Maxlinear (MXL) Risk Analysis

The semiconductor industry requires substantial investment in research and development in order to develop and bring to market new and enhanced technologies and products. Many of our products originated with our research and development efforts, which we believe have provided us with a significant competitive advantage. For year ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, our research and development expense was $208.6 million, $225.2 million, and $269.5 million, respectively. We have decreased our research and development spending, including via workforce reductions and cancellations of selected projects, to meet evolving demand. However, we expect our research and development expenses to increase in future years when we return to expanding our product portfolio and enhancing existing products. We monitor such expenditures as part of our strategy of devoting focused research and development efforts on the development of innovative and sustainable product platforms. We are committed to investing in new product development internally in order to stay competitive in our markets and plan to maintain research and development and design capabilities for new solutions in advanced semiconductor process nodes such as 16nm and 5nm and beyond, as well as to address challenges of capturing and processing high quality broadband communications and high-speed optical interconnect signals. However, we do not know whether we will have sufficient resources to maintain the level of investment in research and development required to remain competitive as semiconductor process nodes continue to shrink and become increasingly complex. In addition, we cannot assure you that the technologies that are the focus of our research and development expenditures will become commercially successful. Furthermore, we currently receive grants from certain non-U.S. governments, but those grants and any future grants may not be available to us in the future.

Our success depends in part upon our ability to protect our intellectual property. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets in the United States and in selected foreign countries where we believe filing for such protection is appropriate. Effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may be unavailable, limited or not applied for in some countries. Some of our products and technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application. We cannot guarantee that: - any of our present or future patents or patent claims will not lapse or be invalidated, circumvented, challenged or abandoned;- our intellectual property rights will provide competitive advantages to us;- our ability to assert our intellectual property rights against potential competitors or to settle current or future disputes will not be limited by our agreements with third parties or obligations, if any, to standards organizations;- any of our pending or future patent applications will be issued or have the coverage originally sought;- our intellectual property rights will be enforced in jurisdictions where competition may be intense or where legal protection may be weak;- any of the trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets or other intellectual property rights that we presently employ in our business will not lapse or be invalidated, circumvented, challenged or abandoned;- we will not lose the ability to assert our intellectual property rights against or to license our technology to others and collect consideration that we are entitled to under certain intellectual property sale agreements; or - our ability to monetize our portfolio through divestiture and/or exclusive licensing transactions will not be impacted by conduct of counterparties to any such transactions, and we will not face liability arising from our monetization efforts. In addition, our competitors or others may design around our protected patents or technologies. Effective intellectual property protection may be unavailable or more limited in one or more relevant jurisdictions relative to those protections available in the United States, or may not be applied for in one or more relevant jurisdictions. If we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property rights, an adverse decision in any of these legal actions 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. Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Unauthorized use of our intellectual property may have occurred or may occur in the future. Although we have taken steps to minimize the risk of this occurring, any such failure to identify unauthorized use and otherwise adequately protect our intellectual property would adversely affect our business. Moreover, if we are required to commence litigation, whether as a plaintiff or defendant as has occurred in the past, not only will this be time-consuming, but we will also be forced to incur significant costs and divert our attention and efforts of our employees, which could, in turn, result in lower revenue and higher expenses. We also rely on customary contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees and consultants, and we implement security measures to protect our trade secrets. We cannot assure you that these contractual protections and security measures will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any such breach or that our suppliers, employees or consultants will not assert rights to intellectual property arising out of such contracts. For example, as described in Part I, Item 3 - Legal Proceedings – Comcast Litigation, Comcast shared our proprietary designs with our direct competitor. Comcast then worked with our competitor to develop the FDX-amplifier technology. We have brought claims for trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and breach of the parties' non-disclosure agreement, and sought an unspecified amount of compensatory damages, punitive damages, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, costs, expenses, and attorney fees as well as an injunction against Comcast's use or disclosure of our trade secrets. However, our claims may not be successful. In addition, we have a number of third-party patent and intellectual property license agreements. Some of these license agreements require us to make one-time payments or ongoing royalty payments. Also, a few of our license agreements contain most-favored nation clauses or other price restriction clauses which may affect the amount we may charge for our products, processes or technology. We cannot guarantee that the third-party patents and technology we license will not be licensed to our competitors or others in the semiconductor industry. In the future, we may need to obtain additional licenses, renew existing license agreements or otherwise replace existing technology. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed or the technology can be replaced on acceptable terms, or at all. When we originally settled a trademark dispute with Analog Devices International Unlimited Company, or ADIUC, and its predecessor, Linear Technology Corporation, we agreed not to register the "MAXLINEAR" mark or any other marks containing the term "LINEAR". Pursuant to the original settlement agreement, we agreed not to use the "MAXLINEAR" mark on our products. We have since entered into another settlement agreement with ADIUC that now allows us to use and register the "MAXLINEAR" mark on our products, in addition to continuing to use "MAXLINEAR" as a corporate identifier, including to advertise our products and services. We have filed trademark applications to register the "MAXLINEAR" mark, but prior to approval of the applications and registration of the mark in the relevant jurisdictions, our ability to effectively prevent third parties from using the "MAXLINEAR" mark in connection with similar products or technology will be based on our common law rights in the mark, which may make enforcement challenging. If we are unable to protect our trademarks in certain jurisdictions, we may experience difficulties in achieving and maintaining brand recognition and customer loyalty in such jurisdictions.

We rely on our information technology systems for the effective operation of our business and for the secure maintenance and storage of confidential data relating to our business and third-party businesses. Security threats are constantly evolving, making it increasingly difficult to successfully defend against or implement adequate preventive measures. We experience cyber-attacks of varying degrees on our technology infrastructure and systems and notwithstanding our defensive measures, experienced programmers, hackers, state actors, or others may be able to penetrate our security controls through attacks such as phishing, impersonating authorized users, ransomware, viruses, worms and other malicious software programs, software supply chain attacks, exploitation of design flaws, bugs and other security weaknesses and vulnerabilities, covert introduction of malware to computers and networks, including those using techniques that change frequently or may be disguised or difficult to detect, or designed to remain dormant until a triggering event or that may continue undetected for an extended period of time. Geopolitical tensions or conflicts may create heightened risk of cyber-attacks and attackers have used artificial intelligence and machine learning to launch more automated, targeted and coordinated attacks against targets. Our information technology infrastructure also includes products and services provided by third parties, and these providers can experience breaches of their systems and products, or provide inadequate updates or support, which can impact the security of our systems and our proprietary or confidential information. A cybersecurity incident or other compromise of our information technology systems could result in unauthorized publication or misuse of confidential business or proprietary information belonging to us, a customer, supplier, employee or other third party, including personal data, result in violations of privacy or other laws, expose us to a risk of litigation, cause us to incur direct losses if attackers initiate wire transfers or access our bank or investment accounts, or damage our reputation. More generally, any theft, loss, misuse, or other unauthorized processing of any confidential business or proprietary information, including personal data, collected, used, stored, transferred, or otherwise processed by us or on our behalf could result in significantly increased costs, expenses, damage to our reputation, and claims, litigation, demands, and regulatory investigations or other proceedings. The cost and operational consequences of implementing further data protection measures either as a response to specific breaches or incidents or as a result of evolving risks could be significant. In addition, our inability to use or access our information systems at critical points in time, or for an extended or indefinite period of time, whether as a result of an intentional cyberattack, employee error or misconduct, or technological error, or any other cybersecurity incident, could adversely affect the timely and efficient operation of our business. Any delayed sales, significant costs or lost customers resulting from these technology failures could adversely affect our business, operations and financial results. We also may face difficulties or delays in identifying and remediating and otherwise responding to any security breach or incident. From time-to-time, we upgrade software that we use in our business, including our enterprise resource planning, or ERP, system. Our business may be disrupted if our software does not work as planned or if we experience issues relating to any implementation, or accessing our software as has happened in a previous cybersecurity attack, in which case we may be unable to timely or accurately prepare financial reports, make payments to our suppliers and employees, or ship to, invoice and collect from our customers. We may be subject to supply chain attacks where threat actors attempt to inject malicious code into our products thus infecting our products and the systems of our customers. Any such supply chain attack could have magnified damages to our business as a direct result of the attack as well as due to a loss of credibility or reputation with our customers. Such attempts are increasing in number and in technical sophistication, and if successful, expose us and the affected parties to risk of loss or misuse of proprietary or confidential information or disruptions of our business operations, including our manufacturing operations. Third parties with which we conduct business, such as foundries, assembly and test contractors, and distributors, have access to certain portions of our sensitive data, and we rely on third parties to store and otherwise process data for us. We are dependent on the information security systems of these third parties and they face substantial security risks similar to those outlined above. Any security breaches or incidents or other unauthorized access by third parties to the systems of our suppliers, service providers, or other third parties with access to our sensitive data, or the existence of computer viruses, ransomware or other malicious code in their data, software, or hardware, could result in disruptions or failures of systems used in our business, payments to fraudulent bank accounts, and expose us to a risk of loss, misappropriation, unavailability and other unauthorized processing of information. Any of the foregoing, or the perception any of them has occurred, could have a material adverse impact on our business, operations and financial results. Additionally, we cannot be certain that our insurance coverage will be adequate or otherwise protect us with respect to claims, expenses, fines, penalties, business loss, data loss, litigation, regulatory actions, or other impacts arising from any of the security breaches or incidents outlined above, or that such coverage will continue to be available on acceptable terms or at all. Any of these results could adversely affect our business, operations and financial results, potentially in a material manner.

Our business is subject to various laws and regulations in the United States and other jurisdictions where we do business, including but not limited to laws, regulations and other legal requirements related to packaging; product content; labor and employment; import and customs; export controls; anti-corruption; personal and data privacy; cybersecurity; human rights; conflict minerals; environment, health and safety; competition and antitrust; and intellectual property ownership and infringement. These laws and regulations are complex, change frequently and with little or no notice, occasionally are conflicting or ambiguous, and have generally become more stringent over time. Complying with these laws and regulations can be costly and we may be required to incur significant costs to remedy any potential gaps or violations that are identified. In addition, because many of our products are regulated or sold into regulated industries, we must comply with additional regulations in marketing our products. Although our policies, procedures, and controls are designed to detect and prevent potential violations and maintain ongoing compliance with applicable laws, we cannot assure you that we have been or will be at all times in compliance with such laws and regulations. If we violate or fail to comply with any of them, a range of consequences could result, including fines, import/export restrictions, sales limitations, criminal and civil liabilities or other penalties or sanctions. The costs of complying with these laws (including the costs of any investigations, remediation, auditing and monitoring) could adversely affect our current or future business. As indicated elsewhere in this report, we do a substantial portion of our business in Asia, including in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, or China. Products shipped to Asia accounted for 82%, 75% and 75% of our net revenue in the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively, including 49% from products shipped to Hong Kong and 12% from products shipped to Vietnam during the year ended December 31, 2025, 41% from products shipped to Hong Kong during the year ended December 31, 2024, and 37% from products shipped to Hong Kong and 11% from products shipped to mainland China in the year ended December 31, 2023. Since October 2022, the United States has taken steps to restrict the export of certain advanced semiconductor products and technology to China as well as a number of specific Chinese companies, due to national security and human rights concerns. There has also been a substantial focus by regulators in the United States and Europe on the business practices of certain major Chinese technology companies. Complying with changing export control laws may require us to develop additional policies, procedures, and controls, or incur additional costs, including in connection with the development or performance of additional due diligence in order to prevent diversion of restricted products or technology to China, Russia, or other destinations. Compliance with these laws and regulations may also result in the loss of revenue. Since October 2022, we have restricted shipments and exports to certain major Chinese technology companies, including a semiconductor foundry and OSAT providers. While we intend to continue to conduct our businesses in compliance with all applicable laws, including laws relating to export controls and anti-corruption, it is possible that the nature of our business and customers could result in a review of our relationships and practices by regulatory authorities. At times, we may discover issues that we bring to the attention of the relevant government agencies, as we did on March 3, 2023, when we submitted a comprehensive voluntary self-disclosure to BIS regarding the potential EAR violation described above and other potential export control violations. Although the March 2023 voluntary self-disclosure to BIS resulted in a warning letter, we could incur increased administrative and legal costs in order to remediate any potential compliance gaps or violations, to respond to any inquiries, or in connection with the preparation and submission of any voluntary self-disclosures to the government agencies, as appropriate. Any failure to comply with applicable laws or regulatory approvals could adversely affect our business and operating results. We have implemented policies and procedures, including adoption of an anti-corruption policy and procedures with respect to applicable export control laws, but there can be no assurance that our policies and procedures will prove effective. Our products and operations are also subject to the rules of industrial standards bodies, like the International Standards Organization, as well as regulation by other agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. If we fail to adequately address any of these rules or regulations, our business could be harmed. In addition, climate change and new or revised rules and regulations related thereto, including regulations with respect to greenhouse gas emissions and regulations enacted by the SEC and recent legislation enacted in California, may impact our business in numerous ways. Climate change and its effects could lead to further increases in raw material prices or their reduced availability due to, for example, increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events and any supply chain disruptions resulting therefrom, and could cause increased incidence of disruption to the production and distribution of our products and an adverse impact on consumer demand and spending. For example, as a fabless semiconductor company, we outsource our manufacturing to countries outside of the United States, and our manufacturers' suppliers reside in areas that are more susceptible to extreme weather impacts. If our suppliers have difficulty obtaining raw materials and natural resources due to extreme weather impacts, this could increase the cost associated with extraction of raw materials or limit the supply available for our key suppliers to manufacture our products, driving the cost up for us and/or threaten our upstream supply chain. In the past, there have been substantial legislative and regulatory developments on climate-related issues, including proposed, issued and implemented legislation and rule makings that would require companies to assess and/or disclose climate metrics, risks, opportunities, policies and practices. For example, on March 6, 2024, the SEC adopted rules mandating climate-related disclosures that would require increased climate change-related disclosure in our periodic reports and other filings with the SEC for fiscal year 2025 and beyond, which were stayed on April 4, 2024. The potential impact to us of these legislative and regulatory developments is uncertain at this time, although we expect that emerging legal and regulatory requirements on climate-related issues, if made mandatory, would result in additional compliance and may require us to spend or add significant resources and divert management attention. We cannot be sure that we would be able to successfully adapt our operations in response to any climate-related changes or comply with any increased reporting obligations in a cost-effective manner, and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. We must also conform the manufacture and distribution of our semiconductors to various laws and adapt to regulatory requirements in all countries as these requirements change. If we fail to comply with these requirements in the manufacture or distribution of our products, we could be required to pay civil penalties, face criminal prosecution and, in some cases, be prohibited from distributing our products in commerce until the products or component substances are brought into compliance.

We operate under certain favorable tax incentives in Singapore which are effective through March 2027, and generally are dependent on our meeting certain headcount and investment thresholds. Such incentives allow certain qualifying income earned in Singapore to be taxed at reduced rates and are conditional upon our meeting certain employment and investment thresholds over time. If we fail to satisfy the conditions for receipt of these tax incentives, or to the extent U.S. or other tax authorities challenge our operation under these favorable tax incentive programs or our intercompany transfer pricing agreements, our taxable income could be taxed at higher federal or foreign statutory rates and our income tax liability and expense could materially increase beyond our projections. Each of our Singapore tax incentives is separate and distinct from the others, and may be granted, withheld, extended, modified, truncated, complied with or terminated independently without any effect on the other incentives. Absent these tax incentives, our corporate income tax rate in Singapore would generally be the 17% statutory tax rate. We are also subject to operating and other compliance requirements to maintain our favorable tax incentives. If we fail to comply with such requirements, we could lose the tax benefits and could possibly be required to refund previously realized material tax benefits. Additionally, in the future, we may fail to qualify for renewal of our favorable tax incentives or such incentives may not be available to us, which could also cause our future taxable income to increase and be taxed at higher statutory rates. Loss of one more of our tax incentives could cause us to modify our tax strategies and our operational structure, which could cause disruption in our business and have a material adverse impact on our results of operations. Further, there can be no guarantee that such modification in our tax strategy will yield tax incentives as favorable as those we have negotiated with Singapore. Our interpretations and conclusions regarding the tax incentives are not binding on any taxing authority, and if our assumptions about tax and other laws are incorrect or if these tax incentives are substantially modified or rescinded, we could suffer material adverse tax and other financial consequences, which would increase our expenses, reduce our profitability and adversely affect our cash flows. Our tax incentives could also be adversely impacted if the global minimum tax provisions (Pillar Two) are adopted in a country in which we have an existing tax incentive. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025, or the 2025 Tax Act, was signed into law on July 4, 2025. The 2025 Tax Act makes changes to the U.S. corporate income tax including reinstating the option to claim 100% accelerated depreciation deductions on qualified property, with retroactive application beginning January 20, 2025 and immediate expensing of domestic research and development costs, with retroactive application beginning January 1, 2025. The enactment of the legislation did not have a material impact on our income tax rate during the year ended December 31, 2025 and is not expected to have a material impact on our income tax rate in future years.

Highly complex products like our Wi-Fi and broadband RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs, physical medium devices for optical modules, RF transceiver and modem solutions for wireless infrastructure markets, and high-performance analog solutions may contain defects and bugs when they are first introduced or as new versions are released. Where any of our products, including legacy acquired products, contain defects or bugs, or have reliability, quality or compatibility problems, we may not be able to successfully correct these problems. Consequently, our reputation may be damaged and customers may be reluctant to buy our products, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers, and our financial results. In addition, these defects or bugs could interrupt or delay sales to our customers. If any of these problems are not found until after we have commenced commercial production of a new product, we may be required to incur additional development costs and product recall, repair or replacement costs, and our operating costs could be adversely affected. These problems may also result in warranty or product liability claims against us by our customers or others that may require us to make significant expenditures to defend these claims or pay damage awards. In the event of a warranty claim, we may also incur costs if we compensate the affected customer. We maintain product liability insurance, but this insurance is limited in amount and subject to significant deductibles. There is no guarantee that our insurance will be available or adequate to protect against all claims. We also may incur costs and expenses relating to a recall of one of our customers' products containing one of our devices. The process of identifying a recalled product in devices that have been widely distributed may be lengthy and require significant resources, and we may incur significant replacement costs, contract damage claims from our customers and reputational harm. Costs or payments made in connection with warranty and product liability claims and product recalls could materially affect our financial condition and results of operations, and ability to obtain future coverage. Although we purchase insurance to mitigate certain losses, any uninsured losses could negatively affect our operating results. Although we maintain reserves for reasonably estimable liabilities and purchase product liability insurance, if a catastrophic product liability claim were to occur, our reserves may be inadequate to cover the uninsured portion of such claims. Further, our business liability insurance may be inadequate, may not cover the claims, and future coverage may be unavailable on acceptable terms, which could adversely impact our financial results.

We rely on third-party vendors to provide critical services, including, among other things, services related to accounting, billing, compliance, internal audit, human resources, payroll, stock administration, information technology, network development, network monitoring, in-licensing and intellectual property that we cannot or do not create or provide ourselves. We depend on these vendors to ensure that our corporate infrastructure will consistently meet our business requirements and legal obligations. The ability of these third-party vendors to successfully provide reliable and high quality services is subject to technical and operational uncertainties that are beyond our control. While we may be entitled to damages if our vendors fail to perform under their agreements with us, our agreements with these vendors limit the amount of damages we may receive. In addition, we do not know whether we will be able to collect on any award of damages or that these damages would be sufficient to cover the actual costs we would incur as a result of any vendor's failure to perform under its agreement with us. Any failure of our corporate infrastructure could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Upon expiration or termination of any of our agreements with third-party vendors, we may not be able to replace the services provided to us in a timely manner or on terms and conditions, including service levels and cost, that are favorable to us and a transition from one vendor to another vendor could subject us to operational delays and inefficiencies until the transition is complete. Additionally, we incorporate third-party technology into and with some of our products, and we may do so in future products. The operation of our products could be impaired if errors occur in the third-party technology we use, including as a result of information technology failures from cyber-attacks on or security breaches of third parties. It may be more difficult for us to correct any errors in a timely manner if at all because the development and maintenance of the technology is not within our control. There can be no assurance that these third parties will continue to make their technology, or improvements to the technology, available to us, or that they will continue to support and maintain their technology. Further, due to the limited number of vendors of some types of technology, it may be difficult to obtain new licenses or replace existing technology. Any impairment of the technology or our relationship with these third parties could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We currently sell a significant portion of our products to customers through our distributors, who maintain their own inventories of our products. Sales to distributors accounted for approximately 37%, 44% and 50% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively. Upon shipment of product to these distributors, title to the inventory transfers to the distributor and the distributor is invoiced, generally with 30 to 60 day terms. Distributor sales are also recognized upon shipment to the distributor and estimates of future pricing credits and/or stock rotation rights reduce revenue recognized to the net amount before the actual amounts are known. If our estimates of such credits and rights are materially understated it could cause subsequent adjustments that negatively impact our revenues and gross profits in a future period. If our distributors are unable to sell an adequate amount of their inventories of our products in a given quarter to manufacturers and end users or if they decide to decrease their inventories of our products for any reason, our sales through these distributors and our revenue may decline. In addition, if some distributors decide to purchase more of our products than are required to satisfy end customer demand in any particular quarter, inventories at these distributors would grow in that quarter. These distributors could then reduce future orders until inventory levels realign with end customer demand, which has in the past and could in the future adversely affect our product revenue. Our reserve estimates with respect to the products stocked by our distributors are based principally on reports provided to us by our distributors, typically on a weekly basis. To the extent that this resale and channel inventory data is inaccurate or not received in a timely manner, we may not be able to make reserve estimates accurately or at all.