Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
Overview
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation and its subsidiaries (“Lattice,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) develop technologies that we monetize through differentiated programmable logic semiconductor products, system solutions, design services, and licenses. Lattice is the low power programmable leader. We solve customer problems across the network, from the Edge to the Cloud, in the Communications, Computing, Industrial, Automotive, and Consumer markets. Our technology, long-standing relationships, and commitment to world-class support enable our customers to create a smart, secure, and connected world.
Our field programmable gate array ("FPGA") devices enable us to provide our customers with a strong, growing base of control, connect, and compute technologies. We believe there are multiple growth areas that will allow us to increase our addressable market. In particular, we believe there are several emerging trends in servers, infrastructure, and smart devices that are opportunities for Lattice:
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With the growth of hyperscale data centers, our “processor agnostic” solutions are ideal for dataplane control and connect functions in enterprise and data center server applications.
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With the expected continued Communications infrastructure build-out from 5G deployment and beyond, as well as continued data center network expansion, Lattice solutions are being adopted to control and connect a variety of functions in critical systems.
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With the increase in electrification and the proliferation of sensors in smart factories, smart homes, and automobiles, our low power, small form factor solutions are ideal for everything from battery powered systems and sensor applications to embedded vision.
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With the increase in artificial intelligence ("AI") and a multitude of applications at the network edge, Lattice devices support applications like face detection, image recognition, and video analytics.
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With the demand for more hardware security in the Communications, Computing, Industrial, Automotive, and Consumer markets, our devices provide enhanced platform security.
To serve these needs, customer solutions require power efficiency, memory bandwidth, processing power, and the ability to integrate complex functionality into a highly compact footprint. These requirements align with the capabilities of our FPGA devices. Our flexible, low power, small form factor, performance optimized FPGAs put us in a unique position to meet these growing market needs.
Our Markets and Customers
We sell our products globally in three end market groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. We also provide Intellectual Property ("IP") licensing and services to these end markets.
In the Communications and Computing Market , our solutions play key roles in computing systems such as servers and client devices, 5G wireless infrastructure, switches, routers, and other related applications.
Our Communications and Computing customers need to address a variety of challenges.
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As client compute devices become smaller and smarter, there is a need for small form factor devices with power efficiency to interface with a variety of sensors and add intelligence.
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As server architectures become increasingly complex, customers need simplified control logic, enhanced hardware platform security, system status monitoring, and rigorous power and thermal management.
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Networks typically require progressively higher bandwidth and increased reliability as more data is demanded by connected devices.
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As wireless cellular sites become more compact, there is a growing requirement for smaller form factors optimized for low power consumption and thermal management.
Lattice FPGAs help solve these customer problems. Our FPGAs are optimized for input/output ("I/O") expansion, hardware acceleration, and hardware management. Our FPGAs consume power at very low rates, which reduces operating costs. Their small form factor enables higher functional density in less space. Finally, our FPGAs are I/O rich, which allows for more connections with system application specific integrated circuits ("ASICs") and application specific standard products ("ASSPs").
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Examples of where our products enable intelligent automation in the Industrial and Automotive Market include industrial Internet of Things ("IoT") and "Industry 4.0", machine vision, robotics, factory automation, advanced driver assistance systems ("ADAS"), and automotive infotainment.
Our Industrial and Automotive customers face numerous challenges:
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As factories automate to improve efficiency and employee safety, sensors, machine vision, and robotics are proliferating, in turn requiring increasing amounts of data to be gathered, connected, and processed.
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Automobiles and other forms of transportation are also becoming smarter and more connected. Drivers and passengers are demanding better in-cabin experiences including entertainment, diagnostics, and enhanced safety — often involving multiple displays, cameras, and sensors.
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As factories and automotive manufacturers continue their evolution of computerization, power reduction, faster time to design-in and market, lower costs are becoming increasingly normal.
Our product portfolio helps solve these challenges. Our small-sized, low-power FPGAs not only provide the I/O expansion, bridging, connectivity, and processing inherent in FPGAs, but they also form the backbone of several integrated solutions, including motor control, complete High Definition ("HD") camera and DVR solutions on a single FPGA device, and Human-Machine Interfaces ("HMI") on a chip.
In the Consumer Market , you can find our solutions making products smarter and smaller, including smart home devices, prosumer devices, sound bars, high end projectors, Augmented Reality ("AR") / Virtual Reality ("VR"), and wearables.
Our Consumer customers are driven by the need to deliver richer and more responsive experiences. They typically require:
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More intelligence and computing power. Products need to be "always-on" and "always-aware."
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Longer battery lives for handheld devices and reduced energy consumption for plugged-in devices.
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Real-time transmission of higher resolution video content on larger screen sizes.
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Fast design cycles. Products must be quickly and easily differentiated.
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Smaller form factors. Products need to lay flatter on the wall or fit more easily into pockets.
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Various levels of video processing and analytics.
Lattice FPGAs bring multiple benefits to these customers. An FPGA’s parallel architecture enables faster processing than competing devices, such as microcontrollers, allowing for a user experience with shorter pauses and fewer delays. Our FPGAs are among the most power efficient in the industry, enabling the application processor and other high-power components to remain dormant longer, resulting in longer battery life. Finally, with some of the industry’s smallest packages, we enable thinner and more compact end products.
Our proprietary solutions help our customers get their products to market faster than typical development cycles of custom ASICs. With re-programmability and flexibility, our FPGAs inherently allow our customers to have quicker product development. The time-to-market advantages of Lattice's solutions are critical given the shorter product life cycles in our customers’ end markets.
Our Products, Services, and Competition
We are focused on delivering FPGAs and related solutions to help solve our customers' problems. We also serve our customers with IP licensing and various other services.
Field Programmable Gate Arrays (“FPGAs”)
FPGAs are regular arrays of logic that can be custom-configured by the user through software. This programmability allows our customers flexibility and reduced time to market while allowing us to offer the chips to many different customers in many different markets. Lattice FPGA product families include:
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The Lattice Avant™, Certus™ and LatticeECP™ device families are our “General Purpose FPGAs” and address a broad range of applications across multiple markets. They offer customers the optimal cost per gate, Digital Signal Processing ("DSP") capability, and Serialize-Deserialize ("SERDES") connectivity. ECP devices are optimized for the Communications and Computing market but also find significant use in the Industrial, Automotive, and Consumer markets. The latest introductions in our general purpose family, Lattice Avant-G™ and Lattice Avant-X™ FPGAs, are designed to solve key customer challenges by combining class-leading power efficiency, size and performance with an optimized feature set tailored to the needs of mid-range FPGA applications like sensor fusion, datapath networking, and AI.
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The Lattice Mach™ device family are our “Control & Security FPGAs” and are designed for platform management and security applications. They are control-oriented and offer optimized cost per I/O and cost per look-up table. Mach™ FPGAs are widely used across our three end market groups: Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer. The Lattice MachXO5T™-NX family, the latest devices built on the award-winning Lattice Nexus™ platform are the newest addition to the Mach™ FPGA family, bringing Lattice’s long-standing leadership in control FPGAs to a broader set of control function designs and applications for enterprise networking, machine vision, and industrial IoT.
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The Lattice iCE™ device family are our “Ultra Low Power FPGAs.” Their small size and ultra-low power make them the optimal products for each of our core segments where small form factor and customizing is required. The latest member of the family, the iCE40 UltraPlus™ device, is focused on IoT Edge devices with its AI capabilities, low power, and small form factor.
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The Lattice CrossLink™ device family are our "Video Connectivity FPGAs" and are optimized for high-speed video and sensor applications for the Industrial, Automotive, Communications, Computing, and Consumer markets. CrossLink combines the power and speed benefits of hardened video camera and display bridging cores with the flexibility of FPGA fabric and Lattice CrossLinkPlus™ devices provide users with instant-on capabilities for video display. Lattice CrossLink-NX™ FPGAs, built on the Lattice Nexus platform, provide the lowest power in the smallest packages in their class, higher performance, and high reliability. The latest device family – Lattice CrossLinkU-NX – are the industry’s first FPGAs with integrated USB device functionality in their class, designed to meet growing customer needs to simplify USB-based design for applications across the Computing, Industrial, Automotive, and Consumer markets.
To enable our customers to get to market faster we support our FPGAs with IP cores, reference designs, development kits, and design software. We are investing in our design software, such as Lattice Radiant™, to deliver best-in-class tools that enable predictable design convergence, and Lattice Propel™ for unparalleled ease in creating embedded processor-based designs. We have developed integrated system-level solution stacks, including Lattice Automate™ for industrial automation and robotics, Lattice mVision™ for low power embedded vision, Lattice ORAN™ for robust control data security, flexible fronthaul synchronization, and low power hardware acceleration for secure, adaptable, Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) deployment, Lattice sensAI™ for Edge AI applications, Lattice Sentry™ for implementing hardware security, and our newest solution stack - Lattice Drive™ for advanced, flexible automotive system designs and applications. Further, we have application software such as Glance by Mirametrix™ that allows users to control the AI and computer vision experience of their end systems for Client computing, industrial, and automotive applications.
Depending on the application, we may compete with other FPGA vendors, as well as producers of ASICs, ASSPs, and microcontrollers. We believe that Lattice has developed products and solutions with differentiated advantages.
Legacy Semiconductor Products
We also sell Video Connectivity ASSPs, although we are not developing new products in this area and their support requirements are minimal.
IP Licensing and Services
Lattice has a broad set of technological capabilities and many U.S. and international patents. We generate revenue from our technology portfolio via upfront fees and on-going royalty payments through the following activities:
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Standard IP Licensing - these activities include our participation in two consortia for the licensing of High-Definition Multimedia Interface™ ("HDMI") and Mobile High-Definition Link™ ("MHL") standard technologies to customers who adopt the technology into their products and voluntarily report their usage and royalties. The royalties are split among consortium members, including us.
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IP Core Licensing - some customers need Lattice’s technology for specific functions or features, but for various reasons are not able to use our silicon solutions. In those cases, we may license our IP cores, which they can integrate into their own ASICs. In contrast to the use of consortia, these licensing activities are generally performed internally.
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Patent Monetization - we consider sales of certain patents from our portfolio generally for technology that we are no longer actively developing. The revenue from these sales generally consists of upfront payments and potential future royalties.
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IP Services - we undergo projects and design services for customers who wish to develop specific solutions that harness our proven technology and expertise.
Research and Development
We place a substantial emphasis on new product development, where return on investment is the key driver. We believe that continued investment in research and development is required to maintain and improve our competitive position. Our research and development activities are focused on new proprietary products, advanced packaging, existing product enhancements, software development tools, soft IP cores, and application focused hardware and software solutions. These research and development activities occur primarily at our sites in Hillsboro, Oregon; San Jose, California; Montreal, Canada; Shanghai, China; Muntinlupa City, Philippines; and Penang, Malaysia.
We believe that a continued commitment to research and development is essential to maintaining product leadership and providing a strong cadence of innovative new product offerings and, therefore, we expect to continue to make significant future investments in research and development.
Operations
We operate primarily as a fabless semiconductor provider and, therefore, we maintain strategic relationships with large, established semiconductor foundries to source our finished silicon wafers and manufacture our silicon products. This strategy allows us to focus our internal resources on product and market development and eliminate the fixed cost of owning and operating manufacturing facilities. We are able to take advantage of the ongoing advanced process technology development efforts of semiconductor foundries and apply those technologies when they become most economically beneficial to us and to our customers.
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We rely on third party vendors to provide cost-effective and efficient supply chain services. Among other activities, these outsourced services relate to inventory management and warehousing, lead time management, order fulfillment, and the shipment of inventory to third party distributors.
Wafer Fabrication
Lattice partners with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ("TSMC") to develop and manufacture on 16nm technology, which is used in our Avant platform of FPGA products, and to manufacture our 350nm, 130nm, 55nm and 40nm products. We partner with Samsung Semiconductor ("Samsung") to develop and manufacture the first low-power FPGA on 28nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator ("FD-SOI") technology, which is used in our Nexus platform of FPGA products. We partner with United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC") and its subsidiary United Semiconductor Japan Corporation ("USJC") to manufacture our products on its 130nm, 90nm, 65nm, and 40nm CMOS process technologies, as well as embedded flash memory in these process nodes. We partner with Seiko Epson ("Epson") to manufacture our 500nm, 350nm, 250nm and 180nm products.
We source silicon wafers from our foundry partners, TSMC, Samsung, UMC, USJC, and Epson, pursuant to agreements with each company and their respective affiliates. We negotiate wafer volumes, prices, and other terms with our foundry partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.
Assembly
All of our assembly and test operations are performed by industry-leading outsourced assembly and test suppliers ("OSATs") with our primary supplier being Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. ("ASE"). We perform certain test operations as well as reliability and quality assurance processes internally during the development process. We have achieved and maintained ISO9001:2015 Quality Management Systems Certification and released a line of products qualified to the AEC-Q100 Reliability Standard in support of Automotive product offerings in addition to ISO26262 certification on both Automotive products and software.
After wafer fabrication and initial testing, we ship wafers to independent subcontractors for assembly. During assembly, wafers are separated into individual die and encapsulated in plastic packages. We have qualified two major assembly partners, ASE and Amkor Technology ("Amkor") and are second sourced where volume and customer requirements are necessary. All ASE and Amkor manufacturing of our products is in Asia. We negotiate assembly prices, volumes, and other terms with our assembly partners and their respective affiliates on a periodic basis.
We currently offer an extensive list of standard products in lead (Pb) free packaging. Our lead-free products meet the European Parliament Directive entitled "Restrictions on the use of Hazardous Substances" ("RoHS"). A select and growing subset of our RoHS compliant products are also offered with a "Halogen Free" material set.
Testing (Sort and Final Test)
We electrically sort test the die on most wafers prior to shipment for assembly. Wafer sort testing is primarily performed by ASE in Taiwan and Malaysia, Amkor in Japan, and our second source, King Yuan Electronics Co. (“KYEC”) in Taiwan.
Following assembly, but prior to customer shipment, each product undergoes final testing and quality assurance procedures. Final testing is performed by ASE and Amkor.
Sales and Revenue
We generate revenue by monetizing our technology designs and patents through product and technology sales. This involves distribution channel and direct sales of silicon-based hardware and silicon-enabling products, as well as the licensing or sale of IP that we have developed or acquired, some of which we use in our products, and certain design services that we may provide.
Sales and Customers
We primarily sell our products to customers from Lattice Semiconductor Corporation or our wholly-owned subsidiary, Lattice SG Pte. Lt d. Independent distributors are significant customers, and a substantial portion of our sales are made into this channel. Additionally, we sell both directly and through a network of independent manufacturers' representatives. We also employ a direct sales management and field applications engineering organization to support our end customers and indirect sales resources. End customers for our products are primarily Original Equipment Manufacturers ("OEMs") in the Communications and Computing, Industrial and Automotive, and Consumer end markets. Our sales team attempts to drive multi-generational design wins within these OEMs and leverages our distribution partners to grow our broad customer base.
We provide global technical support to our end customers with engineering staff based at our headquarters, product development centers, and selected field sales offices. We maintain numerous domestic and international field sales offices in major metropolitan areas.
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In fiscal years 2023, 2022, and 2021, sales to distributors accounted for approximately 87%, 89%, and 87%, respectively, of our net revenue. We depend on our distributors to sell our products to end customers, complete order fulfillment, and maintain sufficient inventory of our products. Our distributors also provide technical support and other value-added services to our end customers. We have multiple global distributors. We also have regional distribution in Asia, Japan, Europe, and Israel, and we sell through three major on-line distributors. Revenue from foreign sales as a percentage of total revenue was 82%, 86%, and 88% for fiscal 2023, 2022, and 2021, respectively. We assign revenue to geographies based on ship-to location of our customers. Both foreign and domestic sales are denominated in U.S. dollars.
Backlog
Our backlog consists of orders from distributors and certain OEMs that generally require delivery within the next year. Historically, our backlog has not been a predictor of future sales or customer demand for the following reasons:
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Purchase orders, consistent with common industry practices, generally can be revised or canceled up to 60 days before the scheduled delivery date without significant penalty.
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A portion of our revenue comes from our "turns business," where the product is ordered and delivered within the same quarter.
Seasonality
We periodically experience variability in our sales volumes and financial results due to seasonal trends in the end markets we serve, the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry, and general economic conditions.
IP, Patents, and Licensing
We seek to protect our products, technologies, and IP primarily through patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademark registrations, licensing restrictions, confidentiality agreements, and other approaches designed to protect proprietary information. We hold numerous United States and international patents and have patent applications pending in the United States and internationally. In addition to protecting innovations designed into our products, our ownership and maintenance of patents is an important factor in the determination of our share of the royalties from the implementation of the HDMI standard. Our current patents will expire at various times over the next 20 years, subject to our payment of periodic maintenance fees. We believe that our patents have value, and we expect to file future patent applications in both the United States and abroad on significant inventions, as we deem appropriate. We have acquired various licenses from third parties to certain technologies that are implemented in IP cores or embedded in our products. These licenses support our continuing ability to make and sell these products to our customers. While our various IP rights are important to our success, we believe our business as a whole is not materially dependent on any particular patent or license, or any particular group of patents or licenses.
Human Capital Management
We provide a safe and positive work environment that emphasizes respect for individuals, ethical conduct, and learning and development that is facilitated by a direct employee engagement model. The health and safety of our employees is of utmost importance to us. We undertake appropriate actions to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and our business. Recognizing and respecting our global presence, we strive to maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce everywhere we operate. As of December 30, 2023, we had 1,156 employees worldwide.
We believe our employees are the foundation of our success and that our future growth depends, in part, on our ability to continue to attract and retain key executive, technical, sales, and management personnel. Due to our growth and cadence of new product introductions we are particularly focused on highly skilled engineers involved in the design, development, and support of new and existing products and processes. In order for us to attract the best talent, we provide a collaborative, diverse, inclusive, and innovative work environment, competitive compensation, and recognition to give our employees the opportunity to grow. We are focused on developing diverse teams and continuing to build an inclusive culture that inspires leadership, encourages innovative thinking, and supports the development and advancement of all.
Our human capital management objectives include identifying, recruiting, incentivizing, and integrating our existing and future employees. We strive to attract and retain talented employees by offering competitive compensation and benefits that support their health, financial, and emotional well-being. Our compensation philosophy is based on rewarding each employee’s individual and team contributions and striving to achieve equal pay for equal work. We use a combination of fixed and variable pay including base salary, bonuses, performance awards, and stock-based compensation. The principal purposes of our equity incentive plans are to attract, retain, and motivate employees through the granting of stock-based compensation awards. We offer employees benefits that vary by country and are designed to address local laws and cultures and to be competitive in the marketplace.
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Corporate Information and Public Information Availability
Our corporate headquarters are located at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, and our website is www.latticesemi.com . Information contained or referenced on our website is not incorporated by reference into, and does not form a part of, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol LSCC.
We make available, free of charge through the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.latticesemi.com , our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements and amendments to those reports and statements as soon as reasonably practicable after such materials are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC. You may also obtain free copies of these materials by contacting our Investor Relations Department at 5555 NE Moore Court, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124, telephone (503) 268-8000. Our SEC filings are also available at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov .
Our Investor Relations website also provides notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance and other items that may be material or of interest to our investors and for complying with our disclosure obligations under Regulation FD, including SEC filings, press releases, earnings releases, and webcasts of our earnings calls. Further, corporate governance information, including our corporate governance policies, director code of ethics, code of conduct, board committee charters, conflict minerals report and conflict minerals policy, is also available on the investor relations section of our website.
The content on any website referred to in this filing is not incorporated by reference into this filing unless expressly noted otherwise.
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