject to a wide variety of security incidents, cyber-attacks, hacking, phishing, malware, ransomware, and other attempts to gain unauthorized access to systems or data, or to engage in fraudulent behavior. Cyber-attacks have become more prevalent, sophisticated and much harder to detect and defend against and it is often difficult to anticipate or detect such incidents on a timely basis and to assess the damage caused by them. Our policies and security measures cannot guarantee security, and our information technology infrastructure, including our networks and systems, may be vulnerable to security breaches and incidents, cyber-attacks, or fraud. In the past, third parties have attempted to penetrate and/or infect our network and systems with malicious software and phishing attacks in an effort to gain access to our network and systems. In addition, we are subject to the risk of third parties falsifying invoices and similar fraud, frequently by obtaining unauthorized access to our vendors’ and business partners’ networks.

In some circumstances, we may partner with third-party providers and provide them with certain data, including sensitive data, or the ability to access or otherwise process such data. These third parties also face substantial security risks from a variety of sources. There can be no assurance that any security measures that we or our third-party service providers have implemented will be effective against current or future security threats, and we cannot guarantee that our systems and networks or those of our third-party service providers have not been breached or otherwise compromised, or that they and any software in our or their supply chains do not contain bugs, vulnerabilities, or compromised code that could result in a breach of or disruption to our systems and networks or the systems and networks of third parties that support us and our services. If any of our third-party providers fails to adopt or adhere to adequate data security practices, or suffers a security breach or incident, any data, including sensitive data, that we provide them or that they otherwise may access or process for us may be improperly accessed, used, disclosed, modified, lost, destroyed, or rendered unavailable. Any security breaches or incidents that we or our third-party providers may suffer could compromise our intellectual property, expose sensitive business information and otherwise result in unauthorized access to or disclosure, modification, misuse, loss or destruction of sensitive information. We may need to expend significant financial and development resources to analyze, correct, eliminate, or work around errors or defects or to eliminate or otherwise address security vulnerabilities, and we and our third-party service providers may face difficulties or delays in identifying or otherwise responding to any potential security breach or incident.

Further, the increase in cyber-attacks has resulted in an increased focus on cybersecurity by certain government agencies. Any cyber-attack or other security breach or incident that we or our third-party providers may suffer, or the perception that any such attack, breach, or incident has occurred, could result in a loss of customer confidence in our security measures, damage to our brand, reputation, and market position, result in unauthorized access to or disclosure, modification, misuse, loss, corruption, unavailability, or destruction of our data or other sensitive data that we or our third-party providers process or maintain, disrupt normal business operations, require us to spend material resources to investigate or correct any breach or incident and to prevent future security breaches and incidents, expose us to legal claims and liabilities, including litigation, regulatory investigations and enforcement actions, and indemnity obligations, and adversely affect our revenues and operating results. Further, any such actual or perceived breach or incident, and any claims, demands, litigation, or investigations or enforcement actions related to cybersecurity could cause us to incur significant remediation costs, result in product development delays, disrupt key business operations, and divert attention of management and key information technology resources. In addition, we may incur loss as a result of cyber-fraud, such as those experienced by other companies by making unauthorized payments irrespective of robust internal controls.

Failure or disruptions of our IT systems or difficulties or delays in maintaining, managing, and integrating them could adversely affect our controls and procedures and could impact our ability to perform necessary operations, which could materially adversely affect our business.

We cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate for data security liabilities incurred and, will cover any indemnification claims against us relating to any incident, that insurance will continue to be available to us on economically reasonable terms, or at all, or that any insurer will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceed available insurance coverage, or the occurrence of changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our financial condition, operating results, and reputation.

We regularly test for goodwill and other impairments as required under U.S. GAAP, and we may incur future impairments.

We are required under U.S. GAAP to test goodwill for possible impairment on an annual basis and to test goodwill and long-lived assets, including amortizable intangible assets, for impairment at any other time that circumstances arise indicating the carrying value may not be recoverable. For purposes of testing goodwill for impairment, the Company currently operates as one reporting unit: the core Lattice ("Core") business, which includes intellectual property and semiconductor devices. We had no impairment charges in fiscal years 2021, 2020, or 2019. Impairment charges related to amortizable intangible assets from the Silicon Image acquisition totaled approximately $12.5 million in fiscal 2018. There is no certainty that future impairment tests will indicate that goodwill or amortizable intangible assets will be deemed recoverable. As we continue to review our business operations and test for impairment or in connection with possible sales of assets, we may have impairment charges in the future, which may be material.

Changes to financial accounting standards may affect our results of operations and could cause us to change our business practices.

We prepare our consolidated financial statements to conform to generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. These accounting principles are subject to interpretation by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the SEC and various bodies formed to interpret and create accounting rules and regulations. Changes in these rules, such as the adoption of ASC 842 - Leases in fiscal 2019, has had a material effect on our financial results and affected portions of our business differently. Future changes to these rules, or in the guidance relating to interpretation and adoption of the rules, could have a significant effect on our financial results and could affect portions of our business differently.

Changes in effective tax rates, tax laws and our global organizational structure and operations could expose us to unanticipated tax consequences.

We are subject to taxation in the United States and other countries. Certain tax positions may remain open to examination for several years. Challenges by tax authorities to our previous tax positions and intercompany transfer pricing arrangements, and continuing assessments of our tax exposures may have an adverse effect on our provision for income taxes and cash tax liability. We have a global tax structure that aligns our corporate structure with our global business operations, and we currently operate legal entities in multiple countries. We may choose to consolidate or integrate certain of these entities, and these integration activities, as well as changes in composition of our earnings in jurisdictions with different tax rates, may impact the taxes we pay or tax provision we record, which could adversely affect our results of operations. Furthermore, various levels of government are focused on tax reform and other legislative actions to increase tax revenue. The current U.S. administration has various proposals that, if enacted, would increase U.S. federal income taxes on corporations. Further changes in the tax laws of foreign jurisdictions could arise as a result of the base erosion and profit shifting project undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which represents a coalition of member countries and recommended changes to numerous long-standing tax principles. If implemented by taxing authorities, such changes, as well as changes in taxing jurisdictions’ administrative interpretations, decisions, policies, and positions, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or financial condition. In addition, future effective tax rates could be affected by changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities.

Weakness in our internal control over financial reporting could adversely affect our business and financial results.

We are required to maintain internal controls over financial reporting. We review these controls regularly and deficiencies may be identified from time to time. For example, during the quarter ended December 28, 2019, we evaluated and remediated certain deficiencies in our information technology controls over system access and no material weakness existed at the end of the period. In the future, we may identify material weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting. Any failure to maintain an effective system of internal controls over financial reporting could limit our ability to report our financial results accurately and timely, which could adversely affect our business, financial results, and stock price.

We compete with others to attract and retain key personnel, and any loss of, or inability to attract, such personnel could adversely affect our ability to compete effectively.

We depend on the efforts and abilities of certain key members of management and other technical personnel. Our future success depends, in part, upon our ability to retain such personnel and attract and retain other highly qualified personnel, particularly product engineers who can respond to market demands and required product innovation. Competition for such personnel is intense and has been increasing generally throughout the economy, and we may not be successful in hiring or retaining new or existing qualified personnel. If we lose existing qualified personnel or are unable to hire new qualified personnel, as needed, we could have difficulty competing in our highly competitive and innovative environment.

We may have failed to adequately insure against certain risks and, as a result, our financial condition and results may be adversely affected.

We carry insurance customary for companies in our industry, including, but not limited to, liability, property, and casualty; workers' compensation; and business interruption insurance. We also insure our employees for basic medical expenses. In addition, we have insurance contracts that provide director and officer liability coverage for our directors and officers. Other than the specific areas mentioned above, we are self-insured with respect to most other risks and exposures, and the insurance we carry in many cases is subject to a significant policy deductible or other limitation before coverage applies. Based on management's assessment and judgment, we have determined that it is more cost effective to self-insure against certain risks than to incur the insurance premium costs. The risks and exposures for which we self-insure include, but are not limited to, certain natural disasters, certain product defects, certain matters for which we indemnify third parties, political risk, certain theft, patent infringement, and employment practice matters. Should there be a catastrophic loss due to an uninsured event (such as an earthquake) or a loss due to adverse occurrences in any area in which we are self-insured, our financial condition or operating results could be adversely affected.

Our outstanding indebtedness could reduce our strategic flexibility and liquidity and may have other adverse effects on our results of operations.

As of January 1, 2022, we had approximately $158.8 million outstanding under a credit agreement, dated May 17, 2019 (the “Current Credit Agreement”). Our obligations under the Current Credit Agreement are guaranteed by our U.S. subsidiaries, and include a requirement to pay quarterly installments of approximately $4.4 million with the remaining balance due upon maturity in May 2024. Our ability to meet our debt service obligations depends upon our operating and financial performance, which is subject to general economic and competitive conditions and to financial, business and other factors affecting our operations, many of which are beyond our control. If we are unable to service our debt, we may need to sell material assets, restructure or refinance our debt, or seek additional equity capital. Prevailing economic conditions and global credit markets could adversely impact our ability to sell material assets, restructure or refinance our debt on terms acceptable to us, or at all, or we may not be able to restructure or refinance our debt without incurring significant additional fees and expenses.

The Current Credit Agreement contains customary affirmative and negative covenants, including covenants limiting the ability of the Company to, among other things, incur debt, grant liens, undergo certain fundamental changes, make investments, make certain restricted payments, dispose of assets, enter into transactions with affiliates, and enter into burdensome agreements, in each case, subject to limitations and exceptions set forth in the Current Credit Agreement. We are also required to maintain compliance with a total leverage ratio and an interest coverage ratio, in each case, determined in accordance with the terms of the Current Credit Agreement.

The amount and terms of our indebtedness, as well as our credit rating, could have important consequences, including the following:

If we breach a loan covenant, the lenders could accelerate the repayment of the facility. We might not have sufficient assets to repay our indebtedness upon acceleration. If we are unable to repay or refinance the indebtedness upon acceleration or at maturity, the lenders could initiate a bankruptcy proceeding against us or collection proceedings with respect to our assets and subsidiaries securing the facility, which could materially decrease the value of our common stock.

Factors Related to Our Markets and Product Development

The semiconductor industry routinely experiences cyclical market patterns and our products are used across different end markets. A significant downturn in the industry or in any of these end markets could cause a meaningful reduction in demand for our products and adversely affect our operating results.

Our revenue and gross margin can fluctuate significantly due to downturns in the highly cyclical semiconductor industry. These downturns can be severe and prolonged and can result in price erosion and weak demand for our products. Weak demand for our products resulting from general economic conditions affecting the end markets we serve, or the semiconductor industry specifically, and reduced spending by our customers can result, and in the past has resulted, in diminished product demand, high inventory levels, erosion of average selling prices, excess and obsolete inventories and corresponding inventory write-downs. Our expense levels are based, in part, on our expectations of future sales. Many of our expenses, particularly those relating to facilities, capital equipment, and other overhead, are relatively fixed. We might be unable to reduce spending quickly enough to compensate for reductions in sales. Accordingly, shortfalls in sales could adversely affect our operating results. Furthermore, any significant upturn in the semiconductor industry could result in increased competition for access to raw materials and third-party service providers.

Additionally, our products are used across different end markets, and demand for our products is difficult to predict and may vary within or among our Industrial and Automotive, Communications and Computing, and Consumer end markets. Our target markets may not grow or develop as we currently expect, and demand may increase or change in one or more of our end markets, and changes in demand may reduce our revenue, lower our gross margin and effect our operating results. We have experienced concentrations of revenue at certain customers and within certain end markets, and we regularly compete for design opportunities at these customers and within these markets. Any deterioration in these end markets, reductions in the magnitude of revenue streams, our inability to meet design and pricing requirements, or volatility in demand for our products could lead to a reduction in our revenue and adversely affect our operating results. Our success in our end markets depends on many factors, including the strength or financial performance of the customers in our end markets, our ability to timely meet rapidly changing product requirements, market needs, and our ability to maintain design wins across different markets and customers to dampen the effects of market volatility. The dynamics of the markets in which we operate make prediction of and timely reaction to such events difficult.

Due to these and other factors, our past results may not be reliable predictors of our future results. If we are unable to accomplish any of the foregoing, or to offset the volatility of cyclical changes in the semiconductor industry or our end markets through diversification into other markets, these factors could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results.

Our success and future revenue depend on our ability to develop and introduce new products that achieve customer and market acceptance.

We compete in a dynamic environment characterized by rapid technology and product evolution, generally followed by a relatively longer process of ramping up to volume production on advanced technologies. Our end customers’ continued use of our products is frequently reevaluated, as certain of our customers' product life cycles are relatively short and they continually develop new products. The selection process for our products to be included in our customers' new products is highly competitive. There are no guarantees that our products will be included in the next generation of products introduced by these customers. Additionally, our markets are also characterized by evolving industry standards and increased demand for higher levels of integration and smaller process geometry. Our competitive position and success depend on our ability to innovate, develop, and introduce new products that compete effectively on the basis of price, density, functionality, power consumption, form factor, and performance, and our addressing the evolving needs of the markets we serve, among other things. With increased introduction of new products, we expect revenue related to mature products to decline over time in a normal product life cycle. As a result, we may be increasingly dependent on revenue derived from our newer products.

Our future growth and the success of new product introductions depend upon numerous factors, including:

The failure of any of these factors, among others, could adversely affect our product innovation, development and introduction efforts and our financial condition and results of operations.

We compete against companies that have significantly greater resources than us and numerous other product solutions.

The semiconductor industry is highly competitive and many of our direct and indirect competitors have substantially greater financial, technological, manufacturing, marketing, and sales resources than us. Consolidation in our industry may increasingly mean that our competitors have greater consolidated resources, or other synergies, including the ability to attract qualified employee or incorporate higher costs into product and service prices, that could put us at a competitive disadvantage. We currently compete directly with companies that have licensed our technology or have developed similar products, as well as numerous semiconductor companies that offer products based on alternative solutions, such as applications processor, application specific standard product, microcontroller, analog, and digital signal processing technologies. Competition from these semiconductor companies may intensify as we offer more products in any of our end markets. These competitors include established, multinational semiconductor companies, as well as emerging companies.

We depend on independent contractors and third parties to provide key services in our product development and operations, and any disruption of their services, or an increase in cost of these services, could negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations.

We depend on subcontractors to provide cost effective and efficient services in our product development and supply chain functions, including test and assembly services, software and hardware development, support of intellectual property cores, inventory management, order fulfillment and direct sales logistics.

Our operations and operating results may be adversely affected if we experience problems with our subcontractors that impact the delivery of product to our customers. These problems may include: delays in software or hardware development timelines; prolonged inability to obtain wafers or packaging materials with competitive performance and cost attributes; inability to achieve adequate yields or timely delivery; inability to meet customer timelines or demands; disruption or defects in assembly, test, or shipping services; or delays in stabilizing manufacturing processes or ramping up volume for new products. If our third-party supply chain providers were to reduce or discontinue services for us or their operations are disrupted as a result of a fire, earthquake, act of terrorism, political unrest, governmental uncertainty, war, disease, or other natural disaster or catastrophic event, weak economic conditions, inflation, labor market disruptions, or any other reason, our financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected.

Factors Related to Our Sales and Revenue

Our revenues depend on our relationships with our distributors and on a concentrated group of end customers. An adverse change in the relationships with, or performance of, our distributors, or any reduction in the use of our products by our end customers, could harm our sales and significantly decrease our revenue.

We depend on a concentrated group of distributors to sell our products to end customers, complete order fulfillment, maintain sufficient inventory of our products and provide services to our end customers. In fiscal 2021, revenue attributable to sales to distributors accounted for 87% of our total revenue, with two distributors accounting for 64% of total revenue. We have significant outstanding receivables with our top distributors, and expect our distributors to generate a significant portion of our revenue in the future. Any adverse change to our relationships or agreements with our distributors or a failure by one or more of our distributors to perform its obligations to us could have a material impact on our business, including a reduction in our access to certain end customers or our ability to sell our products.

If our relationships with any material customers were to diminish, if these customers were to develop their own solutions or adopt alternative solutions or competitors' solutions, if any one or more of our concentrated groups of customers were to experience significantly adverse financial conditions, including as a result of inflation or labor market disruptions, or if as a result of trade disputes or sanctions these customers were restricted from purchasing our products, our results could be adversely affected.

In addition, the inability of customers to obtain credit, the insolvency of one or more customers, or tariffs applicable to our customers’ products, could impact our sales. Any of these effects could impact our ability to effectively manage inventory levels and collect receivables, require additional restructuring actions, and decrease our revenue and profitability.

The nature of our business and length of our sales cycle makes our revenue, gross margin and net income subject to fluctuation and difficult to accurately predict.

A number of factors, including how products are manufactured to support end markets, yield, wafer pricing, cost of packaging raw materials, product mix, market acceptance of our new products, competitive pricing dynamics, product quality, geographic and/or end market mix, and pricing strategies, can cause our revenue, gross margins and net income to fluctuate significantly either positively or negatively from period to period.

We have limited visibility into the demand for our products, particularly new products, because demand for our products depends upon our products being designed into our end customers' products and those products achieving market acceptance. During our sales cycle, our customers typically test and evaluate our products prior to deciding to include our products into the design of their own products, and then require additional time to begin volume production of their products. This lengthy sales cycle may cause us to incur significant expenses, which could be exacerbated by rising inflation, experience significant production delays and to incur additional inventory costs before we receive a customer order that may be delayed or never get placed. A key strategic customer may demand certain design or production resources to meet their requirements or work on a specific solution, which could cause delays in our normal development schedule and result in significant investment of our resources or missed opportunities with other potential customers. We may incur these expenses without generating revenue from our products to offset the expenses.

While our sales cycles are typically long, our average product life cycles tend to be short as a result of the rapidly changing technology environment in which we operate. Our inventory levels may be higher than historical norms, from time to time, due to inventory build decisions aimed at meeting expected demand from a single large customer, reducing direct material cost or enabling responsiveness to expected demand. In the event the expected demand does not materialize, or if our short sales cycle does not generate sufficient revenue, we may be subject to incremental excess and obsolescence costs.

These factors make it difficult for us to accurately forecast future sales and project quarterly revenues. The difficulty in forecasting future sales weakens our ability to project our inventory requirements, which could result, and in the past has resulted, in inventory write-downs or failure to meet customer product demands in a timely manner. While we may give guidance, the difficulty in forecasting revenues as well as the relative customer and product mix of those revenues limits our ability to provide accurate forward-looking revenue and gross margin guidance.

Accounting requirements related to sales through our distribution channel could result in our reporting revenue in excess of demand.

Revenue recognition standards require recognition of revenue based on estimates and may require us to record revenue from distributors that is in excess of actual end customer demand. Since we have limited ability to forecast inventory levels of our end customers, we depend on the timeliness and accuracy of resale reports from our distributors. Late or inaccurate resale reports could mask significant build-up of inventories in our distribution channel, have a detrimental effect on our ability to properly recognize revenue, and impact our ability to forecast future sales. An inventory build-up in our distribution channel could result in a slowdown in orders, requests for returns from customers, or requests to move out planned shipments. If our distributors do not ultimately sell the inventory and our estimates change, we could be required to materially correct our recognized revenue in a future period, depending on actual results. Any failure to manage these challenges could disrupt or reduce sales of our products and unfavorably impact our financial results.

Factors Related to Strategic Transactions

Acquisitions, divestitures, strategic investments and strategic partnerships could disrupt our business and adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.

We may pursue growth opportunities by acquiring complementary businesses, solutions or technologies through strategic transactions, investments or partnerships. The identification of suitable acquisition, strategic investment or strategic partnership candidates can be costly and time consuming and can distract our management team from our current operations. If such strategic transactions require us to seek additional debt or equity financing, we may not be able to obtain such financing on terms favorable to us or at all, and such transaction may adversely affect our liquidity and capital structure. We may also choose to divest certain non-core assets, which divestitures could lead to charges against earnings and may expose us to additional liabilities and risks. Any strategic transaction might not strengthen our competitive position, may increase some of our risks, and may be viewed negatively by our customers, partners or investors. Even if we successfully complete a strategic transaction, we may not be able to effectively integrate the acquired business, technology, systems, control environment, solutions, personnel or operations into our business or global tax structure. We may experience unexpected changes in how we are required to account for strategic transactions pursuant to U.S. GAAP and may not achieve the anticipated benefits of any strategic transaction. We may incur unexpected costs, claims or liabilities that we incur during the strategic transaction or that we assume from the acquired company, or we may discover adverse conditions post acquisition for which we have limited or no recourse.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2. Properties

We lease a 47,800 square foot of space in Hillsboro, Oregon as our corporate headquarters and a research and development facility through October 2028. In San Jose, California, we have 98,874 square feet under lease through September 2026, of which we use 49,579 square feet as a research and development facility, while we vacated 49,295 square feet during the fourth quarter of 2018 and intend to sublease the vacated space. During 2019, we vacated a 23,680 square foot office space in Portland, Oregon, which we have subleased through the end of the lease in March 2025.

In Muntinlupa City, Philippines, we lease a total of 50,503 square feet through May 2025 for research and development and operations facilities. In Shanghai, China, we lease 68,027 square feet through May 2024 for research and development operations. We also lease office facilities in multiple other metropolitan locations for our domestic and international sales staff. We believe that our existing facilities are suitable and adequate for our current and foreseeable future needs.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

The information contained under the heading "Legal Matters" in Note 15 - Contingencies to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 is incorporated by reference into this Part I, Item 3. Also, see “Litigation and unfavorable results of legal proceedings could adversely affect our financial condition and operating results” in “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters, and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

Market Information

Our common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "LSCC".

Holders

As of February 17, 2022, we had approximately 182 stockholders of record.

Dividends

The payment of dividends on our common stock is within the discretion of our Board of Directors. We intend to retain earnings to finance our business. We have never paid cash dividends.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

None.

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

On February 19, 2021, our Board of Directors approved a stock repurchase program pursuant to which up to $60.0 million of outstanding common stock could be repurchased from time to time (the "2021 Repurchase Program"). The duration of the 2021 Repurchase Program is twelve months. Under the 2021 Repurchase Program during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, we repurchased approximately 60,800 shares for approximately $4.9 million, or an average price paid per share of $80.55. All shares repurchased pursuant to the 2021 Repurchase Program were retired by the end of the 2021 fiscal year.

On November 8, 2021, we announced that our Board of Directors had approved a stock repurchase program pursuant to which up to an additional $100.0 million of outstanding common stock could be repurchased from time to time (the "2022 Repurchase Program"). The duration of the 2022 Repurchase Program is through the end of December 2022. Under the 2022 Repurchase Program during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, we repurchased approximately 125,400 shares for $10.1 million, or an average price paid per share of $80.55. All shares repurchased pursuant to the 2022 Repurchase Program were retired by the end of the 2021 fiscal year.

The following table contains information regarding our repurchases of our common stock that is registered pursuant to Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021:

Comparison of Total Cumulative Stockholder Return

The following graph shows the five-year comparison of cumulative stockholder return on our common stock, the Standard and Poor's (“S&P”) 500 Index and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (“PHLX”) from December 2016 through December 2021. Cumulative stockholder return assumes $100 invested at the beginning of the period in our common stock, the S&P and PHLX. Historical stock price performance is not necessarily indicative of future stock price performance.

Lattice Cumulative Stockholder Return

Item 6. Reserved

Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations

Overview

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Lattice,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) develop technologies that we monetize through differentiated programmable logic semiconductor products, silicon-enabling products, system solutions, design services, and licenses. Lattice is the low power programmable leader. We solve customer problems across the network, from the Edge to the Cloud, in the growing communications, computing, industrial, automotive, and consumer markets. Our technology, long-standing relationships, and commitment to world-class support lets our customers quickly and easily unleash their innovation to create a smart, secure, and connected world.

Lattice has focused its strategy on delivering programmable logic products and related solutions based on low power, small size, and ease of use. We also serve our customers with IP licensing and various other services. Our product development activities include new proprietary products, advanced packaging, existing product enhancements, software development tools, soft IP, and system solutions for high-growth applications such as Edge AI, 5G infrastructure, platform security, and factory automation.

This discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes included in Item 8. "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this report. Discussions of results for prior periods (fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019) are incorporated by reference from our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 2, 2021.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our Business

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused, and may continue to cause, a global slowdown of economic activity (including the decrease in demand for certain goods and services), and volatility in and disruption to financial markets, labor markets, and supply chains. The severity, magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic consequences have been and continue to be uncertain, evolving and difficult to predict, and the pandemic’s impact on our operations and financial performance, as well as its impact on our ability to successfully execute our business strategy and initiatives, remains uncertain. We continue to take actions to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and our business. We implemented social distancing policies at our locations around the world, including working from home and eliminating substantially all travel. Furthermore, we continue to manage our cash position and liquidity needs in light of the rapidly changing environment, and we have additional resources available under our Current Credit Agreement, if needed.

The full extent of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related governmental, business and travel restrictions in order to contain the virus are continuing to evolve globally, including in response to variants of the virus. We anticipate that these actions and the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to negatively impact business activity across the globe. Demand for our products may be impacted given the global reach and economic impact of the virus. For example, governmental actions or policies or other initiatives to contain the virus could lead to reductions in our end customers’ demand for our products, which could have a negative impact on our revenue. We have previously seen and could again see delays or disruptions in our supply chain due to governmental restrictions or voluntary precautionary measures adopted by our suppliers. If our suppliers experience similar impacts, we may have difficulty sourcing materials necessary to fulfill customer production requirements and transporting completed products to our end customers. It is difficult for us to predict the scope, magnitude, and length of supply chain disruptions. Supply chain delays and disruptions may also affect the ability of our customers to obtain materials or products from other suppliers which may constrain or delay their demand for our products.

We will continue to actively monitor the situation and may take further actions altering our business operations that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, partners, suppliers, and stakeholders, or as required by federal, state, or local authorities. It is not clear what the potential effects of any such alterations or modifications may have on our business, including the effects on our customers, employees, and prospects, or on our financial condition or results of operations. The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, results of operations and financial position is currently uncertain and will depend on many factors that are not within our control, including, but not limited to: the duration and scope of the pandemic; governmental, business and individuals’ actions that have been and continue to be taken in response to the pandemic; general economic uncertainty in key global markets and financial market volatility; global economic conditions and levels of economic growth; and the pace of recovery when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. See the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Item 1A of Part I of this report for further information about related risks and uncertainties.

Critical Accounting Policies and Use of Estimates

Critical accounting policies are those that are both most important to the portrayal of a company's financial condition and results of operations, and that require management's most difficult, subjective, and complex judgments, often as a result of the need to make estimates about the effect of matters that are inherently uncertain.

The preparation of financial statements in conformity with U.S. GAAP requires management to make estimates and judgments affecting the amounts reported in our consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience, knowledge of current conditions, and our beliefs of what could occur in the future considering available information. While we believe that our estimates, assumptions, and judgments are reasonable, they are based on information available when made, and because of the uncertainty inherent in these matters, actual results may differ materially from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions. We evaluate our estimates and judgments on an ongoing basis.

We believe the following accounting policies and the related estimates are critical in the portrayal of our financial condition and results of operations, and require management's most difficult, subjective, or complex judgments. See "Note 1 - Nature of Operations and Significant Accounting Policies" under Part II, Item 8 of this report for further information on the significant accounting policies and methods used in the preparation of the consolidated financial statements.

Revenue from Contracts with Customers

We recognize revenue upon satisfaction of performance obligations when control of promised goods or services has been transferred to our customers. We measure revenue based on the amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for products or services. For revenue recognized on both sales to distributors and related to HDMI and other royalties, the amount of consideration we expect to be entitled to receive is based on estimates that require assumptions and judgments relating to trends in recent and historical activity. See "Note 1 - Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies" under Part II, Item 8 of this report for further information on our recognition of revenue. Sales to most distributors are made under terms allowing certain price adjustments upon sale to their end customers and limited rights of return of our products held in their inventory. The revenue recognized based on estimated price adjustments and stock rotation reserves may be materially different from the actual consideration received if the actual distributor price adjustments and stock rotation returns differ significantly from the historical trends used in the estimates.

Inventories and Cost of Revenue

Inventories are stated at the lower of actual cost (determined using the first-in, first-out method) or net realizable value. We review and set standard costs quarterly to approximate current actual manufacturing costs. Our manufacturing overhead standards for product costs are calculated assuming full absorption of actual spending over actual costs. The valuation of inventory requires us to estimate excess or obsolete inventory. Material assumptions we use to estimate necessary inventory carrying value adjustments can be unique to each product and are based on specific facts and circumstances. In determining provisions for excess or obsolete products, we consider assumptions such as changes in business and economic conditions, projected customer demand for our products, and changes in technology or customer requirements. The creation of such provisions results in a write-down of inventory to net realizable value and a charge to Cost of revenue. If in any period we anticipate a change in assumptions such as future market or economic conditions to be less favorable than our previous estimates, additional inventory write-downs may be required and would be reflected in Cost of revenue, resulting in a negative impact to our gross margin in that period. If in any period we are able to sell inventories that had been written down to a level below the ultimate realized selling price in a previous period, related revenue would be recorded with a lower or no offsetting charge to Cost of revenue resulting in a net benefit to our gross margin in that period.

Business Combinations

Business combinations are accounted for using the acquisition method of accounting, under which we allocate the purchase price paid for a company to identifiable assets acquired and liabilities assumed based on their estimated fair values at the date of acquisition. Goodwill is measured as the excess of purchase price over the fair value of identifiable assets acquired and liabilities assumed. Determining the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed requires management to make assumptions, estimates, and judgments that are based on all available information, including comparable market data and information obtained from our management and the management of the acquired companies. These judgments affect the amount of consideration paid that is allocable to identified tangible and intangible assets acquired and liabilities assumed in the business combination. The estimation of the fair values of the intangible assets requires significant judgment and the use of valuation techniques including primarily the income approach. Consideration is given to all relevant factors that might affect the fair value such as estimates of future revenues and costs, present value factors, and the estimated useful lives of intangible assets.

Accounting for Income Taxes

We are required to estimate our provision for income taxes and amounts ultimately payable or recoverable in numerous tax jurisdictions around the world. These estimates involve significant judgment and interpretations of regulations and are inherently complex. Resolution of income tax treatments in individual jurisdictions may not be known for many years after completion of the applicable year. Deferred tax assets and liabilities are recognized for the expected tax consequences of temporary differences between the tax bases of assets and liabilities and their reported amounts in the financial statements using enacted tax rates and laws that will be in effect when the difference is expected to reverse.

Valuation allowances are provided to reduce deferred tax assets to an amount that in management’s judgment is more-likely-than-not to be recoverable against future taxable income. The determination of a valuation allowance and when it should be released requires complex judgment. In assessing the ability to realize deferred tax assets, we regularly evaluate both positive and negative evidence that may exist and consider whether it is more-likely-than-not that some portion or all of the deferred tax assets will be realized. The ultimate realization of deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which those temporary differences become deductible.

As part of our regular financial review process, we also assess the likelihood that our tax reporting positions will ultimately be sustained on examination by the taxing authorities, based on the technical merits of the position. To the extent it is determined it is more likely than not (a likelihood of more than 50 percent) that some portion or all of a tax reporting position will ultimately not be recognized and sustained, a provision for unrecognized tax benefit is provided by either reducing the applicable deferred tax asset or accruing an income tax liability. Our judgment regarding the sustainability of our tax reporting positions may change in the future due to changes in U.S. or international tax laws and other factors. These changes, if any, may require material adjustments to the related deferred tax assets or accrued income tax liabilities and an accompanying reduction or increase in income tax expense which may result in a corresponding increase or decrease in net income in the period when such determinations are made. We recognize the tax impact of including certain foreign earnings in U.S. taxable income as a period cost.

Results of Operations

Key elements of our Consolidated Statements of Operations, including as a percentage of revenue, are presented in the following table:

* The year ended January 2, 2021 was a 53-week year as compared to the other years presented, which were based on our standard 52-week year.

Revenue

Revenue increased $107.2 million, or 26.3%, in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020, primarily driven by increased demand for products used in client computing solutions, 5G wireless infrastructure, and industrial and robotics applications.

Revenue by End Market

We sell our products globally to a broad base of customers in three primary end markets groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. We also provide Intellectual Property licensing and services to these end markets.

Within these end markets, there are multiple segment drivers, including:

We also generate revenue from the licensing of our IP, the collection of certain royalties, patent sales, the revenue related to our participation in consortia and standard-setting activities, and services. While these activities may be associated with multiple markets, Licensing and services revenue is reported as a separate end market as it has characteristics that differ from other categories, most notably a higher gross margin.

The end market data below is derived from data provided to us by our customers. With a diverse base of customers who may manufacture end products spanning multiple end markets, the assignment of revenue to a specific end market requires the use of judgment. We also recognize certain revenue for which end customers and end markets are not yet known. We assign this revenue first to a specific end market using historical and anticipated usage of the specific products, if possible, and allocate the remainder to the end markets based on either historical usage for each product family or industry application data for certain product types.

The following are examples of end market applications for the fiscal years presented:

The composition of our revenue by end market is presented in the following table:

Revenue from the Communications and Computing end market increased by 25% in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 primarily due to increased demand for applications in data center servers, client computing platforms, and 5G infrastructure.

Revenue from the Industrial and Automotive end market increased by 34% in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020, primarily due to increased demand for our products across multiple applications such as industrial automation and robotics, as well as in Automotive led by adoption in ADAS and infotainment applications.

Revenue from the Consumer end market increased by 11% in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 primarily due to increased demand for our products in Consumer end market applications.

Revenue from the Licensing and Services end market increased by 4% in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 primarily due to increased licensing and IP royalties.

Revenue by Geography

We assign revenue to geographies based on ship-to location of the customer.

The composition of our revenue by geography is presented in the following table:

Revenue from Customers

We sell our products to independent distributors and directly to customers. Distributors have historically accounted for a significant portion of our total revenue, and the two distributor groups noted below individually accounted for more than 10% of our total revenue in the periods covered by this report.

The composition of our revenue by customer is presented in the following table:

Gross margin

The composition of our gross margin, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Gross margin percentage increased 230 basis points from fiscal 2020 to fiscal 2021. Improved margins were driven by benefits from our pricing optimization and gross margin expansion strategy.

Because of its higher margin, the licensing and services portion of our overall revenue can have a disproportionate impact on Gross margin.

Operating Expenses

Research and Development Expense

The composition of our Research and development expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Research and development expense includes costs for compensation and benefits, stock compensation, engineering wafers, depreciation, licenses, and outside engineering services. These expenditures are for the design of new products, IP cores, processes, packaging, and software solutions.

The increase in Research and development expense for fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 was due primarily to increased headcount-related costs as we continue to invest in the expansion of our product portfolio and the acceleration of our new product introduction cadence.

We believe that a continued commitment to Research and development is essential to maintaining product leadership and providing innovative new product offerings and, therefore, we expect to continue to increase our investment in Research and development, particularly with expanded investment in the development of software solutions.

Selling, General, and Administrative Expense

The composition of our Selling, general, and administrative expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Selling, general, and administrative expense includes costs for compensation and benefits related to selling, general, and administrative employees, commissions, depreciation, professional and outside services, trade show, and travel expenses.

The increase in Selling, general, and administrative expense for fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 was due primarily to increased stock compensation, salaries, and variable compensation related expenses.

Amortization of Acquired Intangible Assets

The composition of our Amortization of acquired intangible assets, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

The decrease in Amortization of acquired intangible assets for fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 was due to the end of the amortization period for the majority of our legacy acquired intangible assets during the first quarter of fiscal 2020, partially offset by amortization expense for new intangible assets added in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 through the acquisition of Mirametrix, Inc.

Restructuring Charges

The composition of our Restructuring charges, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Restructuring charges are comprised of expenses resulting from reductions in our worldwide workforce, consolidation of our facilities, removal of fixed assets from service, and cancellation of software contracts and engineering tools. Details of our restructuring plans and expenses incurred under them are discussed in "Note 9 - Restructuring" to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this report.

Restructuring charges decreased in fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020, as we had no significant restructuring activity in the current year.

Acquisition Related Charges

The composition of our Acquisition related charges, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Acquisition related charges include legal and professional fees directly related to acquisitions. For fiscal 2021, Acquisition related charges were entirely attributable to our acquisition of Mirametrix in November 2021 and were comprised primarily of professional services including legal and accounting fees, as well as closing costs.

Interest Expense

The composition of our Interest expense, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

Interest expense is primarily related to our long-term debt, which is further discussed under the "Credit Arrangements" heading in the Liquidity and Capital Resources section, below. This interest expense is comprised of contractual interest and amortization of original issue discount and debt issuance costs based on the effective interest method.

The decrease in Interest expense for fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020 was driven by the significant reduction in the effective interest rate on our long term debt coupled with the reduction in the principal balance of our long-term debt.

Other (Expense) Income, net

The composition of our Other (expense) income, net, including as a percentage of revenue, is presented in the following table:

For fiscal 2021 compared to fiscal 2020, the increase in Other (expense) income, net was largely driven by higher foreign currency exchange losses.

Income Taxes

The composition of our Income tax expense is presented in the following table:

Our Income tax expense is composed primarily of foreign income and withholding taxes, partially offset by benefits resulting from the release of uncertain tax positions ("UTP") due to statute of limitation expirations that occurred in the respective periods. The increase in expense in fiscal 2021 as compared to fiscal 2020 is primarily due to changes in uncertain tax positions and increased worldwide income.

We updated our evaluation of the valuation allowance position in the United States through January 1, 2022 and concluded that we should continue to maintain a full valuation allowance against the net federal and state deferred tax assets. We continue to evaluate future projected financial performance to determine whether such performance is sufficient evidence to support a reduction in or reversal of the valuation allowance. We will continue to evaluate both positive and negative evidence in future periods to determine if we will realize the deferred tax assets. The amount of the deferred tax asset considered realizable could be adjusted if sufficient positive evidence exists. Details of our deferred tax assets and valuation allowance are discussed in "Note 13 - Income Taxes" to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 of this report.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

The following sections discuss material changes in our financial condition from the end of fiscal 2020, including the effects of changes in our Consolidated Balance Sheets, and the effects of our credit arrangements and contractual obligations on our liquidity and capital resources. There is significant uncertainty around the extent and duration of the disruption to our business from the COVID-19 pandemic, and our liquidity and working capital needs may be impacted in future periods as a result of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have historically financed our operating and capital resource requirements through cash flows from operations, and from the issuance of long-term debt to fund acquisitions. Cash provided by or used in operating activities will fluctuate from period to period due to fluctuations in operating results, the timing and collection of accounts receivable, and required inventory levels, among other things.

We believe that our financial resources, including current cash and cash equivalents, cash flow from operating activities, and our credit facilities, will be sufficient to meet our liquidity and working capital needs through at least the next 12 months. As of January 1, 2022, we did not have significant long-term commitments for capital expenditures. For further information on our cash commitments for operating lease liabilities and required future principal payments on our long-term debt, see Note 10 - Leases and Note 8 - Long-Term Debt, respectively, under Part II, Item 8 of this report.

In the future, we may continue to consider acquisition opportunities to further extend our product or technology portfolios and further expand our product offerings. In connection with funding capital expenditures, acquisitions, securing additional wafer supply, increasing our working capital, or other operations, we may seek to obtain equity or additional debt financing. We may also seek to obtain equity or additional debt financing if we experience downturns or cyclical fluctuations in our business that are more severe or longer than we anticipated when determining our current working capital needs.

Liquidity

Cash and cash equivalents

As of January 1, 2022, we had Cash and cash equivalents of $131.6 million, of which approximately $59.1 million in Cash and cash equivalents was held by our foreign subsidiaries.

We manage our global cash requirements considering, among other things, (i) available funds among our subsidiaries through which we conduct business, (ii) the geographic location of our liquidity needs, and (iii) the cost to access international cash balances. The repatriation of non-US earnings may require us to withhold and pay foreign income tax on dividends. This should not result in our recording significant additional tax expense as we have accrued expense based on current withholding rates. As of January 1, 2022, we could access all cash held by our foreign subsidiaries without incurring significant additional expense.

The net decrease in Cash and cash equivalents of $50.8 million between January 2, 2021 and January 1, 2022 was primarily driven by cash flows from the following activities:

Operating activities — Cash provided by operating activities results from net income adjusted for certain non-cash items and changes in assets and liabilities. Cash provided by operating activities was $167.7 million in fiscal 2021 compared to $91.7 million in fiscal 2020. This increase of $76.0 million was primarily driven by an increase of $54.2 million provided by improved operating performance, coupled with $21.8 million of favorable changes in working capital. We are using cash provided by operating activities to fund our operations.

Investing activities — Investing cash flows consist primarily of transactions related to capital expenditures and payments for software and intellectual property licenses, and a business acquisition in fiscal 2021. Net cash used by investing activities in fiscal 2021 was $89.8 million compared to $20.9 million in fiscal 2020. This $68.9 million increase was primarily due to the acquisition of Mirametrix in the current year, which used cash, net of cash acquired, of $68.1 million. Total cash used for capital expenditures and payments for software and intellectual property licenses increased $0.8 million to $21.7 million in fiscal 2021 from $20.9 million in fiscal 2020.

Financing activities — Financing cash flows consist primarily of activity on our long-term debt, proceeds from the exercise of options to acquire common stock, tax payments related to the net share settlement of restricted stock units, and repurchases of common stock. Net cash used by financing activities in fiscal 2021 was $128.6 million compared to $8.1 million in fiscal 2020. This $120.5 million increase was due to the following mix of activities. During fiscal 2021, we paid required quarterly installments on our long-term debt totaling $13.1 million. During fiscal 2020, we drew $50.0 million on our revolving loan facility to further strengthen our liquidity position, and we paid quarterly installments totaling $26.3 million on our long-term debt, which fulfilled the required quarterly installments through the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Payments for tax withholdings on vesting of RSUs partially offset by employee exercises of stock options used net cash flows of $45.4 million in fiscal 2021, an increase of approximately $28.5 million from the net $16.9 million used in fiscal 2020. During fiscal 2021, we also repurchased approximately 1.3 million shares of common stock for $70.1 million compared to repurchases in fiscal 2020 of approximately 0.4 million shares of common stock for $15.0 million.

Accounts receivable, net

Accounts receivable, net as of January 1, 2022 increased by approximately $15.3 million, or approximately 24%, compared to January 2, 2021. This resulted primarily from increased shipments in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. We calculate Days sales outstanding on the basis of a 365-day year as Accounts receivable, net at the end of the quarter divided by sales during the quarter annualized and then multiplied by 365.

Inventories

Inventories as of January 1, 2022 increased $3.0 million, or approximately 5%, compared to January 2, 2021 primarily to meet the increased demands of our customers.

The Days of inventory on hand ratio compares the inventory balance at the end of a quarter to the cost of sales in that quarter. We calculate Days of inventory on hand on the basis of a 365-day year as Inventories at the end of the quarter divided by Cost of sales during the quarter annualized and then multiplied by 365.

Credit Arrangements

On May 17, 2019, we entered into our Current Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as administrative agent, and other lenders. The details of this arrangement are described in "Note 8 - Long-Term Debt" in the accompanying Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. As of January 1, 2022, we had no used or unused credit arrangements beyond the secured revolving loan facility described in the Current Credit Agreement.

Share Repurchase Program

See "Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities" under Part II, Item 5 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information about the share repurchase program.

New Accounting Pronouncements

The information contained under the heading "New Accounting Pronouncements" in Note 1 - Nature of Operations and Significant Accounting Policies to our Consolidated Financial Statements in Part II, Item 8 is incorporated by reference into this Part II, Item 7.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk

Market risk represents the risk of loss that may impact our financial position due to adverse changes in financial market prices and rates. Our market risk exposure is primarily a result of fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates. We assess these risks on a regular basis and have established policies that are designed to protect against the adverse effects of these and other potential exposures.

Foreign Currency Exchange Rate Risk

While our revenues and the majority of our expenses are denominated in U.S. dollars, our financial position and results of operations are subject to foreign currency exchange rate risk as a result of having various international subsidiary and branch operations. Historically, exposure to foreign currency exchange rate risk has not had a material impact on our results from operations. At times in the past, we have entered into foreign currency forward exchange contracts in relation to certain activities, which mitigated the foreign currency exchange rate exposure from an economic perspective, but these were not designated as "effective" hedges under U.S. GAAP.

Interest Rate Risk

We are exposed to interest rate risk related to our indebtedness. At January 1, 2022, we had $158.8 million outstanding under our Current Credit Agreement. A hypothetical increase in the one-month LIBOR by 1% (100 basis points) would increase our future interest expense by approximately $0.4 million per quarter.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements.

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these Consolidated Financial Statements.

LATTICE SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS