Item 1. Business
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Item 1. Business
Our Company
Marvell Technology Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries (“Marvell,” “MTI,” the “Company,” “we,” or “us”) is a leading supplier of infrastructure semiconductor solutions, spanning the data center core to network edge. We are a fabless semiconductor supplier of high-performance standard and semi-custom products with core strengths in developing and scaling complex System-on-a-Chip architectures, integrating analog, mixed-signal and digital signal processing functionality. Leveraging leading intellectual property and deep system-level expertise, as well as highly innovative security firmware, our solutions are empowering the data economy and enabling the data center, carrier infrastructure, enterprise networking, consumer, and automotive/industrial end markets.
We currently are incorporated in Delaware, United States. Our corporate headquarters is 1000 N. West Street, Suite 1200 Wilmington, Delaware 19801, and our telephone number is (302) 295-4840. We also have operations in many countries, including China, India, Israel, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam. Our fiscal year ends on the Saturday nearest January 31.
Recent Developments
On April 20, 2021, we completed our acquisition of Inphi Corporation (“Inphi”) in a cash and stock transaction. Inphi is a global leader in high-speed data movement enabled by optical interconnects. The consolidated financial statements include the operating results of Inphi for the period from the date of acquisition through our fiscal year ended January 29, 2022. In conjunction with the acquisition, Marvell Technology Group Ltd. and Inphi became wholly owned subsidiaries of the new parent company, Marvell Technology, Inc. on April 20, 2021. The parent company is domiciled in and subject to taxation in the United States.
On October 5, 2021, we completed our acquisition of Innovium, Inc. (“Innovium”), a leading provider of networking solutions for cloud and edge data centers, in an all-stock transaction. The consolidated financial statements include the operating results of Innovium for the period from the date of acquisition through our fiscal year ended January 29, 2022. See “Note 4 - Business Combinations” and “Note 5 - Goodwill and Acquired Intangible Assets, Net” for more information.
Available Information
Our website address is www.marvell.com. The information contained on any website referred to in this Form 10-K does not form any part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and is not incorporated by reference herein unless expressly noted. We make available free of charge through our website our annual reports on Form 10-K, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, our current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file these materials with, or furnish them to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). In addition, the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov, contains reports, proxy statements, and other information that we file electronically with the SEC.
Our Markets and Products
Historically, we reported revenue from three product groups: networking, storage, and other. Beginning with the second quarter of fiscal 2022, we changed our reporting to present revenue from five end markets. Our product solutions serve five large end markets: (i) data center, (ii) carrier infrastructure, (iii) enterprise networking, (iv) consumer, and (v) automotive/industrial. These markets and their corresponding customer products and applications are noted in the table below:
| End market | Customer products and applications | ||||
| Data center | •Cloud and on-premise Artificial intelligence (AI) systems •Cloud and on-premise ethernet switching •Cloud and on-premise network-attached storage (NAS) •Cloud and on-premise servers •Cloud and on-premise storage area networks •Cloud and on-premise storage systems •Data center interconnect (DCI) | ||||
| Carrier infrastructure | •Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers (DSLAMs) •Ethernet switches •Optical transport systems •Routers •Wireless radio access network (RAN) systems | ||||
| Enterprise networking | •Campus and small medium enterprise routers •Campus and small medium enterprise ethernet switches •Campus and small medium enterprise wireless access points (WAPs) •Network appliances (firewalls, and load balancers) •Workstations | ||||
| Consumer | •Broadband gateways and routers •Gaming consoles •Home data storage •Home wireless access points (WAPs) •Personal Computers (PCs) •Printers •Set-top boxes | ||||
| Automotive/industrial | •Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) •Autonomous vehicles (AV) •In-vehicle networking •Industrial ethernet switches •United States military and government solutions •Video surveillance |
The following table summarizes net revenue disaggregated by end market (in thousands, except percentages):
| Year Ended | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| January 29, 2022 | January 30, 2021 | February 1, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Data center | $ | 1,784,644 | 40 | % | $ | 1,040,726 | 35 | % | $ | 823,841 | 31 | % | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Carrier infrastructure | 820,377 | 18 | % | 599,527 | 20 | % | 369,901 | 14 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Enterprise networking | 907,736 | 20 | % | 636,032 | 22 | % | 569,574 | 21 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consumer | 699,985 | 16 | % | 574,627 | 19 | % | 845,825 | 31 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Automotive/industrial | 249,641 | 6 | % | 117,988 | 4 | % | 90,020 | 3 | % | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | $ | 4,462,383 | $ | 2,968,900 | $ | 2,699,161 |
This market-focused view provides more information and transparency about the key growth drivers of our business. We believe this presentation provides a better understanding of our business. Accordingly, starting with the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we stopped reporting revenue by product group.
We categorize revenue from our five end markets by using a number of data points, including the type of customer purchasing the product, the function of our product being sold, and our knowledge of the end customer product or application into which our product will be incorporated. The categorization of products by end market is inherently subjective and can vary over time as a result of, for example, our knowledge of the ways in which our customers utilize our products.
We serve these five end markets with a broad portfolio of semiconductor solutions based on our compute, networking, security, electro-optics, and storage technologies, which are essential and differentiating for these markets.
Our portfolio of solutions integrate multiple analog, mixed-signal and digital intellectual property components incorporating hardware, firmware and software technologies and our system knowledge to provide our customers highly-integrated solutions for their end products. In addition to selling standard product solutions, where the exact same product is sold to multiple customers, we also offer optimized solutions which are customized to a specific customer's requirements. The demand for optimized solutions has been increasing as our customers seek greater customization and differentiation for their products and services.
Our current product offerings include custom ASICs, electro-optics, ethernet solutions, fibre channel adapters, processors and storage controllers.
Custom ASICs
We develop custom SoC (System-on-a-Chip) solutions tailored to individual customer specifications that deliver system-level differentiation for next-generation carrier, networking, data center, machine learning, automotive, aerospace and defense applications. These custom offerings leverage our broad portfolio of technologies being used in our standard products.
Electro-optics
We offer a complete portfolio of high-speed optical communication semiconductor solutions for inside cloud data centers, between cloud data centers and in carrier networks. Our electro-optical products include PAM (pulse amplitude modulation) and coherent DSPs (digital signal processors), laser drivers, TIAs (trans-impedance amplifiers), silicon photonics and DCI (data center interconnect) solutions.
Our low-power and low-latency DSPs implement equalization, estimation, clock recovery, carrier recovery, forward error correction, and coded modulation to enable ultra-fast data transmission speeds. In combination with our drivers, TIAs and silicon photonics, our suite of electro-optical products performs a wide range of functions such as amplifying, encoding, multiplexing, demultiplexing, and retiming signals at speeds beyond 800 Gbps. These products are key enablers for inter-connecting servers, routers, switches, storage and other infrastructure equipment that process, store and transport data traffic.
Our coherent TIAs, drivers and DSPs enable optical data transmission over distances of 100s to 1000s of kilometers in telecom carrier networks. Our PAM DSPs along with our accompanying TIAs and drivers deliver low-power and cost-effective solutions for optical connectivity inside cloud data centers. Our data center interconnect solutions enable pluggable transceiver technology to directly interconnect regional cloud data centers, at lower cost, complexity and power compared to traditional optical transport solutions.
Ethernet Solutions
We offer a broad portfolio of Ethernet solutions spanning controllers, network adapters, physical transceivers and switches. Our Ethernet solutions address a wide variety of end-customer data infrastructure products from small, high-reliability automotive sub-systems to large, high-performance modular enterprise and data center solutions.
Our Ethernet switches integrate market-optimized innovative features, such as advanced tunneling and routing, high throughput forwarding, and packet processing that make networks more effective at delivering content with low-latency and high-reliability. Our Ethernet switch product portfolio ranges from low-power, five-port switches to highly integrated, multi-terabit Ethernet devices that can be interconnected to form massive network solutions.
We complement our Ethernet switches and infrastructure processors with a broad selection of Ethernet physical-layer transceivers for both optical and copper interconnects with advanced power management, link security, and time synchronization features.
Our Ethernet controllers and network adapters are optimized to accelerate and simplify data center and enterprise networking. Our family of products provide exceptional value features and performance enabling the most agile and data-intensive applications. They deliver Ethernet connectivity for enterprise-class workstations all the way up to enterprise and cloud data centers.
For the automotive market, we offer a complete automotive-grade portfolio of Ethernet physical-layer transceivers, bridges and switches supporting speeds from 100Mbps to 10Gbps with enhanced safety and security features required for today’s and tomorrow’s in-vehicle networks. Our automotive Ethernet products provide the in-vehicle connectivity for key applications such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), central gateways, body domain controllers, vehicle cameras, and in-vehicle infotainment.
Fibre Channel Products
Our QLogic Fibre Channel product family comprises of host bus adapters (HBAs) and controllers for server and storage system connectivity. These products accelerate enterprise and data center applications, deliver a highly resilient infrastructure, enable greater server virtualization density along with an advanced set of data center diagnostic, orchestration and quality of service capabilities to optimize IT productivity. Our latest Fibre Channel products are well-suited for use with all-flash arrays by offering best-in-class latency and performance.
Processors
We offer highly integrated semiconductors that provide single or multiple core processors, along with intelligent Layer 2 through 7 processing of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) stack which is the framework that governs network communications within enterprise, datacenter, storage, and carrier markets. All of our products are compatible with standards-based operating systems and general-purpose software to enable ease of programming, and are supported by our ecosystem partners.
Our OCTEON multi-core infrastructure processor families provide integrated Layer 4 through 7 data and security processing with additional capabilities at Layers 2 and 3 at line speeds. These software-compatible processors integrate next-generation networking I/Os along with advanced security, storage, and application hardware accelerators, offering programmability for the Layer 2 through Layer 7 processing requirements of intelligent networks. The OCTEON processors are targeted for use in a wide variety of carrier, data center, and enterprise equipment, including routers, switches, security UTM appliances, content-aware switches, application-aware gateways, wireless access points, 3G/4G/5G wireless base stations, storage arrays, smart network interface controllers, network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) infrastructure.
Our OCTEON Fusion-M family of wireless baseband infrastructure processors is a highly scalable product family supporting enterprise small cells, high capacity outdoor picocells and microcells all the way up to multi-sector macrocells for multiple wireless protocols including 5G. The key features include highly optimized processor cores, a highly efficient caching subsystem, high memory bandwidth digital signal processing engines along with a host of hardware accelerators. Additionally, multiple OCTEON Fusion-M chips can be cascaded for even denser deployments or higher order multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO. Our OCTEON Fusion-M processors have also been designed into 5G base station radio units to enable Massive MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) antenna and advanced Beamforming implementations.
Our NITROX security processor family provides the functionality required for Layer 3 to Layer 5 secure communication in a single chip. These single chip, custom-designed processors provide complete security protocol processing, encryption, authentication and compression algorithms to reduce the load on the system processor and increase total system throughput. The LiquidSecurity product family is a high-performance hardware-based transaction security solution for cloud data center and enterprise applications. It addresses the high-performance security requirements for private key management and administration. This family is available as an adapter with complete software or as a standalone appliance.
Our LiquidIO Server Adapter family is a high-performance, general-purpose programmable adapter platform that enables cloud data centers and enterprises to offload their server processors for higher performance and power efficiencies. The LiquidIO Server Adapter family is supported by a feature rich software development kit that allows customers and partners to develop high-performance SDN (software defined networking) applications with packet processing, switching, security, tunneling, quality of service, and metering.
Storage Controllers
We offer a broad portfolio of storage controllers for hard disk drives (“HDDs”) and solid-state-drives (“SSDs”) across all high-volume markets. Our controllers integrate several key Marvell technologies spanning compute, networking, security and storage. These key technologies enable our controllers to be optimized performance-power solutions and help our customers high-efficient storage products. Our HDD controllers integrate Marvell’s industry-leading read channel technologies to enable higher volumetric densities at low power profiles and are being used by all the current HDD makers. Our technology density and power differentiators are critical for addressing the fast-growing high-capacity, nearline HDD data center and enterprise markets. To further enhance our HDD controller differentiation and value propositions, we offer customers preamplifier products as part of a chipset with our HDD controllers to increase our customers’ product efficiencies. Our HDD controllers support all the high-volume host system interfaces, including Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (“SATA”) and Serial Attached SCSI (“SAS”), which are critical for the data center and enterprise markets.
Our SSD controller products leverage our strong HDD controller know-how and system-level expertise. We integrate several of our HDD controller IPs with our flash technologies to deliver optimal solutions for data center, enterprise and client computing markets. Our SSD controller products integrate hardware and firmware components to help accelerate our customers’ time to market and maximize the capabilities of our solutions. Like our HDD controllers, our SSD controllers support all the high-volume SSD host system interfaces, including SAS, SATA, peripheral component interconnect express (“PCIe”), non-volatile memory express (“NVMe”) and NVMe over Fabrics (“NVMe-oF”).
Our new controller chipset products enable innovative flash-based storage architectures in data centers and enterprises. These solutions increase overall data center performance, density and scalability while lowering overall power, resulting in lower total cost of ownership for the infrastructure organizations.
Financial Information about Segments and Geographic Areas
We have determined that we operate in one reportable segment: the design, development and sale of integrated circuits. For information regarding our revenue by geographic area, and property and equipment by geographic area, please see “Note 16 - Segment and Geographic Information” in our Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements set forth in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K. See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for a discussion of the risks associated with our international operations.
Customers, Sales and Marketing
Our target customers are original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers, both of which design and manufacture end market devices. Our sales force is strategically aligned along key customer lines in order to offer fully integrated platforms to our customers. In this way, we believe we can more effectively offer a broader set of content into our key customers’ end products, without having multiple product groups separately engage the same customer. We complement and support our direct sales force with manufacturers’ representatives for our products in North America and Europe. In addition, we have distributors who support our sales and marketing activities in the United States, Europe and Asia. We also use third-party logistics providers who maintain warehouses in close proximity to our customers’ facilities. We expect that a significant percentage of our sales will continue to come from direct sales to key customers.
We use field application engineers to provide technical support and assistance to existing and potential customers in designing, testing and qualifying systems designs that incorporate our products. Our marketing team works in conjunction with our field sales and application engineering force, and is organized around our product groups.
During fiscal 2022, 2021 and 2020, there was no net revenue attributable to a customer, other than one distributor, whose revenues as a percentage of net revenue was 10% or greater of total net revenues. Net revenue attributable to significant distributors whose revenues as a percentage of net revenue was 10% or greater of total net revenues is presented in the following table:
| Year Ended | |||||||||||||||||
| January 29, 2022 | January 30, 2021 | February 1, 2020 | |||||||||||||||
| Distributor: | |||||||||||||||||
| Distributor A | 15 | % | 13 | % | 12 | % | |||||||||||
Inventory and Working Capital
We place firm orders with our suppliers up to 52 weeks prior to the anticipated delivery date and typically prior to an order for the product. These lead times were extended compared to prior years based on the manufacturing process and current capacity at the foundries and substrate suppliers. To secure additional capacity, we entered into capacity reservation arrangements with certain foundries and assembly and test partners. Our products typically have long multi-year lifecycles and we often maintain substantial inventories because the semiconductor industry is characterized by short lead time orders and quick delivery schedules.
Research and Development
We believe that our future success depends on our ability to introduce improvements to our existing products and to develop new products that deliver cost-effective solutions for both existing and new markets. Our research and development efforts are directed largely to the development of high-performance analog, mixed-signal, digital signal processing and embedded microprocessor integrated circuits with the smallest die size and lowest power. We devote a significant portion of our resources to expanding our product portfolio based on a broad intellectual property portfolio with designs that enable high-performance, reliable communications over a variety of physical transmission media. We are also focused on incorporating functions currently provided by stand-alone integrated circuits into our integrated platform solutions to reduce our customers’ overall system costs.
We have assembled a core team of engineers who have experience in the areas of complementary metal oxide semiconductor (“CMOS”) technology, digital signal processing, electro-optics, embedded microprocessors, mixed-signal circuit design, silicon photonics, and system-level architectures. We have invested and will continue to invest a significant amount in research and development. See our discussion of research and development expenses in Item 7, Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further information.
Manufacturing
Integrated Circuit Fabrication
The vast majority of our integrated circuits are fabricated using widely available CMOS processes, which provide greater flexibility to engage independent foundries to manufacture integrated circuits at lower costs. By outsourcing manufacturing, we are able to avoid the cost associated with owning and operating our own manufacturing facilities. This allows us to focus our efforts on the design and marketing of our products. We work closely with our foundry partners to forecast on a monthly basis our manufacturing capacity requirements. We closely monitor foundry production to ensure consistent overall quality, reliability and yield levels. Our integrated circuits are currently fabricated in several advanced manufacturing processes. Because finer manufacturing processes lead to enhanced performance, smaller silicon chip size and lower power requirements, we continually evaluate the benefits and feasibility of migrating to smaller geometry process technology in order to reduce cost and improve performance.
Assembly and Test
We outsource all product packaging and testing requirements for our products in production to several assembly and test subcontractors primarily located in Taiwan, Canada, Korea, Singapore and China.
Governmental Regulations
Import/Export, National Security and Other Regulations Related to International Operations and Ownership
We are subject to laws and regulations worldwide, which may differ among jurisdictions, affecting our operations in areas including, but not limited to: intellectual property ownership and infringement; tax; import and export requirements; anti-corruption; foreign exchange controls and cash repatriation restrictions; conflict minerals; data privacy requirements; competition; advertising; employment; product regulations; environment, health and safety requirements; and consumer laws. For example, government export regulations apply to the encryption or other features contained in some of our products.
In connection with some of our acquisitions, we have been subject to regulatory conditions imposed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ("CFIUS") where we have agreed to implement certain cyber security, physical security and training measures and supply agreements to protect national security. When we became a U.S. domiciled company in fiscal 2022, these CFIUS regulatory conditions terminated. A portion of the business we acquired in our Avera acquisition in fiscal 2021 requires facility security clearances under the National Industrial Security Program. The National Industrial Security Program requires that a corporation maintaining a facility security clearance be effectively insulated from foreign ownership, control or influence (“FOCI”). Because we were organized in Bermuda at the time of the Avera acquisition, we entered into agreements with the U.S. Department of Defense with respect to FOCI mitigation arrangements that relate to our operation of the portion of the Avera business involving facility clearances. These measures and arrangements may materially and adversely affect our operating results due to the increased cost of compliance with these measures. If we fail to comply with our obligations under these agreements, our ability to operate our business may be adversely affected. Now that we are domiciled in the United States, we have requested to be released from some of the above FOCI-related obligations. We can offer no assurance that such a request will be granted in a timely manner or at all.
Primarily as a result of our acquisition of Avera, we are now a party to certain contracts with the U.S. government and its subcontractors. Our contracts with government entities are subject to various procurement regulations and other requirements relating to their formation, administration and performance.
See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional information on regulatory matters.
Environmental Management
We are also subject to environmental rules and regulations in multiple jurisdictions, such as the EU Directive on Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), the EU Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive), China’s regulation on Management Methods for Controlling Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products, and California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.
We believe that our products comply with the current Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive, the European legislation that restricts the use of a number of substances, including lead, and the Regulation, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals SVHC Substances Directive. In addition, each of our manufacturing subcontractors certifies to us compliance with ISO 14001:2004, the international standard related to environmental management. We are also working to establish a “conflict-free” supply chain, including ethical sourcing of certain minerals for our products.
Intellectual Property
Our future revenue growth and overall success depend in large part on our ability to protect our intellectual property. We rely on a combination of patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, contractual provisions, confidentiality agreements and licenses to protect our intellectual property. As of January 29, 2022, we have approximately 10,200 active U.S. and foreign patents issued and approximately 1,300 U.S. and foreign patent applications pending on various aspects of our technology. While we believe the duration of our patents generally covers the expected lives of our products, our patents may not collectively or individually cover every feature on innovation in our product. In addition, our efforts may not be sufficient to protect our intellectual property from misappropriation or infringement. See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for a discussion of the risks associated with our intellectual property.
We have expended and will continue to expend considerable resources in establishing a patent position designed to protect our intellectual property. While our ability to compete is enhanced by our ability to protect our intellectual property, we believe that in view of the rapid pace of technological change, the combination of the technical experience and innovative skills of our employees may be as important to our business as the legal protection of our patents and other proprietary information.
From time to time, we may desire or be required to renew or to obtain licenses from third parties in order to further develop and effectively market commercially viable products or in connection with a pending or future claim or action asserted against us. We cannot be sure that any necessary licenses will be available or will be available on commercially reasonable terms.
The integrated circuit industry is characterized by vigorous pursuit and protection of intellectual property rights, which has resulted in significant and often time consuming and expensive litigation. From time to time, we receive, and may continue to receive in the future, notices that claim we have infringed upon, misappropriated or misused the proprietary rights of other parties.
In addition, we have in the past and may in the future be sued by other parties who claim that we have infringed their patents or misappropriated or misused other intellectual property rights, or who may seek to invalidate one or more of our patents, trademarks, or other rights. Although we defend these claims vigorously, it is possible that we will not prevail in pending or future lawsuits. See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and “Note 11 -Commitments and Contingencies” in our Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements set forth in Part II, Item 8, of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of the risks associated with patent litigation matters.
Cyber Security and Information Security Risk Oversight
The Company has a Cyber Security Governance Committee composed of executives and subject matter experts who meet no less than quarterly to review the Company’s information security, programs, policies, and projects. The Company’s Internal Audit Group reviews the cyber security governance and controls every other year. In addition, at least quarterly the Audit Committee reviews reports on cyber security from the Chief Information Officer, the Chief Information Security Officer and other members of the Company’s management team.
We regularly perform risk assessments relating to cyber security and technology risks. More specifically, an independent third party performs a quarterly penetration test of Marvell’s IT infrastructure. Risks identified in this process are analyzed to determine the impact on the Company and the likelihood of occurrence. Such risks are continuously monitored. We conduct information security training as part of our ongoing compliance program, and every employee of the Company is required to participate in such training. We install and regularly update anti-malware and endpoint detection and response (EDR software) on all IT-managed systems and workstations to detect and prevent malicious code from impacting our systems.
The Company has not experienced a material security breach in the last three years, and as a result, we have not incurred any net expenses from such a breach. We have not been penalized or paid any amount under an information security breach settlement over the last three years. Further, the Company annually assesses its insurance policy and has determined not to purchase cyber related insurance.
Competition
The markets for our products are intensely competitive, and are characterized by rapid technological change, evolving industry standards, frequent new product introductions and pricing pressures. Competition has intensified as a result of the increasing demand for higher levels of performance, integration and smaller process geometries. We expect competition to further intensify as current competitors strengthen the depth and breadth of their product offerings, either through in-house development or by acquiring existing technology. In addition, some of our customers have chosen to develop certain semiconductor products internally and this trend may continue to proliferate. We believe that our ability to compete successfully in the rapidly evolving markets for our products depends on multiple factors, including, but not limited to:
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the performance, features, quality and price of our products;
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the development execution, timing and success of enhanced and new product introductions by us, our customers and our competitors;
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the emergence, rate of adoption and acceptance of new industry standards;
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market demand trends;
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competitive tactics;
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our ability to obtain adequate foundry capacity with the appropriate technological capability; and
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the number and nature of our competitors in a given market.
Companies that compete directly with our businesses include, but are not limited to, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Broadcom Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd, Intel Corporation, MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc., MediaTek Inc., Microchip Technology Inc., Nvidia Corporation, NXP Semiconductors N.V., Phison Electronics Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Realtek Semiconductor Corporation, Semtech Corporation, Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, and Socionext Inc. We expect increased competition in the future from both emerging and established companies, as well as from alliances among competitors, customers or other third parties, any of which could acquire significant market share. See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for a discussion of competitive risks associated with our business.
We expect that the average unit selling prices of our products will continue to be subject to significant pricing pressures. In order to offset expected declines in the selling prices of our products, we will need to continue to introduce innovative new products and attempt to reduce the cost to design and manufacture our products. To accomplish this, we intend to continue to implement design changes that lower the cost of manufacturing, assembly and testing of our products. See “Risk Factors” under Item 1A of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for a discussion of pricing risks.
Human Capital
Marvell’s human capital objectives are to attract, retain and develop high quality talent with the technical and other skills necessary to execute on our business objectives. To support these objectives, Marvell’s human resources programs, which include talent acquisition, total rewards, and learning and development, are designed to train and facilitate internal talent mobility to create a high-performing, diverse workforce. Our programs are designed to reward and support employees through competitive pay and benefits as well as enhance the Company’s culture through efforts aimed at making the workplace more engaging and inclusive and develop talent to prepare them for critical roles and leadership positions for the future.
Our Board of Directors and Board committees provide oversight on certain human capital matters. The Audit Committee provides oversight of business risks and the Company’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, both of which have relevance for human capital. The Nominating and Governance Committee of the Board has oversight for Marvell’s Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy, which includes talent attraction and retention and inclusion and diversity. The Executive Compensation Committee provides oversight of the Company’s overall compensation philosophy, policies and programs, and assesses whether the Company’s compensation establishes appropriate incentives for executive officers and employees. The Board also conducts talent reviews and succession planning at least annually.
The Company employed 6,729 people as of January 29, 2022. As of January 29, 2022, our global workforce was comprised of approximately: 99.5% full time employees and 0.5% part time employees. Our employees sit across three geographical regions: 52% of employees are based in the Americas, 37% are in APAC (which includes India) and 11% are in EMEA.
We continually monitor employee turnover, as given the nature of our business, our success depends upon highly trained personnel with the technical skills necessary to execute on our business objectives. We believe the combination of competitive compensation and career growth and development opportunities help to increase employee tenure and reduce voluntary turnover. Intern and entry level professional new hires are an important part of our overall talent pipeline and strategy, as students and entry level professionals often have knowledge in the latest research and innovations, and we want Marvell to benefit from that knowledge.
Competitive Compensation and Benefits
We provide employee wages that we believe are competitive and consistent with employee positions, skill levels, experience, knowledge, and geographic location. We evaluate the effectiveness of our executive compensation and benefit programs and compare those programs against those of our peers within the industry. We align our executives’ long-term equity compensation with our stockholders’ interests by linking realizable pay with performance. Marvell provides comprehensive and affordable health and wellness coverage to all our employees.
Culture, Engagement and Development
Marvell is a dynamic, interactive, high-energy workplace, where people are self-motivated and encouraged to make a difference.
We have defined four core behaviors to help guide our actions and interactions with people both inside and outside the company:
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Act with integrity and treat everyone with respect,
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Innovate to solve customer needs,
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Execute with thoroughness and rigor, and
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Help others achieve their objectives.
Our focus is on creating an environment where people feel respected, valued and engaged. Employee feedback is one way for us to know how we are doing and where we can do better. We regularly conduct Voice of the Employee and other surveys. This is a valuable opportunity for all employees to provide open, candid, confidential feedback about what it's like to work at Marvell. We offer a variety of employee training programs, including management training programs aligned with the level of managers, technical training, mandatory compliance trainings and voluntary professional development opportunities. In addition, we organize a wide range of employee events designed to foster a sense of community at Marvell.
The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges for all individuals and businesses. Our leadership has continued to engage and support employees through the pandemic in a range of ways, including sending frequent communication and resources, providing a number of four day “recharge weekends,” and surveying employees on the experience of working from home. See the Health & Safety section below for more details.
Inclusion & Diversity
At Marvell, we value the uniqueness that an inclusive and diverse global team brings to our company, and we are focused on creating an environment that leverages the perspectives and contributions of each employee. As one part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen our inclusion and diversity, we began to release regular updates of our diversity data to enable all of our stakeholders, including our investors, partners and employees to track our progress.
Health & Safety
Marvell is committed to protecting the health and safety of all individuals, including employees, contractors and vendors, affected by our activities. In this regard, we continuously seek to reduce workplace hazards and risks.
The COVID-19 pandemic placed new emphasis on health and safety at Marvell, and we took various steps to promote the health, safety and wellness of our employees during the ongoing crisis.
Climate Change
Marvell recognizes that climate change may pose potential risks and may create potential opportunities to our organization and is taking steps to further identify and assess the nature and magnitude of these risks and opportunities. As such, Marvell is working to develop plans to mitigate and manage any potential material climate change risks and to benefit from any potential climate change opportunities.
Marvell has a robust enterprise risk management process in place that may be leveraged to identify potential climate-related risks and to assess the magnitude of such risks. We have already committed to setting a Science Based Target aligned with the latest climate science to remain within the 1.5°C warming limit established under the Paris Agreement, developing a low-carbon transition plan, and improving our climate change disclosures by reporting in alignment with the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures framework, including conducting a scenario analysis. See Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors,” including but not limited to the risk detailed under the caption “We must comply with a variety of existing and future laws and regulations, as well as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives, that could impose substantial costs on us and may adversely affect our business.”
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