SYNAPTICS Inc

Overview

We are a leading worldwide developer and fabless supplier of premium mixed signal semiconductor solutions that enable people to engage with connected devices and data, engineering exceptional experiences throughout the home, at work, in the car and on the go. We provide our customers with sensing, processing, and connecting solutions, which represent the three foundational elements of the Internet of Things, or IoT. We supply connectivity, sensors, and artificial intelligence, or AI, enhanced processor solutions to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, that design IoT products and devices for automobiles, enterprise workspace devices, virtual reality, smartphones, tablets, and notebook computers. Our currently served markets include IoT, personal computer, or PC, Enterprise and Automotive, and Mobile. Our solutions either contain or consist of our wireless, voice and speech, video processing, fingerprint, authentication, display driver, or touch semiconductor solutions, which include our hardware, and, where applicable, firmware and software.

Our website is located atwww.synaptics.com. Through our website, we make available, free of charge, all our Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, filings, including our annual reports on Form 10-K, our proxy statements, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our current reports on Form 8-K, as well as Form 3, Form 4, and Form 5 Reports for our directors, officers, and principal stockholders, together with amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Sections 13(a), 15(d), or 16 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. These reports are available on our website promptly after their electronic filing with the SEC. You can also read these SEC filings and reports over the Internet at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Our website also includes corporate governance information, including our Code of Conduct, our Code of Ethics for the Chief Executive Officer and Senior Financial Officers, and our Board Committee Charters. The contents of our website, including the content contained in any website addresses or links included elsewhere in this report, are not incorporated into or deemed to be a part of this report.

We were initially incorporated in California in 1986 and were re-incorporated in Delaware in 2002. Our fiscal year is the 52- or 53-week period ending on the last Saturday in June. The fiscal years presented in this report are the 53-week period ended June 29, 2024 and 52-week periods ended June 24, 2023, and June 25, 2022.

Core IoT Applications Market

Our Core IoT market solutions center around three foundational elements of IoT devices: sensing, processing, and connecting. We Sense, Process, and Connect by capturing critical data with diverse sensors, processing it efficiently at the device’s edge, and ensuring seamless device connectivity. Our integrated approach delivers a dependable and innovative IoT experience, powering a smarter, connected world.

Our solutions broadly consist of wireless connectivity (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, Thread, global positioning system, or GPS, and Ultra Low Energy, or ULE) products, System-on-Chip, or SoC, products, and our Astra family of AI-native edge processors. Our products enable smart devices at the edge of a network such as smart assistant speakers, over-the-top multimedia devices, wireless speakers, appliances, set-top boxes, high-speed connectivity for virtual reality devices, video surveillance and voice over IP SoCs.

We continue to expand our footprint in various devices by bringing converged video, vision, audio, and voice technologies coupled with artificial intelligence and wireless connectivity capabilities. Our deep investment in far-field voice technology, our intellectual property portfolio for video, vision, audio and security, and our significant experience enabling Android-based platforms for service providers, coupled with our focus on enabling high performance, low power, and highly secure SoC solutions enable us to effectively serve our existing customers and position us to grow our addressable market.

Enterprise and Automotive Product Applications Market

Our Enterprise product applications include solutions for PCs, a wide range of audio and video products and solutions for enterprise workspaces. We provide custom and semi-custom product solutions for navigation, cursor control, access to devices or applications through fingerprint authentication, and user presence detection solutions, for many of the world’s premier PC OEMs. These functions are offered as both stand-alone and integrated touch pads plus fingerprint biometric solutions and as chipsets with integrated visual sensing software algorithms. In addition to notebook applications, other PC product applications for our technology include peripherals, such as high-end keyboards and accessory touchpads. Our products enable voice driven intelligent devices including those integrating far-field technology, personal voice and audio products, video interface solutions for docking stations, image processing solutions for use in printers, and fax modems.

Our Automotive product applications include display and touch integrated circuits for use in automobiles. Our automotive solutions include over a decade of mass production experience in mature touch solutions and display drivers adapted from our mobile consumer business to meet automotive-grade quality standards.

Mobile Product Applications Markets

Mobile product applications include smartphones, tablets, large touchscreen applications, as well as a variety of mobile, handheld, and entertainment devices. We believe our intellectual property portfolio, engineering know-how, systems engineering experience, technological expertise, and experience in providing human experience product solutions to major OEMs position us to be a key technological enabler for multiple consumer electronic devices targeted to meet the mobile product applications markets.

We believe our existing technologies, our range of product solutions, and our emphasis on ease of use, advanced functionality, small size, low power consumption, durability, and reliability enable us to serve the markets for mobile product applications and other electronic devices.

Broadcom

In February 2023, we completed the acquisition of certain GPS developed technology intangible assets from Broadcom for an aggregate consideration of $30.0 million, which was paid in cash in the previous fiscal year.

In July 2023, we entered into a transaction with Broadcom to extend the exclusivity period of certain developed technologies and to license certain technology assets for an aggregate consideration of $130.0 million, which was paid in cash in the first quarter of fiscal 2024.

Emza

On October 25, 2022, we acquired all of the outstanding shares of Emza for total purchase consideration of $15.8 million, which was paid in cash. The results of Emza are included in our consolidated financial statements for the periods from October 25, 2022.

Our Strategy

Our objective is to continue to enhance our position as a leading supplier of premium semiconductor product solutions for each of the target markets in which we operate, including the core IoT applications market, the enterprise and automotive product applications market, and the mobile product applications markets, with a key focus on expanding our market share. Key aspects of our strategy to achieve this objective include those set forth below.

Extend Our Technological Leadership

We plan to utilize our extensive intellectual property portfolio, engineering know-how, and technological expertise to extend the functionality of our current product solutions and offer new and innovative product solutions to customers across multiple markets. We intend to continue utilizing our technological expertise to reduce the overall size, cost, and power consumption of our product solutions while increasing their applications, capabilities, and performance. We plan to continue enhancing the ease of use and functionality of our solutions. We plan to invest in our research and development efforts through our engineering activities, including advancement of existing technologies, the hiring of key engineering personnel, and strategic acquisitions and alliances. We believe that these efforts will enable us to meet customer expectations and achieve our goal of supplying, on a timely and cost-effective basis, easy to use, functional human experience semiconductor product solutions to our target markets.

Focus on and Grow in the IoT Market

We intend to capitalize on the growth of the IoT market including connectivity and processor solutions, AI-native applications, virtual reality, and wearables. We intend to build upon our existing innovative and intuitive and intelligent semiconductor product solutions portfolio and continue to address the evolving portability, connectivity, security, and functionality requirements of these new markets. We will offer our solutions to existing and potential customers to enable increased functionality, reduced size, lower cost, simplified security, enhanced industrial design features, and to enhance the user experience of our OEMs’ products. We plan to utilize our existing technologies as well as aggressively pursue new technologies as new markets evolve that demand new solutions.

The semiconductor industry is driving transformation across applications with the use of AI. Our solutions help customers to integrate AI in their edge devices and applications. Since 2017, Synaptics has developed products with integrated neural processing engines to help customers accelerate their AI capabilities. We intend to capitalize on edge AI opportunities with our processor solutions.

Pursue Strategic Relationships and Acquisitions

We intend to develop and expand our strategic relationships to enhance our ability to offer value-added semiconductor product solutions to our customers, penetrate new markets, and strengthen the technological leadership of our product solutions. We also intend to evaluate the potential acquisitions of companies and assets in order to expand our technological expertise and to establish or strengthen our presence and product offerings in selected target markets.

Fabless Semiconductor Manufacturing

We selectively partner with foundries and backend processors to solidify our longstanding key supply chain relationships. This strategy results in a scalable business model, enables us to concentrate on our core competencies of research and development and product design and engineering, and reduces our capital expenditures and working capital requirements. Our fabless semiconductor manufacturing strategy allows us to maintain a variable cost model, in which we do not incur most of our manufacturing costs until our product solutions have been shipped and invoiced to our customers.

Products

Our family of product solutions allows our customers to solve their interface needs and differentiate their products from those of their competitors.

Wireless Connectivity

Our wireless connectivity solutions include state-of-the-art Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, Zigbee, Thread, Matter, GPS, GNSS, and ULE to address broad IoT market applications including home automation, multimedia streamers, security sensors, surveillance cameras, wireless speakers, games, drones, printers, wearable and fitness devices, in addition to numerous other applications which require a wireless connection.

Astra TM

Our Astra family of AI solutions include a scalable portfolio of intelligent edge processors, ranging from highly integrated MPUs to high-performance MCUs architected for an AI-enabled IoT system, a standards-based open software framework, rapid prototyping kits, full-featured AI/ML toolkits, and Synaptics’ Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® connectivity solutions. Synaptics also provides the Astra™ Machina™ Foundation Series Modular developer kit for Synaptics SL-Series of high-performance embedded processors.

Ultra-Low Power Edge AI

Our ultra-low power edge AI platform includes a highly integrated edge AI SoC designed for battery powered wireless devices equipped with audio or camera capabilities for consumer and industrial IoT applications. These solutions are designed for a wide range of power constrained IoT applications used in office buildings, retail, factories, warehouses, robotics, and smart homes and cities.

Voice Over IP

Our Digital Voice Family, or DVF, of SoC products is a comprehensive solution for developing affordable, scalable and power efficient VoIP, home and office products. DVF facilitates rapid introduction of embedded features into residential devices such as cordless IP and instant messaging phones. Built on an open platform with multi-ARM processors running on Linux OS, DVF includes IPfonePro™, software development kit for IP phones and ATAs.

AudioSmart®

AudioSmart products bring forward optimum analog, mixed-signal and digital signal processor, or DSP, technologies for high-fidelity voice and audio processing. AudioSmart also includes personal voice and audio solutions for high-performance headsets that enable active noise cancellation.

DisplayLink®

Our DisplayLink products utilize highly efficient video encode/decode algorithms to deliver a semiconductor-based solution which transmits compressed video frames across low bandwidth connections. These solutions are used in PC docking applications, conference room video display systems, and video casting applications.

ConnectSmart™

Our ConnectSmart video interface IC portfolio offers a full range of high-speed video/audio/data connectivity solutions that are designed for linking CPUs/GPUs and various endpoints for applications including PC docking stations, travel docks, dongles, protocol converters and virtual reality head mounted displays.

Natural ID®

Our Natural ID family of capacitive-based fingerprint ID products is designed for use in notebook PCs, PC peripherals, automobiles, and other applications. Our Natural ID family of products spans a range of form factors, colors, and materials suitable for design on the front, back or side of a device.

TouchPad TM

Our TouchPad family of products, which can take the place of, and exceed the functionality of a mouse, consists of a touch-sensitive pad that senses the position and movement of one or more fingers on its surface through the measurement of capacitance. Our TouchPad solutions also offer various advanced features, including scrolling, customizable tap zones, tapping and dragging of icons, and device interaction.

ClearPad®

Our ClearPad family of products enables the user to interact directly with the display on electronic devices, such as mobile smartphones, tablets, and automobiles. We typically sell our ClearPad solution as a chip, together with customer-specific firmware, to sensor manufacturers, OLED manufacturers or LCD manufacturers, to integrate into their touch-enabled products.

ClearView TM

Our ClearView display driver products offer advanced image processing and low power technology for displays on electronic devices, including smartphones and tablets. Our virtual reality bridge and virtual reality display driver integrated circuit, or DDIC, chips enable our customers to move to higher resolution and faster response displays

TouchView TM

Our TouchView solutions include our TDDI products that combine two functions, a touch controller, and a display driver, into a single chip that incorporates all the features of our ClearView and ClearPad products. TouchView products are used in large screen devices, including notebooks and tablets, and are also certified for automotive display applications.

Technologies

We have developed and own an extensive array of technologies, encompassing ASICs, firmware, software, mechanical and electrical designs, display systems, pattern recognition, touch-sensing technologies, fingerprint sensing, voice, audio, imaging, modem, and multimedia technologies. We continue to develop technology in these areas. We believe these technologies and the related intellectual property rights create barriers for competitors and allow us to provide high-value human experience semiconductor product solutions in a variety of high-growth markets.

Our broad line of semiconductor product solutions is currently based upon the following key technologies:

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Proprietary vector co-processor technology;

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Multimedia processing technology;

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Voice and audio technology;

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Pattern recognition technology;

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Deep learning and neural network inferencing technology.

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Mixed-signal integrated circuit technology;

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Wireless connectivity technology;

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Video interface and compression technology;

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Imaging and modem technology;

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Capacitive position and force sensing technology;

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Capacitive active pen technology;

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Human presence detection technology;

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Multi-touch technology; and

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Display systems and circuit technology.

In addition to these technologies, we develop firmware and device driver software that we incorporate into our products, which provide unique and advanced features. In addition, our ability to integrate all our products to interface with major operating systems provides us with a competitive advantage.

Proprietary Vector Co-Processor Technology. Our vector co-processor technology is designed for use in our ASICs, accompanying either one of our own proprietary microcontroller cores or a commercially available one. The co-processor boosts an ASIC’s computational performance by efficiently processing vectors of data for a range of mathematical operations. This allows us to implement more computationally intensive algorithms within our firmware.

Multimedia Processing Technology. This technology allows us to create multimedia SoC products for set-top boxes, soundbars, digital personal assistants, smart displays, virtual reality, OTT, audio, and video. Our video processing technology includes hardware and algorithms to reduce analog and digital noise, convert to different video formats, and enhance color and contrast. Our products include security and secure encrypt/decrypt technology, including secure boot and hardware root of trust.

Voice and Audio Technology. This technology allows us to develop human experience and communication products based on voice and audio interaction. The technology embodies a broad range of analog and mixed signal circuits expertise and audio signal processing algorithms, including:

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Noise suppression;

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Acoustic echo cancellation;

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Active noise cancellation;

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Trigger word detection;

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Mid-field and far-field voice processing;

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Audio digital signal processor architecture;

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Audio codecs;

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Audio post processing;

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High performance audio analog-to-digital converters, or ADCs, and digital-to-analog converters, or DACs;

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Audio amplifiers;

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Low power audio processing;

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Speaker protection; and

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Product acoustic design.

Pattern Recognition Technology. This technology is a set of software algorithms and techniques for converting real world data, such as gestures and handwriting, into a digital form that can be recognized and manipulated within a computer. Our technology provides reliable gesture decoding and handwriting recognition and can be used in other applications such as signature verification for a richer user experience.

Deep Learning and Neural Network Inferencing Technology. This technology allows us to create and train deep neural networks for audio, image processing, video processing and computer vision functions. Some of our products contain hardware designed to evaluate deep neural networks securely and with low latency. We also have technology that allows us to compress our trained neural networks for more efficient AI-at-the-edge on our hardware. These neural network algorithms improve the quality of the sensed data (for example, reduce the noise, or increase the resolution) as well as interpret the sensed data.

Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuit Technology. This hybrid analog-digital integrated circuit technology combines the power of digital computation with the ability to interface with non-digital, real-world signals, such as the position of a finger or stylus on a surface. Our patented design techniques permit us to utilize this technology to optimize our core ASIC engine for all our products. Our mixed-signal technology consists of a broad portfolio of circuit expertise in areas such as the following:

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High-speed serial interfaces;

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Analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters;

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Electromagnetic emissions suppression and susceptibility hardening;

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Very Large Scale Integrated, or VLSI, digital circuits with multiple clock and power domains;

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Communications and signal processing circuits;

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Power management (switching converters, charge pumps, and LDOs);

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Precision capacitance measurement;

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Display timing controllers, or TCONs.

Wireless Technology. Our wireless connectivity solutions include discrete and integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth solutions, and satellite-based GPS/GNSS mobile navigation receivers. Wi-Fi allows devices on a local area network to communicate wirelessly, adding the convenience of mobility to the utility of high-speed data networks. We offer a family of high performance, low power Wi-Fi chipsets. We offer products which incorporate the latest Wi-Fi standards such as 802.11AX, which is known as Wifi-6 and Wifi-6E. Bluetooth is a low power technology that enables direct connectivity between devices. We offer a family of Bluetooth silicon and software solutions that enable customers to easily and cost-effectively add Bluetooth functionality to virtually any device, including Bluetooth 6.0 and Bluetooth Enterprise True Wireless Stereo (TWS). These solutions include combination chips that offer integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth functionality, which provides significant performance advantages over discrete solutions.

We also offer a family of GPS and GNSS semiconductor products, software, and location data services. These products are part of a broad location platform that enable customer devices to wirelessly communicate and receive precise location and navigational data from satellite constellations for use in various location services applications.

As part of our wireless technology, DECT based devices provide worldwide coverage for telephony applications, supporting most RF bands and cordless protocols standardized around the world. This includes 1.7GHz -1.9GHz used in Europe, U.S., Korea, Japan and Latin America; and 2.4GHz – used in Japan, China, India and the U.S., along with other proprietary protocols for specific use cases.

Video Compression Technology. Our video interface solutions include our ConnectSmart and DisplayLink portfolios, offering a full range of interface solutions that connect devices to external displays and support the latest versions of the most widely used protocols, connectors, and operating systems. Our flexible product lines for connecting devices combine high-performance interface with low power consumption and are designed for both commercial and consumer end-products. Our solutions have been broadly adopted by the top OEMs and original device manufacturers, or ODMs, to enable video expansion and protocol conversion, leverage high-end features, and deliver the bandwidth needed to drive multiple high-resolution external displays simultaneously.

Imaging and Modem Technology. This technology allows us to create a family of SoC integrated circuits and software for printers, video cameras, fax machines and modems. Key functional blocks include:

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Image processing hardware accelerators;

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Printer imaging pipeline;

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Inkjet, laser, and thermal print engine and motor control;

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Scan/camera and peripheral control; and

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Data and fax modem hardware and firmware.

Capacitive Fingerprint Sensing Technology. Our fingerprint sensing technology simplifies the system or application authentication process by substituting the user’s fingerprint for the login name and password. Our capacitive fingerprint sensing technology provides for fingerprint authentication by scanning and matching an image of a user’s fingerprint, as well as initial fingerprint enrollment. Our sensing technology also incorporates spoof detection and includes many implementation choices including the back of the phone or PC, button integration, touchpad integration, and under glass.

Capacitive Position and Force Sensing Technology. Our Position Sensing technology provides a method for sensing the presence, position, and contact area of one or more fingers or a stylus on a flat or curved surface. Our technology works with very light touch, supports full multi-touch capabilities, and provides highly responsive cursor navigation, scrolling, and selection. It uses no moving parts, can be implemented under plastic or glass, and is extremely durable. Our technology can also track one or more fingers in proximity to the touch surface. Our Force Sensing technology senses the direction and magnitude of a force applied to an object. Our electronic circuitry determines the magnitude and direction of an applied force, permits very accurate sensing of tiny changes in capacitance, and minimizes electrical interference from other sources. Our capacitive force sensing technology can be integrated with our position sensing technology.

Capacitive Active Pen Technology. This technology allows us to develop a pen that can be used for input on a capacitive touchscreen. As well as generating a signal that allows the touchscreen to track the pen, additional data, such as the pen applied force and pen button states, are also communicated to the touchscreen device. Information can also be communicated from the touchscreen to the pen.

Multi-touch Technology. This technology allows us to create capacitive touch products that simultaneously track the presence, position, and other characteristics of multiple objects in contact with or in close proximity to a flat or curved touch surface. It enables, for example, the recognition of multi-finger gestures, the tracking of a stylus position while the user’s palm is also in contact with the touch surface, and the simultaneous interaction of multiple users with the same touch surface.

Display Systems and Circuit Technology. This technology enables us to develop optimized human experience semiconductor product solutions with improved compatibility with their application environments. This technology consists of mobile and large format display semiconductor expertise, including the following functional blocks:

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TCONs;

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Thin-Film-Transistor, or TFT, gamma references;

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Smooth dimming and content adaptive brightness control;

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Contrast enhancement;

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Color enhancement;

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Gamma curve control;

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Force, touch, and display synchronization;

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Local area active contrast optimization;

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Adaptive image compression and decompression;

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Sub-pixel rendering;

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Demura compensation;

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Rounded corner processing;

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Frame rate control;

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High-speed serial interfaces such as mobile industry processor interface display serial interface, or MIPI DSI, and Qualcomm mobile display digital interface, or MDDI; and

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Display power circuits such as inductive switchers, charge pumps, and LDOs.

This technology also enables us to develop advanced products that combine the functions of the display and touch sensing systems to enable highly integrated display and touch functionality with improved performance, thinner form factors, and lower system cost.

Our latest addition to our automotive portfolio is an automotive-grade TDDI for indium gallium zinc oxide and amorphous silicon gate-in-panel displays and low-temperature polycrystalline panels up to 4K resolution.

Research and Development

We conduct ongoing research and development programs that focus on advancing our existing technologies, improving our current product solutions, developing new products, improving design and manufacturing processes, enhancing the quality and performance of our product solutions, and expanding our technologies to serve new markets. Our goal is to provide our customers with innovative solutions that address their needs and improve their competitive positions.

Our research and development programs focus on the development of accurate, easy to use, reliable, and intuitive human experiences for electronic devices. We believe our innovative interface technologies can be applied to many diverse products, and we believe the interface is a key factor in the differentiation of many products. AI-at-the-edge is a focus area for us in enabling better performance and enhancing user experience in many of these products. We believe that our technologies enable us to provide customers with product solutions that have significant advantages over alternative technologies in terms of functionality, size, power consumption, durability, and reliability. We also intend to pursue strategic relationships and acquisitions to enhance our research and development capabilities, leverage our technology, and shorten our time to market with new technological applications.

Our research, design, and engineering teams frequently work directly with our customers to design custom solutions for specific applications. We focus on enabling our customers to overcome their technical barriers and enhance the performance of their products. We believe our engineering know-how and electronic systems expertise provide significant benefits to our customers by enabling them to concentrate on their core competencies of production and marketing.

As of the end of fiscal 2024, we employed 1,248 people in our technology, engineering, and product design functions in the United States, China, Taiwan, Japan, Israel, the United Kingdom, India, Germany, Poland, and Korea.

Intellectual Property Rights

Our success and ability to compete depend in part on our ability to maintain the proprietary aspects of our technologies and products. We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, confidentiality agreements, and other statutory and contractual provisions to protect our intellectual property, but these measures may provide only limited protection.

As of June 2024, we held 2,603 active patents and 555 pending patent applications worldwide that expire between 2024 and 2044. Collectively, these patents and patent applications cover various aspects of our key technologies, including those for touch sensing, voice processing, secure biometrics, display drivers, touch and display integration, docks and adapters, video interfaces, wired and wireless connectivity, audio processing, video processing, edge computing, open AI tools, and computer vision. Our proprietary firmware and software, including source code, are also protected by copyright laws and applicable trade secret laws.

Our extensive array of technologies includes those related to ICs, firmware, software, and mechanical hardware. Our products rely on a combination of these technologies, making it difficult to use any single technology as the basis for replicating our products. Furthermore, the lengths of our customers’ design cycles and the customizations required within the products we provide to our customers also serve to protect our intellectual property rights.

Customers

Our customers include many of the world’s largest mobile and PC OEMs, based on unit shipments, as well as many large IoT OEMs, automotive manufacturers and a variety of consumer electronics manufacturers. Our demonstrated track record of technological leadership, design innovation, product performance, cost-effectiveness, and on-time deliveries have resulted in our leadership position in providing human experience semiconductor product solutions. We believe our strong relationship with our OEM customers, many of which are also currently developing product solutions which are focused in several of our target markets, will continue to position us as a source of supply for their product offerings.

We generally supply our products to OEMs through their contract manufacturers, supply chain or distributors. We consider both the OEMs and their contract manufacturers or supply chain partners to be our customers, as well as in some cases, our distributors. Both the OEMs and their partners may determine the design and pricing requirements and make the overall decision regarding the use of our human experience semiconductor product solutions in their products. The contract manufacturers and distributors place orders with us for the purchase of our products, take title to the products purchased upon delivery by us, and pay us directly for those purchases. The majority of these customers do not have return rights except for warranty provisions.

Sales and Marketing

We sell our product solutions for incorporation into the products of our OEM customers. We generate sales through direct sales employees as well as outside sales representatives, distributors and value-added resellers. Our sales personnel receive substantial technical assistance and support from our internal technical marketing and engineering resources because of the highly technical nature of our product solutions. Sales frequently result from multi-level sales efforts that involve senior management, design engineers, and our sales personnel interacting with our customers' decision makers throughout the product development and order process.

As of the end of fiscal 2024, we employed 216 sales and marketing professionals. We maintain customer support offices domestically and internationally, which are located in the U.S., Taiwan, China, India, Korea, Japan, United Kingdom and Switzerland. In addition, we utilize value-added resellers and sales distributors that are primarily located in the U.S., China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Germany.

International sales constituted nearly all of our revenue for each of fiscal 2024, 2023, and 2022. Approximately 66%, 63% and 66% of our sales in fiscal 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively, were made to companies located in China and Taiwan that provide design and manufacturing services for major IoT, notebook computer, and mobile product applications OEMs. Our sales are almost exclusively denominated in U.S. dollars. See Note 15. Segment, Customers, and Geographic Information in the notes to the consolidated financial statements for additional information on revenue by geographic location and product category.

Manufacturing

We employ a fabless semiconductor manufacturing platform through third-party relationships. We currently utilize third-party semiconductor wafer manufacturers to supply us with silicon wafers integrating our proprietary design specifications. The completed silicon wafers are forwarded to third-party package and test processors for further processing into die and packaged ASICs, as applicable, which are then utilized in our custom module products or processed as our ASIC-based solution.

After processing and testing, the die and ASICs are consigned to various contract manufacturers for assembly or are shipped directly to our customers. During the assembly process, our die or ASIC is either combined with other components to complete the module for our custom product solutions or the ASIC is maintained as a standalone finished good. The finished assembled product is subsequently shipped directly to our customers or by our contract manufacturers directly to our customers for integration into their products.

We believe our third-party manufacturing strategy provides a scalable business model, enables us to concentrate on our core competencies of research and development, technological advances, and product design and engineering, and reduces our capital investment.

Our third-party contract manufacturers and semiconductor fabricators are predominately Asia-based organizations. We generally provide our contract manufacturers with six-month rolling forecasts of our production requirements. As a result of past supply constraints and capacity shortages affecting the global semiconductor industry, we entered into long-term capacity and pricing agreements with some suppliers. Our reliance on these parties exposes us to vulnerability owing to our dependence on a few sources of supply. In some cases, we have alternative sources of supply to mitigate supplier risk. We may establish relationships with other contract manufacturers in order to reduce our dependence on any single source of supply.

Periodically, we purchase inventory from our contract manufacturers when a customer delays its delivery schedule or cancels its order. In those circumstances in which our customer has cancelled its order and we purchase inventory from our contract manufacturers, we consider a write-down to reduce the carrying value of the inventory purchased to its net realizable value. We charge write-downs to reduce the carrying value of obsolete, slow moving, and non-usable inventory to its net realizable value and charge such write-downs to cost of revenue. We also record a liability and charge to cost of revenue for estimated losses on inventory we are obligated to purchase from our contract manufacturers when such losses become probable from customer delays or order cancellations. In addition, the impact of entering into long-term capacity agreements could create significant inventory write-down if the end customer demand substantially declines.

Competition

IoT

Our diverse SoC solutions integrate artificial intelligence hardware engines, video processing, far-field voice and linguistics processing products and are sold into market segments that offer significant potential growth, ranging from home automation applications, smart assistant platforms, surveillance cameras, to set-top-box/over-the-top, or STB/OTT platforms to a wide variety of embedded products in the broader IoT market. The markets for STB/OTT products, surveillance cameras, home automation, smart assistant solutions and embedded IoT products require strong technology innovation in silicon and software along with deep systems and systems engineering expertise.

We provide voice processing silicon and software solutions for voice-enabled devices, consumer and commercial imaging, and next-generation audio applications. In addition to our voice solutions, we support the audio headphone and virtual reality head mounted display industry with universal serial bus-c, or USB-C, audio codec solutions for next generation wireless audio devices and wearables.

Our wireless products for use in IoT application markets include our technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi-Bluetooth combinations, and GPS/GNSS support our customers’ need to develop products which can wirelessly communicate to networks, remote control of edge-devices, machine-to-machine communication, among other purposes.

Enterprise and Automotive and Mobile

Our touch, display and fingerprint-based semiconductor products are sold into markets for PC product applications, mobile product applications, and other electronic devices. The markets for touchscreen products are characterized by rapidly changing technology and intense competition.

Our automotive products include touch, display driver, SmartBridge, and TDDI solutions for major automotive OEMs. Our IoT video interface products are sold into PC and smartphone docks and wireless adapter market applications.

We also provide fax, modem and image processors and software solutions for printers, fax machines, point of sale terminals, and medical applications.

Corporate Responsibility

We strive to be a leading corporate citizen. We strive to uphold the most ethical standards in our business practices and policies, and we believe that sustainable corporate practices and consistent attention to social and governance priorities will help enhance long-term value for our stockholders. With guidance from our Board of Directors, our management team applies an integrated methodology to financial matters, corporate governance, and corporate responsibility, leading to increased accountability, better decision making and ultimately enhanced long-term value. We consider environment, social, and governance, or ESG, matters in our business goals, strategies and risk management.

We have implemented internal programs and initiatives to reinforce our commitment to reduce our natural resource consumption, improving sustainability, disposing of end-of-life products in an environmentally safe manner, reducing waste, and increasing reuse and recycling programs company-wide.

Our Chief Information Officer, or CIO, also acts as our Chief Sustainability Officer and has responsibility for our Global Workplace Resources function and executes our climate strategy and related issues. Our CIO is responsible for assessing and leading the management of climate-related risks and opportunities, elevating stakeholder concerns and guiding the implementation of climate-related policies, programs and disclosures. As a member of our senior executive team, our CIO is responsible for elevating climate topics to senior leadership and, ultimately, to the Board’s Nominations and Corporate Governance Committee and Audit Committee.

We have adopted a supplier and vendor code of conduct, and businesses in our supply chain are contractually obligated to comply with and support the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct. We expect suppliers and vendors to uphold the highest standards of human rights including anti-discrimination and humane treatment, freedom of association and collective bargaining, prevention of child labor, limits on working hours, minimum fair and living wage, worker feedback and grievance systems. We expect suppliers to exercise due diligence on relevant minerals in their supply chains and to have a policy to reasonably assure that the tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold in the products they manufacture does not directly or indirectly finance or benefit armed groups that perpetrate serious human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country. Our vendors and suppliers are also required to obtain and maintain all required health and safety permits, provide reasonable working and living conditions, have incident management systems and emergency preparedness and response protocols.

Our Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing our ESG policies and practices generally. The Nominations and Corporate Governance Committee has oversight of ESG strategy and receives regular updates from management on our ESG performance. The Audit Committee provides oversight of business risks and our company’s Code of Conduct. Our Board of Directors receives periodic updates from Nominations and Corporate Governance Committee and management on our ESG performance.

Human Capital

Our company has been built on the collective contributions from people of many countries, religions, and ethnic backgrounds. People are our most critical asset and are the core component behind our success. We want to attract, develop, and retain the world’s best talent. As of June 2024, we employed 1,716 employees. Our workforce is distributed globally across 15 countries with 22% of our employees located in North America, 61% located in Asia Pacific and 17% located in Europe and the Middle East. We believe our company attributes differentiate us in the market and have resulted in a lower voluntary attrition rate relative to benchmark data and a higher retention rate in fiscal 2024. Our employee average tenure globally is 5.0 years.

Our Board of Directors and its committees provide oversight on certain workforce management matters including, among other aspects, leadership development, management depth and strength assessment, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and our employee experience survey results. The Audit Committee is responsible for monitoring our business risks and our company’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. The Nominations and Corporate Governance Committee oversees our ESG strategy including talent attraction and retention and inclusion and diversity. The Compensation Committee provides oversight of our overall compensation philosophy, policies, and programs, and assesses whether our compensation establishes appropriate incentives for executive officers and other employees.

Competitive Compensation and Benefits

We provide competitive benefits related to health, wellness, mental health and family resources designed to meet the needs of our diverse global workforce. We have a robust pay for performance philosophy and compensation framework to reward high performance. We align executive compensation with our corporate strategies, business objectives and the creation of long-term value for our stockholders without encouraging unnecessary or excessive risk-taking.

We are committed to proactively caring for the well-being of our employees in an engaging and meaningful way. Almost 50% of our workforce participated in events last year such as global virtual runs and our annual outstep the CEO competition, promoting healthy behavior while raising money for local charities. We also provided opportunities for employees to donate or volunteer their time through various philanthropic programs and events. Additionally, we provided new mental health resources and conducted team building and well-being activities onsite in our global offices.

We also conduct organizational health surveys designed to assess employee engagement, leadership, work environment, and culture. We held an average response rate of 90% for fiscal 2024, which we view as indicative of a high-level of employee engagement.

We invest in our employees, and their professional development by providing opportunities to learn though technical, compliance and other professional training, including through semi-annual development conversations between employees and managers to ensure employees have individualized career discussions that align both with organizational and employee professional development goals. We also make customized learning pathways available through a global platform where all employees can take courses to grow their skill sets.

To ensure we are building leadership strength and capabilities, we have robust talent assessment discussions where high-performing and high potential employees are identified for future growth opportunities, as well as succession planning for future critical leadership positions.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

We embrace diversity and inclusion and strive to provide a rich environment with diverse skills, backgrounds and perspectives. We strongly believe diverse teams are more innovative and productive. Our goal is to cultivate an environment that not only allows for, but also encourages, everyone to collaborate and participate equally to foster individual and company growth. As of June 2024, 20% of global employees, 20% senior executive leadership positions and 38% of our Board of Directors identified as female. To further these objectives in fiscal 2024, we engaged in an internal communications campaign, employee resource group development, measuring our employee’s perceptions on this topic and publishing our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging statement and commitment.

Information about our Executive Officers

The following table sets forth certain information regarding our executive officers as of August 16, 2024:

Michael Hurlstonhas been the President and Chief Executive Officer of our company since August 19, 2019. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Hurlston served as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Finisar Corporation (“Finisar”) from January 2018 to August 2019. Prior to joining Finisar, he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile Connectivity Products/Wireless Communications and Connectivity Division and held senior leadership positions in sales, marketing, and general management at Broadcom Limited (“Broadcom”) and its predecessor corporation from November 2001 through October 2017. Prior to joining Broadcom in 2001, Mr. Hurlston held senior marketing and engineering positions at Oren Semiconductor, Inc., Avasem, Integrated Circuit Systems, Micro Power Systems, Exar and IC Works from 1991 until 2001. Mr. Hurlston is a member of the board of directors and audit committee of Flex Ltd. He is also a member of the board of directors and compensation committee at Astera Labs. Mr. Hurlston serves on the Board of Executive Trustees of the UC Davis Foundation and on the Dean’s Executive Committee for the College of Engineering and the Dean’s Advisory Counsel for the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. Mr. Hurlston holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California, Davis.

Ken Rizvihas been the Chief Financial Officer of our company since July 15, 2024. Prior to joining our company, Mr. Rizvi served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of SMART Global Holdings, Inc., a diversified business focused on providing high-performance, high-availability solutions to enterprise customers, from February 2021 to June 2024. Prior to joining SMART Global Holdings, Mr. Rizvi served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of UTAC Holdings Ltd., a global semiconductor assembly and test services provider, from June 2018 until February 2021. He served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Isola Group, a global materials sciences company, from August 2016 to June 2018. Prior to Isola, Mr. Rizvi held senior leadership roles at Micron Technology, Inc., and ON Semiconductor. He has also served as an associate with Technology Crossover Ventures and as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Rizvi holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Yale University.

Lisa Bodensteinerhas been Senior Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary since November 2023. Prior to joining our company, Ms. Bodensteiner was Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary of Plantronics, Inc. ("Poly") from October 2020 to October 2022. Ms. Bodensteiner served as a Principal of MDAC, LLC, a family-owned real estate company, from June 2016 to October 2020, and Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at SunPower Corporation, a global energy company and provider of solar power solutions, from June 2012 to May 2016. Before joining SunPower, Ms. Bodensteiner held key executive roles at First Solar, Inc. from April 2009 to June 2012 and OptiSolar Inc., where she was also on the leadership team, from October 2007 to April 2009. She also served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer at Calpine Corporation from February 1996 to April 2006. Ms. Bodensteiner holds a Juris Doctor degree from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Nevada

Vikram Gupta has been the Senior Vice President and General Manager of IoT Processors and Chief Product Officer since January 2023. Prior to joining Synaptics, Mr. Gupta was the SVP and GM of IoT Compute and Wireless Business Lines for Infineon Technologies, a manufacturer of semiconductor solutions, from April 2020 to November 2022, where he led the integration and transformation efforts for the $1B+ multi-site business with three product lines following Infineon’s acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor, where he served as VP of Engineering of the IoT Business Unit from 2016 to 2019 and SVP and

GM of the IoT Business Unit from 2019 to 2020. Prior to Cypress Semiconductor, Mr. Gupta navigated a progressive tenure with Broadcom, advancing in leadership and responsibility across both engineering and business. Earlier in his career he was a co-founder of Zeevo, a developer of SOC solutions for Bluetooth and other wireless communications applications, which was ultimately purchased by Broadcom. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology & Science in India and a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Satish Ganesan has been the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intelligent Sensing Division since February 2024. Mr. Ganesan joined Synaptics in November 2019 as our Chief Strategy Officer. Prior to joining our Company, Mr. Ganesan served as Chief Product Officer of Keyssa Inc., a wireless startup focused on short range connectivity, from May 2017 to October 2018. Before that, he held several executive positions focused on IoT and mobile strategy and product marketing at Broadcom Limited from August 2007 to November 2010 and January 2014 to February 2016. He also served as Director, Product Management & Product Marketing at Tilera Corporation from December 2011 to December 2013. He spent his early career in various engineering roles at Xilinx, and holds more than 10 US patents. Mr. Ganesan received his Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, India and his Master of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Cincinnati