Description of Business	12 Months Ended
Dec. 28, 2019
Description of Business
Description of Business	Note 1—Description of Business Netlist, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries (collectively the “Company” or “Netlist”) provides high-performance modular memory subsystems to customers in diverse industries that require enterprise and storage class memory solutions to empower critical business decisions. The Company has a history of introducing disruptive new products, such as one of the first load-reduced dual in-line memory modules (“LRDIMM”) based on its distributed buffer architecture, which has been adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM. The Company was also one of the first to bring NAND flash memory (“NAND flash”) to the memory channel with its NVvault non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (“NVDIMM”) using software-intensive controllers and merging dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”) and NAND flash to solve data bottleneck and data retention challenges encountered in high-performance computing environments. The Company has introduced a new generation of storage class memory products called HybriDIMM to address the growing need for real-time analytics in Big Data applications, in-memory databases, high performance computing and advanced data storage solutions. The Company also resells solid state drive, NAND flash, DRAM products and other component products to end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers. Due to the ground-breaking product development of its engineering teams, Netlist has built a robust portfolio of over 130 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since its inception, the Company has dedicated substantial resources to the development, protection and enforcement of technology innovations it believes are essential to its business. The Company’s early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard registered dual in-line memory module (“RDIMM”) LRDIMM and NVDIMM. Netlist’s objective is to continue to innovate in its field and invest further in its intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing its intellectual property through a combination of product sales and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of the Company’s patents through enforcement actions against parties it believes are infringing them. Netlist was incorporated in June 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. The Company has established a manufacturing facility in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), which became operational in July 2007. The Company operates in one reportable segment, which is the design and manufacture of high-performance memory subsystems for the server, high-performance computing and communications markets. Liquidity The Company incurred net loss of $12.5 million and $17.1 million for the years ended December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018, respectively. The Company has historically financed its operations primarily with revenues generated from operations, including product sales and proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities including convertible debt (see Note 5). The Company has also funded its operations with a revolving line of credit under a bank credit facility and a funding arrangement for costs associated with certain of its legal proceedings (see Notes 4, 5 and 8). On November 14, 2017, the Company entered into an At Market Issuance Sales Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc. (the “Agent”) to sell shares of its common stock, with aggregate gross proceeds of up to $9.0 million, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under which the Agent acted as sales agent (the “ATM Program”) (see Note 9). On August 29, 2018, the Company completed the offering under the ATM Program after raising net proceeds of approximately $8.6 million through the sale of 40,680,368 shares of its common stock, after deducting sales commissions and other offering expenses paid by the Company. On May 17, 2018, the Company entered into a Board approved arm’s length Share Purchase Agreement with a trust controlled by C.K. Hong, its President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, pursuant to which the Company sold to the trust 5,405,405 shares of its common stock at a price per share of $0.148 (the closing price of its common stock as of the signing of the agreement) (See Note 9). The net proceeds received by the Company were $0.8 million. On August 27, 2018, the Company entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with Iliad Research and Trading, L.P. (“Iliad”) (“Iliad Purchase Agreement”), pursuant to which the Company issued a convertible promissory note in the principal amount of $2.3 million (“Iliad Note”) with an original issue discount of $0.2 million. The Iliad Note bore interest at an annual rate of 8% and would mature on August 27, 2020, unless earlier repurchased, redeemed or converted in accordance with its terms. During the year ended December 28, 2019, Iliad fully-converted the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to shares of the Company’s common stock, and as a result, there were no outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note as of December 28, 2019 (See Note 5). On September 12, 2018, the Company entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with certain investors, pursuant to which the Company issued and sold to the investors in a registered offering an aggregate of 22,222,220 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 11,111,110 shares of its common stock at a per share purchase price of $0.45 per share (See Note 9). The net proceeds to the Company from this offering were approximately $9.2 million, after deducting placement agent fees and offering costs paid by the Company. The warrant has a term of five years commencing on the date when it first became exercisable on March 14, 2019 (181 days following the date of its issuance) and has an exercise price of $0.655 per share. On June 24, 2019, the Company entered into a purchase agreement (the “2019 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park Capital Fund, LLC (“Lincoln Park”), pursuant to which the Company had the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $10 million in shares of its common stock over the 36-month term of the 2019 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2019 Purchase Agreement. During the year ended December 28, 2019, Lincoln Park purchased an aggregate of 19,044,762 shares of the Company’s common stock for a net purchase price of $6.4 million (see Note 9). On March 5, 2020, the Company entered into a purchase agreement (the “2020 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which the Company has the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $20 million in shares of its common stock over the 36-month term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2020 Purchase Agreement (see Note 9). Inadequate working capital would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business and operations and could cause the Company to fail to execute its business plan, fail to take advantage of future opportunities or fail to respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. A lack of sufficient funding may also require the Company to significantly modify its business model and/or reduce or cease its operations, which could include implementing cost-cutting measures or delaying, scaling back or eliminating some or all of its ongoing and planned investments in corporate infrastructure, research and development projects, business development initiatives and sales and marketing activities, among other activities. While the Company’s estimates of its operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect and the Company may use its cash resources faster than it anticipates, management believes the Company’s existing cash balance together with cash receipts from revenues, borrowing availability under a bank credit facility (see Note 4), funds available to be raised from the Lincoln Park arrangement (see Note 9) and funds raised through the debt and equity offerings, will be sufficient to meet the Company’s anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months.

Note 1—Description of Business

Netlist, Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiaries (collectively the “Company” or “Netlist”) provides high-performance modular memory subsystems to customers in diverse industries that require enterprise and storage class memory solutions to empower critical business decisions. The Company has a history of introducing disruptive new products, such as one of the first load-reduced dual in-line memory modules (“LRDIMM”) based on its distributed buffer architecture, which has been adopted by the industry for DDR4 LRDIMM. The Company was also one of the first to bring NAND flash memory (“NAND flash”) to the memory channel with its NVvault non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (“NVDIMM”) using software-intensive controllers and merging dynamic random access memory integrated circuits (“DRAM ICs” or “DRAM”) and NAND flash to solve data bottleneck and data retention challenges encountered in high-performance computing environments. The Company has introduced a new generation of storage class memory products called HybriDIMM to address the growing need for real-time analytics in Big Data applications, in-memory databases, high performance computing and advanced data storage solutions. The Company also resells solid state drive, NAND flash, DRAM products and other component products to end-customers that are not reached in the distribution models of the component manufacturers, including storage customers, appliance customers, system builders and cloud and datacenter customers.

Due to the ground-breaking product development of its engineering teams, Netlist has built a robust portfolio of over 130 issued and pending U.S. and foreign patents, many seminal, in the areas of hybrid memory, storage class memory, rank multiplication and load reduction. Since its inception, the Company has dedicated substantial resources to the development, protection and enforcement of technology innovations it believes are essential to its business. The Company’s early pioneering work in these areas has been broadly adopted in industry-standard registered dual in-line memory module (“RDIMM”) LRDIMM and NVDIMM. Netlist’s objective is to continue to innovate in its field and invest further in its intellectual property portfolio, with the goal of monetizing its intellectual property through a combination of product sales and licensing, royalty or other revenue-producing arrangements, which may result from joint development or similar partnerships or defense of the Company’s patents through enforcement actions against parties it believes are infringing them.

Netlist was incorporated in June 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, California. The Company has established a manufacturing facility in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), which became operational in July 2007. The Company operates in one reportable segment, which is the design and manufacture of high-performance memory subsystems for the server, high-performance computing and communications markets.

Liquidity

The Company incurred net loss of $12.5 million and $17.1 million for the years ended December 28, 2019 and December 29, 2018, respectively. The Company has historically financed its operations primarily with revenues generated from operations, including product sales and proceeds from issuances of equity and debt securities including convertible debt (see Note 5). The Company has also funded its operations with a revolving line of credit under a bank credit facility and a funding arrangement for costs associated with certain of its legal proceedings (see Notes 4, 5 and 8).

On November 14, 2017, the Company entered into an At Market Issuance Sales Agreement (the “Sales Agreement”) with B. Riley FBR, Inc. (the “Agent”) to sell shares of its common stock, with aggregate gross proceeds of up to $9.0 million, from time to time, through an “at-the-market” equity offering program under which the Agent acted as sales agent (the “ATM Program”) (see Note 9). On August 29, 2018, the Company completed the offering under the ATM Program after raising net proceeds of approximately $8.6 million through the sale of 40,680,368 shares of its common stock, after deducting sales commissions and other offering expenses paid by the Company.

On May 17, 2018, the Company entered into a Board approved arm’s length Share Purchase Agreement with a trust controlled by C.K. Hong, its President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, pursuant to which the Company sold to the trust 5,405,405 shares of its common stock at a price per share of $0.148 (the closing price of its common stock as of the signing of the agreement) (See Note 9). The net proceeds received by the Company were $0.8 million.

On August 27, 2018, the Company entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with Iliad Research and Trading, L.P. (“Iliad”) (“Iliad Purchase Agreement”), pursuant to which the Company issued a convertible promissory note in the principal amount of $2.3 million (“Iliad Note”) with an original issue discount of $0.2 million. The Iliad Note bore interest at an annual rate of 8% and would mature on August 27, 2020, unless earlier repurchased, redeemed or converted in accordance with its terms. During the year ended December 28, 2019, Iliad fully-converted the outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note to shares of the Company’s common stock, and as a result, there were no outstanding principal and accrued interest on the Iliad Note as of December 28, 2019 (See Note 5).

On September 12, 2018, the Company entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with certain investors, pursuant to which the Company issued and sold to the investors in a registered offering an aggregate of 22,222,220 shares of its common stock and warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 11,111,110 shares of its common stock at a per share purchase price of $0.45 per share (See Note 9). The net proceeds to the Company from this offering were approximately $9.2 million, after deducting placement agent fees and offering costs paid by the Company. The warrant has a term of five years commencing on the date when it first became exercisable on March 14, 2019 (181 days following the date of its issuance) and has an exercise price of $0.655 per share.

On June 24, 2019, the Company entered into a purchase agreement (the “2019 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park Capital Fund, LLC (“Lincoln Park”), pursuant to which the Company had the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $10 million in shares of its common stock over the 36-month term of the 2019 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2019 Purchase Agreement. During the year ended December 28, 2019, Lincoln Park purchased an aggregate of 19,044,762 shares of the Company’s common stock for a net purchase price of $6.4 million (see Note 9).

On March 5, 2020, the Company entered into a purchase agreement (the “2020 Purchase Agreement”) with Lincoln Park, pursuant to which the Company has the right to sell to Lincoln Park up to an aggregate of $20 million in shares of its common stock over the 36-month term of the 2020 Purchase Agreement subject to the conditions and limitations set forth in the 2020 Purchase Agreement (see Note 9).

Inadequate working capital would have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business and operations and could cause the Company to fail to execute its business plan, fail to take advantage of future opportunities or fail to respond to competitive pressures or customer requirements. A lack of sufficient funding may also require the Company to significantly modify its business model and/or reduce or cease its operations, which could include implementing cost-cutting measures or delaying, scaling back or eliminating some or all of its ongoing and planned investments in corporate infrastructure, research and development projects, business development initiatives and sales and marketing activities, among other activities. While the Company’s estimates of its operating revenues and expenses and working capital requirements could be incorrect and the Company may use its cash resources faster than it anticipates, management believes the Company’s existing cash balance together with cash receipts from revenues, borrowing availability under a bank credit facility (see Note 4), funds available to be raised from the Lincoln Park arrangement (see Note 9) and funds raised through the debt and equity offerings, will be sufficient to meet the Company’s anticipated cash needs for at least the next 12 months.