RMBS · Read the filing

rmbs-20201231

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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

________________________________________

Form 10-K

________________________________________

(Mark One)

For the fiscal year ended

For the transition period from to

Commission file number: 000-22339

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RAMBUS INC.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

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4453 North First Street

San Jose , California 95134

(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code:

(408) 462-8000

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

Title of Each Class Trading Symbol(s) Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered

Common Stock, $.001 Par Value RMBS The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC

(The NASDAQ Global Select Market)

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

None

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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 and posted 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 and post such files). Yes☑ No ☐

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

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 ☑

The aggregate market value of the Registrant’s Common Stock held by non-affiliates of the Registrant as of June 30, 2020 was approximately $1.3 billion based upon the closing price reported for such date on The NASDAQ Global Select Market. For purposes of this disclosure, shares of Common Stock held by officers and directors of the Registrant and persons that may be deemed to be affiliates under the Act have been excluded. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily a conclusive determination for other purposes.

The number of outstanding shares of the Registrant’s Common Stock, $.001 par value, was 111,730,337 as of January 29, 2021.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Certain information is incorporated into Part III of this report by reference to the Proxy Statement for the Registrant’s annual meeting of stockholders to be held on or about April 29, 2021 to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Form 10-K.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements 2

PART I 3

Item 1. Business 3

Item 1A. Risk Factors 8

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 25

Item 2. Properties 25

Item 3. Legal Proceedings 26

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures 26

Item 6. Selected Financial Data 28

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk 45

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 45

Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 45

Item 9B. Other Information 46

PART III 47

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 47

Item 11. Executive Compensation 47

Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services 47

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 48

INDEX TO EXHIBITS 93

SIGNATURES 96

POWER OF ATTORNEY 96

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NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

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

•Success in the markets of our products and services or our customers’ products;

•Sources of competition;

•Research and development costs and improvements in technology;

•Sources, amounts and concentration of revenue, including royalties;

•Success in signing and renewing license agreements;

•Terms of our licenses and amounts owed under license agreements;

•Technology product development;

•Dispositions, acquisitions, mergers or strategic transactions and our related integration efforts;

•Impairment of goodwill and long-lived assets;

•Pricing policies of our customers;

•Changes in our strategy and business model, including the expansion of our portfolio of inventions, products, software, services and solutions to address additional markets in memory, chip and security;

•Deterioration of financial health of commercial counterparties and their ability to meet their obligations to us;

•Effects of security breaches or failures in our or our customers’ products and services on our business;

•Engineering, sales and general and administration expenses;

•Contract revenue;

•Operating results;

•International licenses, operations and expansion;

•Effects of changes in the economy and credit market on our industry and business;

•Impact of the Novel Coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic on our business operations and financial results;

•Ability to identify, attract, motivate and retain qualified personnel;

•Effects of government regulations on our industry and business;

•Manufacturing, shipping and supply partners and/or sale and distribution channels;

•Growth in our business;

•Methods, estimates and judgments in accounting policies;

•Adoption of new accounting pronouncements;

•Effective tax rates, including as a result of recent U.S. tax legislation;

•Restructurings and plans of termination;

•Realization of deferred tax assets/release of deferred tax valuation allowance;

•Trading price of our common stock;

•Internal control environment;

•The level and terms of our outstanding debt and the repayment or financing of such debt;

•Protection of intellectual property (“IP”);

•Any changes in laws, agency actions and judicial rulings that may impact the ability to enforce our IP rights;

•Indemnification and technical support obligations;

•Equity repurchase plans;

•Issuances of debt or equity securities, which could involve restrictive covenants or be dilutive to our existing stockholders;

•Effects of fluctuations in interest rates and currency exchange rates; and

•Outcome and effect of potential future IP litigation and other significant litigation.

You can identify these and other forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “may,” “future,” “shall,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “intends,” “potential,” “continue,” “projecting” or the negative of such terms, or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements also include the assumptions underlying or relating to any of the foregoing statements.

Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth under Item 1A, “Risk Factors.” All forward-looking statements included in this document are based on our assessment of information available to us at this time. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

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PART I

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

Item 1. Business

Overview

Rambus produces products and innovations that address the fundamental challenges of accelerating data. We make industry-leading chips and IP that enable critical performance improvements for data center and other growing markets. The ongoing shift to the cloud, along with the widespread advancement of artificial intelligence (“AI”) across the data center, 5G, automotive and Internet of Things (“IoT”), has led to exponential growth in data usage and tremendous demands on data infrastructure. Creating fast and safe connections, both in and across systems, remains one of the most mission-critical design challenges limiting performance in advanced hardware for these markets.

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

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

2020 was an unprecedented year, with the onset of COVID-19 triggering uncertainty in the global marketplace. Despite that turbulence, Rambus demonstrated great execution and significant product growth. Continued commitment to our customers, careful supply management and the tremendous dedication and agility of the Rambus team worldwide drove this success.

Annual product revenue increased 56% year-over-year between 2019 and 2020. Driven by continued gains in market share from our memory interface chips, we recognized record product revenue of $114.0 million in 2020. Silicon IP achieved sustained revenue growth with design-win momentum at tier-1 system on chip (“SoC”) customers and strong execution from the businesses acquired in 2019. Rambus successfully closed key patent licensing agreements with DRAM and SoC manufacturers, solidifying our foundation of sustained cash generation.

Memory Interface Chips

Made for high speed, reliability and power efficiency, our DDR memory interface chips for registered, load-reduced and non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (“RDIMM,” “LRDIMM” and “NVDIMM,” respectively) deliver top-of-the-line performance and capacity to the next wave of enterprise and cloud servers. Rambus offers DDR5, DDR4 and DDR3 memory interface chips to enable increased memory capacity, while maintaining peak performance for data-intensive work loads.

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

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

Silicon IP

Rambus’ Silicon IP offers both Interface and Security IP solutions. Our Interface IP solutions feature both high-speed memory and chip-to-chip interconnect technologies. With the acquisition of Northwest Logic, Inc. (“Northwest Logic”) in August of 2019, Rambus now offers a complementary portfolio of physical interface (“PHY”) and companion digital controller

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IPs to create a one-stop-shop for SoC designers. These silicon-proven solutions are critical to high-performance data center, networking, AI, Machine Learning (“ML”) and automotive applications because they enable and optimize the transfer of data between chips and electronic devices.

The Rambus Security IP solutions include crypto cores, hardware roots of trust, high-speed protocol engines and chip provisioning technologies. With the acquisition of the Secure Silicon IP and Protocols business from Verimatrix in December 2019, Rambus offers one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of silicon-proven Security IP. With the growing threat environment, hardware-based, embedded security solutions, are mission-critical for protecting data center, AI, networking, IoT, automotive and government applications.

Architecture Licenses

Rambus patented inventions are foundational to the semiconductor industry and licenses of our portfolio to our customers represent a significant portion of our revenue. Rambus is committed to continuing to innovate and invent, thereby advancing semiconductor technology. With a broad worldwide portfolio of patents covering memory architecture, high-speed serial links, and security, we enhance our value and relevance in our target markets and create a platform for investment in product development.

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

Competition

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

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

Research and Development

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

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

A significant number of our scientists and engineers spend all or a portion of their time on research and development. For the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, research and development expenses were $139.8 million, $156.8 million and $158.3 million, respectively. We expect to continue to invest substantial funds in research and development activities. In

addition, because our customer agreements often call for us to provide engineering support, a portion of our total engineering costs are allocated to the cost of contract and other revenue.

Human Capital Resources

As of December 31, 2020, we had 623 employees, of which approximately 44% were in the United States and 56% in other global regions. Additionally, approximately 67% of our employees were engineers with the remaining employees in sales, general and administrative positions. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our primary focus has been on the safety and well-being of our employees and their families. Our global pandemic efforts include instituting a global employee assistance program while leveraging the advice and recommendations of infectious disease experts to establish proper safety standards. As the pandemic continues, the health and well-being of our workforce remains our top priority while we ensure productivity for those employees working from home.

We believe that our future success largely depends upon our continued ability to identify, attract, motivate and retain qualified personnel. We provide our employees with competitive compensation, as well as opportunities for equity ownership and developmental programs that enable continued learning and growth. We also offer employees benefits such as life and health insurance, paid time off, paid parental leave, and retirement savings plans. We utilize successful recruiting practices that yield qualified and dedicated employees who are driven to achieve our vision.

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

Intellectual Property

We maintain and support an active program to protect our IP, primarily through the filing of patent applications and the defense of issued patents against potential infringement. As of December 31, 2020, our technologies are covered by 2,407 U.S. and foreign patents, having expiration dates ranging from 2021 to 2039. Additionally, we have 617 patent applications pending. Some of the patents and pending patent applications are derived from a common parent patent application or are foreign counterpart patent applications. We believe our patented innovations provide our customers with the legal rights and licenses to use our inventions to achieve improved performance, greater cost-effectiveness and other technological benefits in their own products and services. We intend to continue our innovation efforts and allocate significant investment in our IP development programs.

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

Backlog

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

Corporate and Available Information

Rambus Inc. was founded in 1990 and reincorporated in Delaware in March 1997. Our principal executive offices are located at 4453 North First Street, Suite 100, San Jose, California. Our website is www.rambus.com. We have used, and intend to continue to use, our investor relations website as a means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD. The inclusion of our website address in this report does not include or incorporate by reference into this report any information on our website. You can obtain copies of our Forms 10-K, 10-Q, 8-K, and other filings with the SEC, and all amendments to these filings, free of charge, from our website as soon as reasonably practicable following our filing of any of these reports with the SEC. In addition, you may read and copy any material we file

with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street NE, Room 1580, Washington, D.C. 20549. You may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC also maintains a website that contains reports, proxy, and information statements, and other information regarding registrants that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. Further, the Company’s references to the URLs for these websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

Information concerning our revenue, results of operations and revenue by geographic area is set forth in Item 6, “Selected Financial Data,” in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and in Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Information concerning identifiable assets and segment reporting is also set forth in Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K. Information on customers that comprise 10% or more of our consolidated revenue and risks attendant to our foreign operations is set forth below in Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

Our Named Executive Officers

Information regarding our named executive officers and their ages and positions as of February 26, 2021, is contained in the table below. Our named executive officers are appointed by, and serve at the discretion of, our Board of Directors. There is no family relationship between any of our named executive officers.

Name Age Position and Business Experience

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

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

Summary Risk Factors

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

•The success of our business depends on sustaining or growing our licensing revenue and the failure to achieve such revenue would lead to a material decline in our results of operations.

•Our licensing cycle is lengthy and costly, and our marketing and licensing efforts may be unsuccessful.

•Some of our license agreements may convert to fully paid-up licenses at the expiration of their terms, or upon certain milestones, and we may not receive royalties after that time.

•Future revenue is difficult to predict for several reasons, and our failure to predict revenue accurately may result in our stock price declining.

•Our revenue is concentrated in a few customers, and if we lose any of these customers through contract terminations or acquisitions, our revenue may decrease substantially.

•Some of our revenue is subject to the pricing policies of our customers over which we have no control.

•We have traditionally operated in, and may enter other, industries that are highly cyclical and competitive.

•We face risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could significantly disrupt our research and development, operations, sales and financial results.

•Our customers often require our products to undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process which does not assure product sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, our business and operating results would suffer.

•We may have to invest more resources in research and development than anticipated, which could increase our operating expenses and negatively impact our operating results.

•Our business and operations could suffer in the event of security breaches.

•Failures in our products and services or in the products of our customers, including those resulting from security vulnerabilities, defects, bugs or errors, could harm our business.

•We may fail to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations about our business, which would likely cause our stock price to decline.

•Changes in accounting principles and guidance could result in unfavorable accounting charges or effects.

•We have in the past made and may in the future make acquisitions or enter into mergers, strategic investments, sales of assets, divestitures or other arrangements that may not produce expected operating and financial results.

•A substantial portion of our revenue is derived from sources outside of the United States and this revenue and our business generally are subject to risks related to international operations that are often beyond our control.

•Weak global economic conditions may adversely affect demand for the products and services of our customers.

•If our counterparties are unable to fulfill their financial and other obligations to us, our business and results of operations may be affected adversely.

•If we are unable to attract and retain qualified personnel, our business and operations could suffer.

•We are subject to various government restrictions and regulations, including on the sale of products and services that use encryption technology and those related to privacy and other consumer protection matters.

•Participation in standards setting organizations may subject us to IP licensing requirements or limitations that could adversely affect our business and prospects.

•Our operations are subject to risks of natural disasters, acts of war, terrorism, widespread illness or security breach at our domestic and international locations, any one of which could result in a business stoppage and negatively affect our operating results.

•We do not have extensive experience in manufacturing and marketing products and, as a result, may be unable to sustain and grow a profitable commercial market for new and existing products.

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•We rely upon the accuracy of our customers’ recordkeeping, and any inaccuracies or payment disputes for amounts owed to us under our licensing agreements may harm our results of operations.

•We rely on a number of third-party providers for data center hosting facilities, equipment, maintenance and other services, and the loss of, or problems with, one or more of these providers may impede our growth or cause us to lose customers.

•We rely on third parties for a variety of services, including manufacturing, and these third parties’ failure to perform these services adequately could materially and adversely affect our business.

•Warranty, service level agreement and product liability claims brought against us could cause us to incur significant costs and adversely affect our operating results as well as our reputation and relationships with customers.

•Any failure in our delivery of high-quality technical support services may adversely affect our relationships with our customers and our financial results.

•Certain software that we use in certain of our products is licensed from third parties and, for that reason, may not be available to us in the future, which has the potential to delay product development and production or cause us to incur additional expense, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

•Certain software we use is from open source code sources, which, under certain circumstances, may lead to unintended consequences and, therefore, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

•Our business and operating results could be harmed if we undertake any restructuring activities.

•Problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and could adversely impact our operations.

•We are leveraged financially, which could adversely affect our ability to adjust our business to respond to competitive pressures and to obtain sufficient funds to satisfy our future research and development needs, to protect and enforce our intellectual property, and to meet other needs.

•Adverse litigation results could affect our business.

•We have in the past, and may in the future, become engaged in litigation stemming from our efforts to protect and enforce our patents and intellectual property and make other claims, which could adversely affect our intellectual property rights, distract our management and cause substantial expenses and declines in our revenue and stock price.

•From time to time, we are subject to proceedings by government agencies that may result in adverse determinations against us and could cause our revenue to decline substantially.

•Litigation or other third-party claims of intellectual property infringement could require us to expend substantial resources and could prevent us from developing or licensing our technology on a cost-effective basis.

•If we are unable to protect our inventions successfully through the issuance and enforcement of patents, our operating results could be adversely affected.

•Our inability to protect and own the intellectual property we create would cause our business to suffer.

•Third parties may claim that our products or services infringe on their intellectual property rights, exposing us to litigation that, regardless of merit, may be costly to defend.

•Any dispute regarding our intellectual property may require us to indemnify certain customers, the cost of which could severely hamper our business operations and financial condition.

•We have been party to, and may in the future be subject to, lawsuits relating to securities law matters which may result in unfavorable outcomes and significant judgments, settlements and legal expenses which could cause our business, financial condition and results of operations to suffer.

•The price of our common stock may continue to fluctuate.

•Compliance with changing regulation of corporate governance and public disclosure may result in additional expenses.

•Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, Delaware law, our outstanding convertible notes and certain other agreements contain provisions that could discourage transactions resulting in a change in control, which may negatively affect the market price of our common stock.

•Unanticipated changes in our tax rates or in the tax laws and regulations could expose us to additional income tax liabilities which could affect our operating results and financial condition.

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Risks Associated With Our Business, Industry and Market Conditions

The success of our business depends on sustaining or growing our licensing revenue and the failure to achieve such revenue would lead to a material decline in our results of operations.

A significant portion of our revenue consists of patent and technology license fees paid for access to our patented technologies, existing technology and other development and support services we provide to our customers. Our ability to secure and renew the licenses from which our revenues are derived depends on our customers adopting our technology and using it in the products they sell. Once secured, license revenue may be negatively affected by factors within and outside our control, including reductions in our customers’ sales prices, sales volumes, our failure to timely complete engineering deliverables, and the actual terms of such licenses themselves. In addition, our licensing cycle for new licensees as well as for renewals for existing licensees is lengthy, costly and unpredictable. We cannot provide any assurance that we will be successful in signing new license agreements or renewing existing license agreements on equal or favorable terms or at all. If we do not achieve our revenue goals, our results of operations could decline.

Our licensing cycle is lengthy and costly, and our marketing and licensing efforts may be unsuccessful.

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

Some of our license agreements may convert to fully paid-up licenses at the expiration of their terms, or upon certain milestones, and we may not receive royalties after that time.

From time to time, we enter into license agreements that automatically convert to fully paid-up licenses upon expiration or upon reaching certain milestones. We may not receive further royalties from customers for any licensed technology under those agreements if they convert to fully paid-up licenses because such customers will be entitled to continue using some, if not all, of the relevant intellectual property (“IP”) or technology under the terms of the license agreements without further payment, even if relevant patents or technologies are still in effect. If we cannot find another source of royalties to replace the royalties from these license agreements converting to fully paid-up licenses, our results of operations following such conversion could be adversely affected.

Future revenue is difficult to predict for several reasons, and our failure to predict revenue accurately may result in our stock price declining.

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

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

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

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Our revenue is concentrated in a few customers, and if we lose any of these customers through contract terminations or acquisitions, our revenue may decrease substantially.

We have a high degree of revenue concentration. Our top five customers for each reporting period represented approximately 46%, 46% and 49% of our revenue for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. For 2020, revenue from Micron and SK hynix each accounted for 10% or more of our total revenue. For 2019, revenue from Broadcom and SK hynix each accounted for 10% or more of our total revenue. For 2018, revenue from Broadcom and NVIDIA each accounted for 10% or more of our total revenue. We expect to continue to experience significant revenue concentration for the foreseeable future.

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

We continue to negotiate with customers and prospective customers to enter into license agreements. Any future agreement may trigger our obligation to offer comparable terms or modifications to agreements with our existing customers, which may be less favorable to us than the existing license terms. We expect licensing fees will continue to vary based on our success in renewing existing license agreements and adding new customers, as well as the level of variation in our customers’ reported shipment volumes, sales price and mix, offset in part by the proportion of customer payments that are fixed. In particular, under our license agreement with Samsung, the license fees payable by Samsung are subject to certain adjustments and conditions, and we therefore cannot provide assurances that the revenues generated by this license will not decline in the future. In addition, some of our material license agreements may contain rights by the customer to terminate for convenience, or upon certain other events, such as change of control, material breach, insolvency or bankruptcy proceedings. If we are unsuccessful in entering into license agreements with new customers or renewing license agreements with existing customers, on favorable terms or at all, or if they are terminated, our results of operations may decline significantly.

Some of our revenue is subject to the pricing policies of our customers over which we have no control.

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

We have traditionally operated in, and may enter other, industries that are highly cyclical and competitive.

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

We face competition from semiconductor and digital electronics products and systems companies, and other semiconductor IP companies that provide security cores that are available to the market. We believe the principal competition for our

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technologies may come from our prospective customers, some of which are evaluating and developing products based on technologies that they contend or may contend will not require a license from us. Some of our competitors use a system-level design approach similar to ours, including activities such as board and package design, power and signal integrity analysis, and thermal management. Many of these companies are larger and may have better access to financial, technical and other resources than we possess.

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

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

We face risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could significantly disrupt our research and development, operations, sales and financial results.

Our business may be adversely impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to global macroeconomic effects, the COVID-19 pandemic and any other related adverse public health developments may cause disruption to our domestic and international operations and sales activities. Our third-party manufacturers, suppliers, third-party distributors, sub-contractors and customers have been and will be disrupted by worker absenteeism, quarantines and restrictions on our employees’ ability to work, office and factory closures, disruptions to ports and other shipping infrastructure, border closures, or other travel or health-related restrictions. For example, government-mandated shelter-in-place and other restrictions on movement may impact our planned headquarters relocation, the ability of our employees to perform their jobs, and our ability to develop and design our products in a timely manner or meet required milestones or customer commitments. Depending on the magnitude of such effects on the operations of our suppliers, third-party distributors, or sub-contractors, our supply chain and product shipments may be delayed, which could adversely affect our business, operations and customer relationships. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic or other disease outbreak will in the short-run and may over the longer term adversely affect the economies and financial markets of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that may affect demand for our products and impact our operating results. There can be no assurance that any decrease in sales resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic will be offset by increased sales in subsequent periods. Although the magnitude of the impact of the Novel COVID-19 pandemic on our business and operations remains uncertain, the continued spread of the COVID-19 pandemic or the occurrence of other epidemics and the imposition of related public health measures and travel and business restrictions could adversely impact our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows.

Our customers often require our products to undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process which does not assure product sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, our business and operating results would suffer.

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

We may have to invest more resources in research and development than anticipated, which could increase our operating expenses and negatively impact our operating results.

If new competitors, technological advances by existing competitors, and/or development of new technologies or other competitive factors require us to invest significantly greater resources than anticipated in our research and development efforts,

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our operating expenses could increase. If we are required to invest significantly greater resources than anticipated in research and development efforts without an increase in revenue, our operating results would decline. We expect these expenses to increase in the foreseeable future as our technology development efforts continue.

Our business and operations could suffer in the event of security breaches.

Attempts by others to gain unauthorized access to our information technology systems are becoming more sophisticated. These attempts, which might be related to industrial or other espionage, include covertly introducing malware to our computers and networks and impersonating authorized users, among others. We seek to detect and investigate all security incidents and to prevent their recurrence, but in some cases, we might be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects. While we have not identified any material incidents of unauthorized access to date, the theft, unauthorized use or publication of our IP and/or confidential business information could harm our competitive position and reputation, reduce the value of our investment in research and development and other strategic initiatives or otherwise adversely affect our business. To the extent that any future security breach results in inappropriate disclosure of our customers’ confidential information or any personally-identifiable information of our employees, we may incur liability.

Failures in our products and services or in the products of our customers, including those resulting from security vulnerabilities, defects, bugs or errors, could harm our business.

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

•expenditure of significant financial and research and development resources in efforts to analyze, correct, eliminate or work around breaches, errors, bugs or defects or to address and eliminate vulnerabilities;

•financial liability to customers for breach of certain contract provisions, including indemnification obligations;

•loss of existing or potential customers;

•product shipment restrictions or prohibitions to certain customers;

•delayed or lost revenue;

•delay or failure to attain market acceptance;

•negative publicity, which would harm our reputation; and

•litigation, regulatory inquiries or investigations that would be costly and harm our reputation.

We may fail to meet our publicly announced guidance or other expectations about our business, which would likely cause our stock price to decline.

We provide guidance regarding our expected financial and business performance including our anticipated future revenues, operating expenses and other financial and operation metrics. We enhanced our guidance following implementation of Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers in Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Topic 606 (“ASC 606”, “the New Revenue Standard”) in the first quarter of 2018.

Correctly identifying the key factors affecting business conditions and predicting future events is an inherently uncertain process. Any guidance that we provide may not always be accurate, or may vary from actual results, due to our inability to correctly identify and quantify risks and uncertainties to our business and to quantify their impact on our financial performance. We offer no assurance that such guidance will ultimately be accurate, and investors should treat any such guidance with appropriate caution. If we fail to meet our guidance or if we find it necessary to revise such guidance, even if such failure or revision is seemingly insignificant, investors and analysts may lose confidence in us and the market value of our common stock could be materially adversely affected.

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Changes in accounting principles and guidance could result in unfavorable accounting charges or effects.

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States and these principles are subject to interpretation by the SEC and various bodies. A change in these principles or application guidance, or in their interpretations, may have a material effect on our reported results, as well as our processes and related controls, and may retroactively affect previously reported results. For instance, we adopted ASC 842, the New Leasing Standard, effective for us on January 1, 2019, using the alternative transition method and recognized a cumulative-effect adjustment to the opening balance of accumulated deficit on January 1, 2019. We also adopted ASC 606, the New Revenue Standard, effective for us on January 1, 2018, on a modified retrospective basis, with a cumulative-effect adjustment to the opening balance of accumulated deficit on January 1, 2018. The New Revenue Standard materially impacted the timing of revenue recognition for our fixed-fee IP licensing arrangements (including certain fixed-fee agreements that license our existing IP portfolio as well as IP added to our portfolio during the license term) as a majority of such revenue would be recognized at inception of the license term, as opposed to over time as is the case under prior U.S. GAAP, and we are required to compute and recognize interest income over time for certain licensing arrangements as control over the IP generally transfers significantly in advance of cash being received from customers. The impact of the adoption of the New Revenue Standard did not have a material impact on our other revenue streams. We have also enhanced the form and content of some of our guidance metrics that we provide following implementation of the New Revenue Standard. We expect that any change to current revenue recognition practices may significantly increase volatility in our quarterly revenue, financial results and trends, and may impact our stock price.

We have in the past made and may in the future make acquisitions or enter into mergers, strategic investments, sales of assets, divestitures or other arrangements that may not produce expected operating and financial results.

From time to time, we engage in acquisitions, strategic transactions, strategic investments, divestitures and potential discussions with respect thereto. For example, in 2019, we acquired Northwest Logic and the Secure Silicon IP and Protocols business from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure. Many of our acquisitions or strategic investments entail a high degree of risk, including those involving new areas of technology and such investments may not become liquid for several years after the date of the investment, if at all. Our acquisitions or strategic investments may not provide the advantages that we anticipated or generate the financial returns we expect, including if we are unable to close any pending acquisitions. For example, for any pending or completed acquisitions, we may discover unidentified issues not discovered in due diligence, and we may be subject to regulatory approvals or liabilities that are not covered by indemnification protection or become subject to litigation. Achieving the anticipated benefits of business acquisitions depends in part upon our ability to integrate the acquired businesses in an efficient and effective manner. The integration of companies that have previously operated independently may result in significant challenges, including, among others: retaining key employees; successfully integrating new employees, business systems and technology; retaining customers of the acquired business; minimizing the diversion of management’s and other employees’ attention from ongoing business matters; coordinating geographically separate organizations; consolidating research and development operations; and consolidating corporate and administrative infrastructures.

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

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

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

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

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A substantial portion of our revenue is derived from sources outside of the United States and this revenue and our business generally are subject to risks related to international operations that are often beyond our control.

For the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, revenues received from our international customers constituted approximately 43%, 40% and 44%, respectively, of our total revenue. We expect that future revenue derived from international sources will continue to represent a significant portion of our total revenue.

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

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

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

•hiring, maintaining and managing a workforce and facilities remotely and under various legal systems, including compliance with local labor and employment laws;

•non-compliance with our code of conduct or other corporate policies;

•natural disasters, acts of war, terrorism, widespread global pandemics or illness, such as the current Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), or security breaches;

•export controls, tariffs, import and licensing restrictions and other trade barriers;

•profits, if any, earned abroad being subject to local tax laws and not being repatriated to the United States or, if repatriation is possible, limited in amount;

•adverse tax treatment of revenue from international sources and changes to tax codes, including being subject to foreign tax laws and being liable for paying withholding, income or other taxes in foreign jurisdictions;

•unanticipated changes in foreign government laws and regulations;

•increased financial accounting and reporting burdens and complexities;

•lack of protection of our IP and other contract rights by jurisdictions in which we may do business to the same extent as the laws of the United States;

•potential vulnerability to computer system, internet or other systemic attacks, such as denial of service, viruses or other malware which may be caused by criminals, terrorists or other sophisticated organizations;

•social, political and economic instability;

•geopolitical issues, including changes in diplomatic and trade relationships, in particular with China; and

•cultural differences in the conduct of business both with customers and in conducting business in our international facilities and international sales offices.

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

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Weak global economic conditions may adversely affect demand for the products and services of our customers.

Our operations and performance depend significantly on worldwide economic conditions. Future uncertainty about global or regional economic and political conditions poses a risk as consumers and businesses may postpone spending in response to tighter credit, negative financial news and declines in income or asset values, which could have a material negative effect on the demand for the products of our customers in the foreseeable future. If our customers experience reduced demand for their products as a result of global or regional economic conditions or otherwise, this could result in reduced royalty revenue and our business and results of operations could be harmed.

If our counterparties are unable to fulfill their financial and other obligations to us, our business and results of operations may be affected adversely.

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

If we are unable to attract and retain qualified personnel, our business and operations could suffer.

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

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

We are subject to various government restrictions and regulations, including on the sale of products and services that use encryption technology and those related to privacy and other consumer protection matters.

Various countries have adopted controls, license requirements and restrictions on the export, import and use of products or services that contain encryption technology. In addition, governmental agencies have proposed additional requirements for encryption technology, such as requiring the escrow and governmental recovery of private encryption keys. Restrictions on the sale or distribution of products or services containing encryption technology may impact our ability to license data security technologies to the manufacturers and providers of such products and services in certain markets or may require us or our customers to make changes to the licensed data security technology that is embedded in such products to comply with such restrictions. Government restrictions, or changes to the products or services our customers to comply with such restrictions, could delay or prevent the acceptance and use of such customers’ products and services. In addition, the United States and other countries have imposed export controls that prohibit the export of encryption technology to certain countries, entities and individuals. Our failure to comply with export and use regulations concerning encryption technology could subject us to sanctions and penalties, including fines, and suspension or revocation of export or import privileges.

We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States, the European Union and other countries that involve, for example, user privacy, data protection and security, content and consumer protection. A number of proposals are pending before federal, state, and foreign legislative and regulatory bodies that could significantly affect our business. For example, in 2016, a new EU data protection regime, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was adopted, with it

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fully effective on May 25, 2018, and California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act as of January 1, 2020 (“CCPA”). The GDPR and CCPA may require us to modify our existing practices with respect to the collection, use, and disclosure of data. In particular, the GDPR provides for significant penalties in the case of non-compliance of up to €20 million or four percent of worldwide annual revenues, whichever is greater. The GDPR, CCPA and other existing and proposed laws and regulations can be costly to comply with and can delay or impede the development of new products, result in negative publicity, increase our operating costs and subject us to claims or other remedies.

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

Participation in standards setting organizations may subject us to IP licensing requirements or limitations that could adversely affect our business and prospects.

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

Our operations are subject to risks of natural disasters, acts of war, terrorism, widespread illness or security breach at our domestic and international locations, any one of which could result in a business stoppage and negatively affect our operating results.

Our business operations depend on our ability to maintain and protect our facilities, computer systems and personnel, which are primarily located in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States, the Netherlands and India. The San Francisco Bay Area is in close proximity to known earthquake fault zones. Our facilities and transportation for our employees are susceptible to damage from earthquakes and other natural disasters such as fires, floods and similar events. Should a catastrophe disable our facilities, we do not have readily available alternative facilities from which we could conduct our business, so any resultant work stoppage could have a negative effect on our operating results. We also rely on our network infrastructure and technology systems for operational support and business activities which are subject to physical and cyber damage, and also susceptible to other related vulnerabilities common to networks and computer systems. Acts of terrorism, widespread illness, or global pandemics, including the current Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, war and any event that causes failures or interruption in our network infrastructure and technology systems could have a negative effect at our international and domestic facilities and could harm our business, financial condition, and operating results.

We do not have extensive experience in manufacturing and marketing products and, as a result, may be unable to sustain and grow a profitable commercial market for new and existing products.

We do not have extensive experience in creating, manufacturing and marketing products. Our product offerings may present new and difficult challenges, and we may be subject to claims if customers of our offerings experience delays, failures, non-performance or other quality issues. In particular, we may experience difficulties with product design, qualification, manufacturing, marketing or certification that could delay or prevent our development, introduction or marketing and sales of products. Although we intend to design our products to be fully compliant with applicable industry standards, proprietary enhancements may not in the future result in full conformance with existing industry standards under all circumstances.

If we fail to introduce products that meet the demand of our customers, penetrate new markets in which we expend significant resources, or our marketing and sales cycles that we experience are longer than we anticipate, our revenues will be difficult to predict, may decrease over time and our financial condition could suffer. Additionally, if we concentrate resources

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on a new market that does not prove profitable or sustainable, it could damage our reputation and limit our growth, and our financial condition could decline.

We rely upon the accuracy of our customers’ recordkeeping, and any inaccuracies or payment disputes for amounts owed to us under our licensing agreements may harm our results of operations.

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

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

We rely on a number of third-party providers for data center hosting facilities, equipment, maintenance and other services, and the loss of, or problems with, one or more of these providers may impede our growth or cause us to lose customers.

We rely on third-party providers to supply data center hosting facilities, equipment, maintenance and other services in order to enable us to provide some of our services, and have entered into various agreements for such services. The continuous availability of our services depends on the operations of those facilities, on a variety of network service providers and on third-party vendors. In addition, we depend on our third-party facility providers’ ability to protect these facilities against damage or interruption from natural disasters, power or telecommunications failures, criminal acts, cyber-attacks and similar events. If there are any lapses of service or damage to a facility, we could experience lengthy interruptions in our service as well as delays and additional expenses in arranging new facilities and services. Even with current and planned disaster recovery arrangements, our business could be harmed. Any interruptions or delays in our service, whether as a result of third-party error, our own error, natural disasters, criminal acts, security breaches or other causes, whether accidental or willful, could harm our relationships with customers, harm our reputation and cause our revenue to decrease and/or our expenses to increase. Also, in the event of damage or interruption, our insurance policies may not adequately compensate us for any losses that we may incur. These factors in turn could further reduce our revenue, subject us to liability and cause us to issue credits or cause us to lose customers, any of which could materially adversely affect our business.

We rely on third parties for a variety of services, including manufacturing, and these third parties’ failure to perform these services adequately could materially and adversely affect our business.

We rely on third parties for a variety of services, including our manufacturing supply chain partners and third parties within our sales and distribution channels. Certain of these third parties are, and may be, our sole manufacturer or sole source of certain production materials. If we fail to manage our relationships with these manufacturers and suppliers effectively, or if they experience delays, disruptions, capacity constraints or quality control problems in their operations, our ability to ship products to our customers could be impaired and our competitive position and reputation could be harmed. In addition, any adverse change in any of our manufacturers and suppliers’ financial or business condition could disrupt our ability to supply quality products to our customers. If we are required to change our manufacturers, we may lose revenue, incur increased costs and damage our end-customer relationships. In addition, qualifying a new manufacturer and commencing production can be an expensive and lengthy process. If our third-party manufacturers or suppliers are unable to provide us with adequate supplies of high-quality products for any other reason, we could experience a delay in our order fulfillment, and our business, operating results and financial condition would be adversely affected. In the event these and other third parties we rely on fail to provide their services adequately, including as a result of errors in their systems or events beyond their control, or refuse to provide these services on terms acceptable to us or at all, and we are not able to find suitable alternatives, our business may be materially and adversely affected. In addition, our orders may represent a relatively small percentage of the overall orders received by our manufacturers from their customers. As a result, fulfilling our orders may not be considered a priority in the event our manufacturers are constrained in their ability to fulfill all of their customer obligations in a timely manner. If our manufacturers are unable to provide us with adequate supplies of high-quality products, or if we or our manufacturers are unable to obtain adequate quantities of components, it could cause a delay in our order fulfillment, in which case our business, operating results and financial condition could be adversely affected.

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Warranty, service level agreement and product liability claims brought against us could cause us to incur significant costs and adversely affect our operating results as well as our reputation and relationships with customers.

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

Any failure in our delivery of high-quality technical support services may adversely affect our relationships with our customers and our financial results.

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

Certain software that we use in certain of our products is licensed from third parties and, for that reason, may not be available to us in the future, which has the potential to delay product development and production or cause us to incur additional expense, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

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

Certain software we use is from open source code sources, which, under certain circumstances, may lead to unintended consequences and, therefore, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow.

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

Our business and operating results could be harmed if we undertake any restructuring activities.

From time to time, we may undertake restructurings of our business, including discontinuing certain products, services and technologies and planned reductions in force. There are several factors that could cause restructurings to have adverse effects on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These include potential disruption of our operations, the

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development of our technology, the deliveries to our customers and other aspects of our business. Loss of sales, service and engineering talent, in particular, could damage our business. Any restructuring would require substantial management time and attention and may divert management from other important work. Employee reductions or other restructuring activities also would cause us to incur restructuring and related expenses such as severance expenses. Moreover, we could encounter delays in executing any restructuring plans, which could cause further disruption and additional unanticipated expense.

Problems with our information systems could interfere with our business and could adversely impact our operations.

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

We are leveraged financially, which could adversely affect our ability to adjust our business to respond to competitive pressures and to obtain sufficient funds to satisfy our future research and development needs, to protect and enforce our intellectual property, and to meet other needs.

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

•we may be more vulnerable to economic downturns, less able to withstand competitive pressures and less flexible in responding to changing business and economic conditions;

•our ability to obtain additional financing in the future for working capital, capital expenditures, acquisitions, litigation, general corporate or other purposes may be limited;

•a substantial portion of our cash flows from operations in the future may be required for the payment of interest and principal when due at maturity in February 2023; and

•we may be required to make cash payments upon any conversion of the 2023 Notes, which would reduce our cash on hand.

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

If we are at any time unable to generate sufficient cash flows from operations to service our indebtedness when payment is due, we may be required to attempt to renegotiate the terms of the instruments relating to the indebtedness, seek to refinance all or a portion of the indebtedness or obtain additional financing. There can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully renegotiate such terms, that any such refinancing would be possible or that any additional financing could be obtained on terms that are favorable or acceptable to us.

Risks Associated with Litigation, Regulation and Our Intellectual Property

Adverse litigation results could affect our business.

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

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We have in the past, and may in the future, become engaged in litigation stemming from our efforts to protect and enforce our patents and intellectual property and make other claims, which could adversely affect our intellectual property rights, distract our management and cause substantial expenses and declines in our revenue and stock price.

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

From time to time, we are subject to proceedings by government agencies that may result in adverse determinations against us and could cause our revenue to decline substantially.

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

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

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

Litigation or other third-party claims of intellectual property infringement could require us to expend substantial resources and could prevent us from developing or licensing our technology on a cost-effective basis.

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

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If we are unable to protect our inventions successfully through the issuance and enforcement of patents, our operating results could be adversely affected.

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

•any current or future U.S. or foreign patent applications will be approved and not be challenged by third parties;

•our issued patents will protect our IP and not be challenged by third parties;

•the validity of our patents will be upheld;

•our patents will not be declared unenforceable;

•the patents of others will not have an adverse effect on our ability to do business;

•Congress or the U.S. courts or foreign countries will not change the nature or scope of rights afforded patents or patent owners or alter in an adverse way the process for seeking or enforcing patents;

•changes in law will not be implemented, or changes in interpretation of such laws will occur, that will affect our ability to protect and enforce our patents and other IP;

•new legal theories and strategies utilized by our competitors will not be successful;

•others will not independently develop similar or competing chip interfaces or design around any patents that may be issued to us; or

•factors such as difficulty in obtaining cooperation from inventors, pre-existing challenges or litigation, or license or other contract issues will not present additional challenges in securing protection with respect to patents and other IP that we acquire.

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

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

In addition, our patents will continue to expire according to their terms, with expected expiration dates ranging from 2021 to 2039. Our failure to continuously develop or acquire successful innovations and obtain patents on those innovations could significantly harm our business, financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows.

Our inability to protect and own the intellectual property we create would cause our business to suffer.

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

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

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Third parties may claim that our products or services infringe on their intellectual property rights, exposing us to litigation that, regardless of merit, may be costly to defend.

Our success and ability to compete are also dependent upon our ability to operate without infringing upon the patent, trademark and other IP rights of others. Third parties may claim that our current or future products or services infringe upon their IP rights. Any such claim, with or without merit, could be time consuming, divert management’s attention from our business operations and result in significant expenses. We cannot assure you that we would be successful in defending against any such claims. In addition, parties making these claims may be able to obtain injunctive or other equitable relief affecting our ability to license the products that incorporate the challenged IP. As a result of such claims, we may be required to obtain licenses from third parties, develop alternative technology or redesign our products. We cannot be sure that such licenses would be available on terms acceptable to us, if at all. If a successful claim is made against us and we are unable to develop or license alternative technology, our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows could be materially adversely affected.

Any dispute regarding our intellectual property may require us to indemnify certain customers, the cost of which could severely hamper our business operations and financial condition.

In any potential dispute involving our patents or other IP, our customers could also become the target of litigation. While we generally do not indemnify our customers, some of our agreements provide for indemnification, and some require us to provide technical support and information to a customer that is involved in litigation involving use of our technology. In addition, we may be exposed to indemnification obligations, risks and liabilities that were unknown at the time that we acquired assets or businesses for our operations. Any of these indemnification and support obligations could result in substantial and material expenses. In addition to the time and expense required for us to indemnify or supply such support to our customers, a customer’s development, marketing and sales of licensed semiconductors, mobile communications and data security technologies could be severely disrupted or shut down as a result of litigation, which in turn could severely hamper our business operations and financial condition as a result of lower or no royalty payments.

We have been party to, and may in the future be subject to, lawsuits relating to securities law matters which may result in unfavorable outcomes and significant judgments, settlements and legal expenses which could cause our business, financial condition and results of operations to suffer.

We and certain of our current and former officers and directors, as well as our current auditors, were subject from 2006 to 2011 to several stockholder derivative actions, securities fraud class actions and/or individual lawsuits filed in federal court against us and certain of our current and former officers and directors. The complaints generally alleged that the defendants violated the federal and state securities laws and stated state law claims for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. Although to date these complaints have either been settled or dismissed, the amount of time to resolve any future lawsuits is uncertain, and these matters could require significant management and financial resources. Unfavorable outcomes and significant judgments, settlements and legal expenses in litigation related to any future securities law claims could have material adverse impacts on our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and the trading price of our common stock.

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General Risks Factors

The price of our common stock may continue to fluctuate.

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

•any progress, or lack of progress, real or perceived, in the development of products that incorporate our innovations and technology companies’ acceptance of our products, including the results of our efforts to expand into new target markets;

•our signing or not signing new licenses or renewing existing licenses, and the loss of strategic relationships with any customer;

•announcements of technological innovations or new products by us, our customers or our competitors;

•changes in our strategies, including changes in our licensing focus and/or acquisitions or dispositions of companies or businesses with business models or target markets different from our core;

•positive or negative reports by securities analysts as to our expected financial results and business developments;

•developments with respect to patents or proprietary rights and other events or factors;

•new litigation and the unpredictability of litigation results or settlements;

•repurchases of our common stock on the open market;

•issuance of additional securities by us, including in acquisitions, or large cash payments, including in acquisitions; and

•changes in accounting pronouncements, including the effects of ASC 606 and ASC 842.

In addition, the stock market in general, and prices for companies in our industry in particular, have experienced extreme volatility that often has been unrelated to the operating performance of such companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations may adversely affect the price of our common stock, regardless of our operating performance.

We have outstanding senior convertible notes in an aggregate principal amount totaling $172.5 million. Because these notes are convertible into shares of our common stock, volatility or depressed prices of our common stock could have a similar effect on the trading price of such notes. In addition, the existence of these notes may encourage short selling in our common stock by market participants because the conversion of the notes could depress the price of our common stock.

Compliance with changing regulation of corporate governance and public disclosure may result in additional expenses.

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

Our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, Delaware law, our outstanding convertible notes and certain other agreements contain provisions that could discourage transactions resulting in a change in control, which may negatively affect the market price of our common stock.

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

•our board of directors is authorized, without prior stockholder approval, to create and issue preferred stock, commonly referred to as “blank check” preferred stock, with rights senior to those of common stock, which means that a stockholder rights plan could be implemented by our board;

•our board of directors is staggered into two classes, only one of which is elected at each annual meeting;

•stockholder action by written consent is prohibited;

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

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•certain provisions in our bylaws and certificate of incorporation such as notice to stockholders, the ability to call a stockholder meeting, advance notice requirements and action of stockholders by written consent may only be amended with the approval of stockholders holding 66 2/3% of our outstanding voting stock;

•our stockholders have no authority to call special meetings of stockholders; and

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

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

Certain provisions of our outstanding Notes could make it more difficult or more expensive for a third party to acquire us. Upon the occurrence of certain transactions constituting a fundamental change, holders of such Notes will have the right, at their option, to require us to repurchase, at a cash repurchase price equal to 100% of the principal amount plus accrued and unpaid interest on such Notes, all or a portion of their Notes. We may also be required to increase the conversion rate of such Notes in the event of certain fundamental changes.

Unanticipated changes in our tax rates or in the tax laws and regulations could expose us to additional income tax liabilities which could affect our operating results and financial condition.

We are subject to income taxes in both the United States and various foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our worldwide provision for income taxes and, in the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations where the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. Our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings in countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in tax laws and regulations as well as other factors. Our tax determinations are regularly subject to audit by tax authorities and developments in those audits could adversely affect our income tax provision, and we are currently undergoing such audits of certain of our tax returns. Although we believe that our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits or tax disputes may be different from what is reflected in our historical income tax provisions which could affect our operating results.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Item 2. Properties

As of December 31, 2020, we occupied offices in the leased facilities described below:

Number ofOfficesUnder Lease Location Primary Use

4 United States

Chapel Hill, NC Research and development

Beaverton, OR Research and development

Agoura Hills, CA Research and development

1 Seoul, Korea Business development

1 Rotterdam, The Netherlands Research and development

1 Vught, The Netherlands Research and development

1 Toronto, Canada Research and development

1 Espoo, Finland Research and development

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

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

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Not applicable.

PART II

Our Common Stock is listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “RMBS.” The following table sets forth for the periods indicated the high and low sales price per share of our common stock as reported on The NASDAQ Global Select Market.

Year Ended Year Ended

High Low High Low

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The graph below compares the cumulative 5-year total return of holders of Rambus Inc.’s common stock with the cumulative total returns of the NASDAQ Composite index and the RDG Semiconductor Composite index. The graph tracks the performance of a $100 investment in our common stock and in each index (with the reinvestment of all dividends) from December 31, 2015 to December 31, 2020.

Fiscal years ending:

The stock price performance included in this graph is not necessarily indicative offuture stock price performance.

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

As of January 29, 2021, there were 480 holders of record of our common stock. Since many of the shares of our common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of beneficial stockholders represented by these record holders.

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

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Share Repurchase Program

On October 29, 2020, our Board approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the repurchase of up to an aggregate of 20.0 million shares (the “2020 Repurchase Program”). Share repurchases under the 2020 Repurchase Program may be made through the open market, established plans or privately negotiated transactions in accordance with all applicable securities laws, rules, and regulations. There is no expiration date applicable to the 2020 Repurchase Program. The 2020 Repurchase Program replaced the previous program approved by the Board in January 2015 (the “2015 Repurchase Program) and canceled the remaining shares outstanding as part of the previous authorization. As part of the broader share repurchase program authorized by our Board on October 29, 2020, we entered into an accelerated share repurchase program with Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch as counterparty, through its agent Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (“Deutsche Bank”) on November 11, 2020 (the “2020 ASR Program”). After giving effect to the 2020 ASR Program, detailed in the table below, we had remaining authorization to repurchase approximately 17.4 million shares.

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

_________________________________________

(1) In November 2020, we entered into the 2020 ASR Program with Deutsche Bank to repurchase an aggregate of $50.0 million of our common stock. We made an upfront payment of $50.0 million pursuant to the accelerated share repurchase program and received an initial delivery of 2.6 million shares which were retired and recorded as a $40.0 million reduction to stockholders' equity. The remaining $10.0 million of the initial payment was recorded as a reduction to stockholders’ equity as an unsettled forward contract indexed to our stock. The number of shares to be ultimately purchased by us will be determined based on the volume-weighted-average price of the common stock during the terms of the transaction, minus an agreed upon discount between the parties. The program is expected to be completed within six months from the beginning of the program. See Note 15, “Stockholders' Equity,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K for further discussion.

(2) N/A—The average price paid per share will be determined at the end of the current accelerated share repurchase program.

Unregistered Sales of Equity Securities and Use of Proceeds

Recent Sales of Unregistered Equity Securities

None.

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

The following selected consolidated financial data as of and for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 was derived from our consolidated financial statements. The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data,” and other financial data included elsewhere in this report. Our historical results of operations are not necessarily indicative of results of operations to be expected for any future period.

Years Ended December 31,

Net income (loss) per share:

Consolidated Balance Sheet Data

______________________________________

(1) The net loss for the year ended December 31, 2019 included $7.4 million of impairment of assets held for sale related to the Company’s Payments and Ticketing businesses, which was included in operating costs and expenses. Refer to Note 17, “Divestiture,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K for further discussion.

(2) The net loss for the year ended December 31, 2018 included a $113.7 million impact of an increase in our deferred tax asset valuation allowance. The net loss for the year ended December 31, 2017 included a $21.5 million impact due to the recording of a deferred tax asset valuation allowance and $20.7 million related to re-measurement of deferred tax assets as a result of the tax law changes.

(3) Stockholders’ equity includes $50.0 million paid under the accelerated share repurchase programs initiated in November 2020, March 2018 and May 2017.

(4) Reflects the impact from the adoption of ASC 606 in 2018.

(5) The net income for the year ended December 31, 2016 included $18.3 million of impairment of in-process research and development (“IPR&D”) intangible asset and a reduction of operating expenses due to the change in our contingent consideration liability of $6.8 million.

This report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27Aof the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of1934 as described in more detail under “Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.” Our forward-lookingstatements are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions and aresubject to risks, uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value andeffect. As a result of the factors described herein, and in the documentsincorporated herein by reference, including, in particular, those factors describedunder “Risk Factors,” we undertake no obligation to publicly disclose any revisionsto these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurringsubsequent to filing this report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The following discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes that are included elsewhere in this report.

Executive Summary

Highlights from our annual results were as follows:

•Revenue of $242.7 million;

•Operating expenses of $228.8 million;

•GAAP diluted net loss per share of $0.39;

•Net cash provided by operating activities of $185.5 million

We had record annual product revenue of $114.0 million in 2020, which was primarily driven by our memory interface chips, and was up 56% as compared to 2019. In addition, our cash provided by operating activities for 2020 was up 44% as compared to 2019.

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Business Overview

Rambus produces products and innovations that address the fundamental challenges of accelerating data. We make industry-leading chips and IP that enable critical performance improvements for data center and other growing markets. The ongoing shift to the cloud, along with the widespread advancement of AI across the data center, 5G, automotive and IoT, has led to exponential growth in data usage and tremendous demands on data infrastructure. Creating fast and safe connections, both in and across systems, remains one of the most mission-critical design challenges limiting performance in advanced hardware for these markets.

Revenue Sources

Our patented inventions are offered to our customers through patent, technology, software and IP core licenses, as well as memory interface chips. Today, a significant source of revenue is derived from our Architecture Licenses, through which we provide our customers a license to use a certain portion of our broad worldwide portfolio of patented inventions. Our Architecture Licenses enable our customers to use the licensed portion of our portfolio of patented inventions in the customer’s own digital electronics products, systems or services. The licenses may also define the specific field of use where our customers may use or employ our inventions in their products. License agreements are structured with fixed or variable or a hybrid of fixed and variable royalty payments over certain defined periods ranging for periods of up to ten years. Leading semiconductor and electronic system companies such as AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, Fujitsu, IBM, Marvell, Mediatek, Micron, Nanya, NVIDIA, Panasonic, Phison, Qualcomm, Renesas, Samsung, SK hynix, Socionext, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, Western Digital, Winbond, and Xilinx have licensed our patents. The vast majority of our patents were secured through our internal research and development efforts.

We also offer our customers technology licenses to support the implementation and adoption of our technology in their products or services. Our customers include leading companies such as IBM, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba. Our technology license offerings include a range of technologies for incorporation into our customers’ products and systems. We also offer a range of services as part of our technology licenses which can include know-how and technology transfer, product design and development, system integration, and other services. These technology license agreements may have both a fixed price (non-recurring) component and ongoing use fees and in some cases, royalties. Further, under technology licenses, our customers typically receive licenses to our patents necessary to implement these solutions in their products with specific rights and restrictions to the applicable patents elaborated in their individual contracts with us.

Revenues from royalties accounted for 33%, 41% and 56% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

The remainder of our revenue is product revenue, contract and other revenue, which includes our product sales, IP core licenses, software licenses and related implementation, support and maintenance fees, and engineering services fees. The timing and amounts invoiced to customers can vary significantly depending on specific contract terms and can therefore have a significant impact on deferred revenue or accounts receivable in any given period. Product revenue accounted for 47%, 33% and 17% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Contract and other revenue accounted for 20%, 27% and 27% of our consolidated revenue for the years ended December 31, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

Costs and Expenses

Cost of product revenue for 2020 increased approximately $10.5 million to $37.7 million from $27.2 million as compared to 2019 primarily due to increased cost of sales associated with our memory interface chips.

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Cost of contract and other revenue for 2020 decreased approximately $4.3 million to $5.6 million from $9.9 million as compared to 2019 primarily due to incurring lower costs as a result of the divestiture of our former Payments and Ticketing businesses in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Research and development expenses continue to play a key role in our efforts to maintain product innovations. Our research and development expenses for 2020 decreased $17.0 million as compared to 2019 primarily due to decreased headcount-related expenses of $11.8 million (which includes the reduction in headcount due to the divestiture of the Payments and Ticketing businesses in 2019), consulting costs of $5.2 million, travel costs of $1.9 million and stock-based compensation expense of $1.0 million, offset by increased retention bonus expense related to acquisitions of $2.0 million and prototyping costs of $0.9 million.

Sales, general and administrative expenses for 2020 decreased $15.8 million as compared to 2019 primarily due to decreased headcount-related expenses of $5.4 million, acquisition and divestiture-related costs of $4.1 million, travel costs of $3.4 million, consulting costs of $2.7 million and depreciation expense of $1.2 million, offset by increased bonus accrual expense of $0.5 million and stock-based compensation expense of $0.3 million.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In December 2019, the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) was reported in China, in January 2020 the World Health Organization (“WHO”) declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, and in March 2020 the WHO declared it a pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant global economic uncertainty and may adversely impact the business of our customers, partners and vendors. The extent of the impact of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) on our operational and financial performance will depend on certain developments, including the duration and spread of the outbreak, impact on our customers and our sales cycles, and impact on our partners or employees, all of which are uncertain and cannot be predicted. At this point, the extent to which the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) may impact our financial condition or results of operations remains uncertain. Actual results could differ from any estimates and any such differences could be material to our financial statements. Furthermore, the effect of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) may not be fully reflected in our results of operations until future periods, if at all.

Trends

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

We have a high degree of revenue concentration. Our top five customers for each reporting period represented approximately 46% of our revenue for 2020 as compared to 46% in 2019 and 49% in 2018. The particular customers which account for revenue concentration have varied from period-to-period as a result of the addition of new contracts, expiration of existing contracts, renewals of existing contracts, industry consolidation, and the volumes and prices at which the customers have recently sold to their customers. These variations are expected to continue in the foreseeable future.

Our revenue from companies headquartered outside of the United States accounted for approximately 43% in 2020 as compared to 40% in 2019 and 44% in 2018. We expect that revenue derived from international customers will continue to represent a significant portion of our total revenue in the future. Currently, our revenue from international customers is denominated in U.S. dollars. For additional information concerning international revenue, refer to Note 7, “Segments and Major Customers,” of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements of this Form 10-K.

The royalties we receive from our semiconductor customers are partly a function of the adoption of our technologies by system companies. Many system companies purchase semiconductors containing our technologies from our customers and do not have a direct contractual relationship with us. Our customers generally do not provide us with details as to the identity or volume of licensed semiconductors purchased by particular system companies. As a result, we face difficulty in analyzing the extent to which our future revenue will be dependent upon particular system companies.

As a part of our overall business strategy, from time to time, we evaluate businesses and technologies for potential acquisition that are aligned with our core business and designed to supplement our growth, including the 2019 acquisitions of Northwest Logic and the Secure Silicon IP and Protocols business from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure. Similarly, we evaluate our current businesses and technologies that are not aligned with our core business for potential divestiture, such as the sale of our Payments and Ticketing businesses to Visa International Service Association in 2019. We expect to continue to evaluate and potentially enter into strategic acquisitions or divestitures which may adversely impact our business and operating results.

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Results of Operations

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

Years Ended December 31,

Revenue:

Contract and other revenue 19.7 % 26.9 % 26.9 %

Cost of revenue:

Cost of product revenue 15.6 % 12.1 % 7.9 %

Cost of contract and other revenue 2.3 % 4.4 % 5.1 %

Amortization of acquired intangible assets 7.1 % 6.4 % 10.2 %

Operating expenses:

Sales, general and administrative 35.3 % 45.3 % 42.5 %

Amortization of acquired intangible assets 0.4 % 1.2 % 2.4 %

Restructuring and other charges 1.7 % 3.9 % 1.0 %

Loss on divestiture — % 3.3 % — %

Change in fair value of earn-out liability (0.7) % — % — %

Interest income and other income (expense), net 7.2 % 12.2 % 14.1 %

Interest expense (4.2) % (4.4) % (7.0) %

Interest and other income (expense), net 3.0 % 7.8 % 7.1 %

Loss before income taxes (16.3) % (38.8) % (30.5) %

Provision for income taxes 1.7 % 1.5 % 37.8 %

Total Revenue

Royalty revenue

Royalty revenue, which includes patent and technology license royalties, decreased approximately $9.8 million to $81.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 from $90.8 million for 2019. The decrease was due primarily to the timing of renewals and the related structure of architecture license agreements which include both fixed and variable components.

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Royalty revenue decreased approximately $39.7 million to $90.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2019 from $130.5 million for 2018. The decrease was due primarily to the timing of renewals and the related structure of architecture license agreements which include both fixed and variable components.

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

Product revenue

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

Product revenue increased approximately $41.0 million to $114.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 from $73.0 million for 2019. The increase was due to market share gains of our memory interface chips.

Product revenue increased approximately $34.3 million to $73.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2019 from $38.7 million for 2018. The increase was primarily due to greater market share gains of our memory interface chips.

We believe that product revenue will continue to increase in 2021 as compared to 2020, mainly from the sale of our memory interface chips. Our ability to continue to grow product revenue is dependent on, among other things, our ability to continue to obtain orders from customers and our ability to meet our customers’ demands.

Contract and other revenue

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

Contract and other revenue decreased approximately $12.5 million to $47.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 from $60.2 million for 2019. The decrease was primarily due to the divestiture of our former Payments and Ticketing businesses resulting in no corresponding revenue in 2020, offset by growth experienced in our Silicon IP offerings.

Contract and other revenue decreased approximately $1.8 million to $60.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2019 from $62.0 million for 2018. The decrease was primarily due to lower revenue associated with our Payments and Ticketing businesses, which were divested in the fourth quarter of 2019, offset by growth experienced in our Silicon IP offerings.

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

Cost of product revenue

Cost of product revenue are costs attributable to the sale of memory and security products. Cost of product revenue also included costs attributable to the sale of lighting products in 2018.

For the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to 2019, cost of product revenue increased 39.0% primarily due to increased cost of sales associated with higher sales of memory interface chips.

For the year ended December 31, 2019 as compared to 2018, cost of product revenue increased 48.4% primarily due to increased cost of sales associated with higher sales of memory products.

In the near term, we expect costs of product revenue to be higher as we expect higher sales of our various products in 2021 as compared to 2020.

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Cost of contract and other revenue

Cost of contract and other revenue $ 5.6 $ 9.9 $ 11.7 (43.0) % (15.4) %

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

For the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to 2019, cost of contract and other revenue decreased 43.0% primarily due to the divestiture of our Payments and Ticketing businesses in the fourth quarter of 2019.

For the year ended December 31, 2019 as compared to 2018, cost of contract and other revenue decreased 15.4% primarily due to lower revenue associated with our former Payments and Ticketing businesses, which were divested in the fourth quarter of 2019.

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

Research and development expenses

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

For the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to 2019, total research and development expenses decreased 10.8% primarily due to decreased headcount-related expenses of $11.8 million (which includes the reduction in headcount due to the divestiture of the Payments and Ticketing businesses in 2019), consulting costs of $5.2 million, travel costs of $1.9 million and stock-based compensation expense of $1.0 million, offset by increased retention bonus expense related to acquisitions of $2.0 million and prototyping costs of $0.9 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2019 as compared to 2018, total research and development expenses decreased 1.0% primarily due to decreased headcount-related expenses of $3.9 million, allocated information technology costs of $1.6 million and stock-based compensation expense of $1.5 million, offset by increased facilities costs of $2.1 million as discussed below, retention bonus accrual related to acquisitions of $2.0 million and engineering development tool costs of $1.2 million.

On January 1, 2019, we adopted the New Leasing Standard using the alternative transition method. In accordance with the New Leasing Standard, we were required to derecognize our previous Sunnyvale and Ohio facilities as imputed facility obligations (as accounted for under the previous leasing guidance) and recognize these facilities as operating leases. This change resulted in no longer recognizing interest expense associated with these imputed facility lease obligations, but instead, recognizing lease expense that was included in operating costs and expenses.

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

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Sales, general and administrative costs

Sales, general and administrative costs $ 69.9 $ 86.0 $ 89.1 (18.7) % (3.6) %

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

For the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to 2019, total sales, general and administrative costs decreased 15.5% primarily due to decreased headcount-related expenses of $5.4 million, acquisition and divestiture-related costs of $4.1 million, travel costs of $3.4 million, consulting costs of $2.7 million and depreciation expense of $1.2 million, offset by increased bonus accrual expense of $0.5 million and stock-based compensation expense of $0.3 million.

For the year ended December 31, 2019 as compared to 2018, total sales, general and administrative costs increased 3.2% primarily due to increased stock-based compensation expense of $6.3 million primarily due to the termination of the former chief executive officer at the end of June 2018, acquisition and divestiture related costs of $5.2 million and facilities costs of $2.6 million (primarily due to the adoption of the New Leasing Standard beginning in 2019 as discussed above), offset by decreased headcount related expenses of $3.8 million, depreciation expense of $1.8 million, sales and marketing costs of $1.2 million, travel expenses of $1.2 million, consulting costs of $1.0 million, bonus accrual expense of $1.0 million and recruiting costs of $0.6 million.

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

Amortization of acquired intangible assets

Amortization expense is related to various acquired IP.

For the year ended December 31, 2020 as compared to 2019, total amortization of acquired intangible assets increased 7.9% primarily due to additional amortization from intangible assets acquired as part of the acquisitions from the second half of 2019, partially offset by certain other intangible assets being fully amortized.

For the year ended December 31, 2019 as compared to 2018, total amortization of acquired intangible assets decreased 41.9% primarily due to certain intangible assets being fully amortized.

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RMBS US Equity

RMBS · 10-K · period ended 2020-12-31

Item 1. Business

Item 1A. Risk Factors

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

Item 2. Properties

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

RMBS US Equity☆

RMBS · 10-K · period ended 2020-12-31

Item 1. Business

Item 1A. Risk Factors

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

Item 2. Properties

Item 3. Legal Proceedings

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures

Item 6. Selected Financial Data

RMBS US Equity