Everspin Technologies (MRAM) Risk Analysis

To compete effectively in our markets, we must continually design, develop, and introduce new and improved technology and products with improved features in a cost-effective manner in response to changing technologies and market demand. This requires us to devote substantial financial and other resources to research and development. We are developing new technology and products, which we expect to be one of the drivers of our revenue growth in the future. We also face the risk that customers may not elect to incorporate our new and enhanced products into their products. For example, if we are unable to generate more customer adoption of our 1Gb MRAM product and address new growth opportunities with subsequent STT-MRAM products, we may not be able to materially increase our revenue. If we are unable to successfully develop and market our new and enhanced products that we have incurred significant expenses developing, our results of operations and financial condition will be materially and adversely affected. We sell to customers, including OEMs and ODMs, that incorporate MRAM into their products. A design win occurs after a customer has tested our product, verified that it meets the customer's requirements and qualified our solutions for their products. The adoption of our 256Mb and 1Gb MRAM products by our customers is critical for us to secure design wins. Our customers may need several months to years to test, evaluate, and adopt our product and additional time to begin volume production of the product that incorporates our solution. Due to this generally lengthy design cycle, we may experience significant delays from the time we increase our operating expenses and make investments in our products to the time that we generate revenue from sales of these products. Moreover, even if a customer selects our solution, we cannot guarantee that this will result in any sales of our products, as the customer may ultimately change or cancel its product plans, or efforts by our customer to market and sell its product may not be successful. We may not generate any revenue from design wins after incurring the associated costs, which would cause our business and operating results to suffer. The markets in which we operate and may operate in the future are extremely competitive and are characterized by rapid technological change, continuous evolving customer requirements and declining average selling prices. Some of our current and potential customers with their own internally developed solutions may choose not to purchase products from third-party suppliers like us. If a current or prospective customer incorporates a competitor's solution into its product, it becomes significantly more difficult for us to sell our solutions to that customer because changing suppliers involves significant time, cost, effort, and risk for the customer even if our solutions are superior to other solutions and remain compatible with their product design. Our ability to compete successfully depends on customers viewing us as a stable and reliable supplier to mission-critical customer applications when we have less production capacity and less financial resources compared to most of our larger competitors. If current or prospective customers do not include our solutions in their products and we fail to achieve a sufficient number of design wins, our results of operations and business may be harmed.

Our success and ability to compete depend in part upon our ability to protect our intellectual property. We rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, mask work protection, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets and know-how, in the United States and other jurisdictions. The steps we take to protect our intellectual property rights may not be adequate, particularly in foreign jurisdictions such as China. Any patents we hold may not adequately protect our intellectual property rights or our products against competitors, and third parties may challenge the scope, validity, or enforceability of our issued patents, which third parties may have significantly more financial resources with which to litigate their claims than we have to defend against them. In addition, other parties may independently develop similar or competing technologies designed around any patents or patent applications that we hold. Some of our products and technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application, as we do not believe patent protection of these products and technologies is critical to our business strategy at this time. A failure to timely seek patent protection on products or technologies generally precludes us from seeking future patent protection on these products or technologies. In addition to patents, we also rely on contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees, and consultants, and we implement security measures designed to protect our trade secrets and know-how. However, we cannot ensure that these contractual protections and security measures will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any such breach or that our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees, or consultants will not assert rights to intellectual property or damages arising out of such contracts. We may initiate claims against third parties to protect our intellectual property rights if we are unable to resolve matters satisfactorily through negotiation. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming, and distracting to management. It could also result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property, as an adverse decision could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property rights, limit the value of our technology or otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition, and results of operations. Additionally, any enforcement of our patents or other intellectual property may provoke third parties to assert counterclaims against us. Our failure to secure, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could materially harm our business.

We rely on the efficient, uninterrupted and uncompromised operation of complex information technology systems and networks (and those of third parties) to operate our business. Any significant disruption to or other compromise of our systems, networks or data (or those of third parties upon whom we rely), including, but not limited to, due to new system implementations, computer viruses, social-engineering attacks, personnel (including former personnel)misconduct or error, supply-chain attacks, ransomware attacks, software bugs, software or hardware failure, security breaches, facility issues, natural disasters, terrorism, war, telecommunication failures, energy blackouts, loss, theft or similar threats, could have a material adverse impact on our operations, sales, and financial results. Such disruption or other compromise could result in a loss of our intellectual property or the release of sensitive competitive information or supplier, customer, personnel or other relevant stakeholder's personal data. Additionally, future or past business transactions (such as acquisitions or integrations) could expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, as our systems could be negatively affected by vulnerabilities present in acquired or integrated entities' systems and technologies. Furthermore, we may discover security issues that were not found during due diligence of such acquired or integrated entities, and it may be difficult to integrate companies into our information technology environment and security program. Any loss of such information could harm our competitive position, result in a loss of customer confidence, result in breaches of applicable obligations (such as laws and contracts) and cause us to incur significant costs to remedy the damages caused by any such disruptions or security breaches. Additionally, any failure to manage the collection, handling, transfer, or disposal of personal data of employees and customers may result in regulatory penalties, bans on processing personal data or orders not to use or destroy data, enforcement actions, remediation obligations, litigation, fines, and other actions. We may experience attacks on our data and/or information systems, attempts to breach our security and attempts to introduce malicious software into our IT systems. Such threats are prevalent and continue to rise, are increasingly difficult to detect, and come from a variety of sources, including traditional computer "hackers," threat actors and "hacktivists," organized criminal threat actors, personnel (such as through theft or misuse), sophisticated nation states, and nation-state-supported actors. During times of war and other major conflicts, we and the third parties upon which we rely may be vulnerable to a heightened risk of these attacks. If attacks are successful, we may be unaware of the incident, its magnitude, or its effects until significant harm is done. Any such attack or disruption could result in additional costs related to rebuilding of our internal systems, defending litigation, responding to regulatory actions, or paying damages. Such attacks or disruptions could have a material adverse impact on our business, operations, and financial results. Attempts to gain unauthorized access to our IT systems or other attacks have in the past, in certain instances and to certain degrees, been successful (but have not caused significant harm), and may in the future be successful, and in some cases, we might be unaware of an incident or its magnitude and effects. Third-party service providers, such as wafer foundries, assembly and test contractors, distributors and other vendors have access to certain portions of our and our customers' sensitive data. Our ability to monitor these third parties' information security practices is limited, and these third parties may not have adequate information security measures in place. In the event that these service providers do not adequately safeguard the data that they hold, security breaches and loss of data could result. Any such loss of data by our third-party service providers could negatively impact our business, operations, and financial results, as well as our relationship with our customers. In particular, severe ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly prevalent and can lead to significant interruptions in our operations, ability to provide our products or services, loss of sensitive data and income, reputational harm, and diversion of funds. Extortion payments may alleviate the negative impact of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments due to, for example, applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments. While we have implemented security measures designed to protect against security incidents, there can be no assurance that these measures will be effective. We take steps designed to detect, mitigate, and remediate vulnerabilities in our information systems (such as our hardware and/or software, including that of third parties upon which we rely). We may not, however, detect and remediate all such vulnerabilities including on a timely and effective basis. Further, we may experience delays in developing and deploying remedial measures and patches designed to address identified vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities could be exploited and result in a security incident. We may expend significant resources or modify our business activities to try to protect against security incidents. Additionally, certain data privacy and security obligations may require us to implement and maintain specific security measures or industry-standard or reasonable security measures to protect our information technology systems and sensitive data.

Although we operate an integrated magnetic fabrication line located in Chandler, Arizona, we purchase wafers from third parties and outsource the manufacturing, packaging, assembly and testing of our products to third-party foundries and assembly and testing service providers. We use a single foundry, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore Pte. Ltd., for production of higher density products on advanced technology nodes. Our primary product package and test operations are located in China, Taiwan and other Asian countries. We also use standard CMOS wafers from third-party foundries, which we process at our Chandler, Arizona facility. Relying on third-party distribution, manufacturing, assembly, packaging, and testing presents a number of risks, including but not limited to:?- our interests could diverge from those of our foundries, or we may not be able to agree with them on ongoing development, manufacturing and operational activities, or on the amount, timing, or nature of further investments in our joint development;- capacity and materials shortages during periods of high demand or supply constraints;- reduced control over delivery schedules, inventories and quality;- the unavailability of, or potential delays in obtaining access to, key process technologies;- the inability to achieve required production or test capacity and acceptable yields on a timely basis;- misappropriation of our intellectual property;- the third party's ability to perform its obligations due to bankruptcy or other financial constraints;- exclusive representatives for certain customer engagements;- limited warranties on wafers or products supplied to us; and - potential increases in prices including due to tariffs and/or inflation. Our manufacturing agreement with GLOBALFOUNDRIES includes a forecast and ordering mechanism for the supply of certain of our wafers, and we are obligated to order and pay for, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES is obligated to supply, wafers consistent with the binding portion of our forecast. Our manufacturing arrangement is also subject to both a minimum and maximum order quantity, which we believe currently addresses our projected foundry capacity needs, but may not address our maximum foundry capacity requirements in the future. We may also be obligated to pay for unused capacity if our demand decreases in the future, or if our estimates prove inaccurate. We do not currently source these wafers from anyone other than GLOBALFOUNDRIES, which has the ability to discontinue its manufacture of any of our wafers upon due notice and completion of the notice period. This would cause us to have to find another foundry to manufacture those wafers or redesign our core technology and would mean that we may not have products to sell until such time. Any time spent engaging a new manufacturer or redesigning our core technology could be costly and time consuming and allow potential competitors to take opportunities in the marketplace. Moreover, if we are unable to find another foundry to manufacture our products or if we have to redesign our core technology, this could cause material harm to our business and operating results. If we need other foundries or packaging, assembly, and testing contractors, or if we are unable to obtain timely and adequate deliveries from our providers, we might not be able to cost-effectively and quickly retain other vendors to satisfy our requirements. Because the lead time needed to establish a relationship with a new third-party supplier could be several quarters, there may not be any readily available alternative source of supply for any specific component. In addition, the time and expense to qualify a new foundry could result in additional expense, diversion of resources or lost sales, any of which would negatively impact our financial results. If any of our current or future foundries or packaging, assembly and testing subcontractors significantly increases the costs of wafers or other materials or services, interrupts or reduces our supply, including for reasons outside of their control, such as due to health-related events or outbreaks, or if any of our relationships with our suppliers is terminated, our operating results could be adversely affected. Such occurrences could also damage our customer relationships, result in lost revenue, cause a loss in market share, or damage our reputation.

The semiconductor memory industry is subject to a variety of international, federal, state, and local governmental regulations directed at preventing or mitigating environmental harm, as well as to the storage, discharge, handling, generation, disposal and labeling of toxic or other hazardous substances. Failure to comply with environmental regulations could subject us to civil or criminal sanctions and property damage or personal injury claims. Compliance with current or future environmental laws and regulations could restrict our ability to expand our business or require us to modify processes or incur other substantial expenses which could harm our business. In response to environmental concerns, some customers and government agencies impose requirements for the elimination of hazardous substances, such as lead (which is widely used in soldering connections in the process of semiconductor packaging and assembly), from electronic equipment. For example, the European Union (EU) adopted its Restriction on Hazardous Substance Directive which prohibits, with specified exceptions, the sale in the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead or other hazardous materials and China has enacted similar regulations. Environmental laws and regulations such as these could become more stringent over time, causing a need to redesign technologies, imposing greater compliance costs, and increasing risks and penalties associated with violations, which could seriously harm our business. Increasing public attention has been focused on the environmental impact of electronic manufacturing operations. While we have not experienced any materially adverse effects on our operations from recently adopted environmental regulations, our business and results of operations could suffer if for any reason we fail to control the storage or use of, or to adequately restrict the discharge or disposal of, hazardous substances under present or future environmental regulations.