As confidentially submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 9, 2021

This draft registration statement has not been publicly filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and all information herein remains strictly confidential.

Registration No. 333-            

UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form F-1

REGISTRATION STATEMENT

UNDER

THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc.

(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in Its Charter)

400 Stonebreak Road Extension

Malta, NY 12020

(518) 305-9013

(Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number, Including Area Code, of Registrant’s Principal Executive Offices)

(Name, Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number, Including Area Code, of Agent For Service)

Copies to:    

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after the effective date of this Registration Statement.

If any of the securities being registered on this form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933, check the following box.  ☐

If this form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

If this form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

If this form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering.  ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933.  ☐

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards† provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act.  ☐

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE

The Registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the Registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

The information in this prospectus is not complete and may be changed. Neither we nor Mubadala may sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This prospectus is not an offer to sell these securities and is not soliciting an offer to buy these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

SUBJECT TO COMPLETION, DATED                , 2021

Ordinary Shares

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc.

This is an initial public offering of the ordinary shares, US$0.01 par value per share of GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc., or the company. We are offering                of the ordinary shares to be sold in this offering. Mubadala Investment Company PJSC (“Mubadala”) is offering                of the ordinary shares to be sold in the offering. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ordinary shares by Mubadala. Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our ordinary shares. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price per ordinary share will be between US$                and US$                . We have applied to list our ordinary shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol “GFS.”

Following this offering, Mubadala, through its wholly owned subsidiaries Mubadala Technology Investment Company (“MTIC”) and MTI International Investment Company LLC, will beneficially own                % of our issued and outstanding ordinary shares and control approximately                % of the voting power of our issued and outstanding ordinary shares following this offering, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ option to purchase additional ordinary shares.

Investing in our ordinary shares involves risks. See “Risk Factors” beginning on page 19 of this prospectus.

We and Mubadala have granted an option to the underwriters, exercisable for 30 days after the date of this prospectus, to purchase up to                additional ordinary shares at the public offering price, less the underwriting discount.

Neither the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) nor any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of these securities or passed upon the adequacy or accuracy of this prospectus. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

The underwriters expect to deliver the ordinary shares against payment in New York, New York on or about                , 2021, through the book-entry facility of The Depository Trust Company.

Prospectus dated                , 2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

You should rely only on the information contained in this prospectus or contained in any free writing prospectus prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. We and Mubadala have not, and the underwriters have not, authorized anyone to provide any information or make any representations other than those contained in this prospectus or in any free writing prospectus prepared by or on behalf of us or to which we have referred you. We and Mubadala take no responsibility for, and can provide no assurance as to the reliability of, any other information that others may give you. We and the selling shareholder are offering to sell, and seeking offers to buy, ordinary shares only in jurisdictions where offers and sales are permitted. The information contained in this prospectus is accurate only as of the date of this prospectus, regardless of the time of delivery of this prospectus or of any sale of the ordinary shares. Our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects may have changed since such date.

Through and including             , 2021 (the 25th day after the date of this prospectus), all dealers effecting transactions in the ordinary shares, whether or not participating in this offering, may be required to deliver a prospectus. This delivery requirement is in addition to a dealer’s obligation to deliver a prospectus when acting as an underwriter and with respect to an unsold allotment or subscription.

For investors outside of the United States: neither we, the selling shareholder, nor any of the underwriters have done anything that would permit this offering or possession or distribution of this prospectus in any jurisdiction where action for that purpose is required, other than in the United States. Persons outside of the United States who come into possession of this prospectus must inform themselves about, observe any restrictions relating to, the offering of ordinary shares and this distribution of this prospectus outside of the United States.

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PRESENTATION OF FINANCIAL AND OTHER INFORMATION

We report under International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”), as adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (“IASB”). Our financial statements were not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. We present our consolidated financial statements in U.S. dollars. References in this prospectus to “US$” or “$” refer to U.S. dollars, the official currency of the United States.

Use of Non-IFRS Financial Measures

Certain parts of this prospectus contain the following non-IFRS financial measures: adjusted gross loss, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss from continuing operations.

Adjusted gross loss, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss from continuing operations are used by our management to monitor the underlying performance of the business and its operations. These measures are used by different companies for differing purposes and are often calculated in ways that reflect the circumstances of those companies. You should exercise caution in comparing these measures as reported by us to the same or similar measures as reported by other companies. Adjusted gross loss, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss from continuing operations may not be comparable to similarly titled metrics of other companies. These measures are unaudited and have not been prepared in accordance with IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles.

Adjusted gross loss, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss from continuing operations are not measurements of performance under IFRS or any other generally accepted accounting principles, and you should not consider them as an alternative to loss for the period, operating loss or other financial measures determined in accordance with IFRS or other generally accepted accounting principles. These measures have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation.

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RISK FACTORS

A description of the risks and uncertainties associated with our business and ownership of our shares is set forth below. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with all of the other information in this prospectus, including the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Result of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, before making a decision to invest in our shares. Our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties that are not presently known to us or that we currently believe are not material. If any of the risks actually occur, our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. In that event, the market price of our shares could decline and you could lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Related to our Business and Industry

Global economic and political conditions could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

The semiconductor industry relies on a global supply chain and is considered strategically important by major trading countries, including the United States, China, and countries in the EU. Political, economic and financial crises have in the past negatively affected and in the future could negatively affect the semiconductor industry and its end markets. Our business may also be materially affected by the impact of geopolitical tensions and related actions. In recent years, there have been political and trade tensions among, and between, a number of the world’s major economies, most notably in our industry between the United States and China, with Hong Kong and Taiwan implicated in the tensions. These tensions have resulted in the implementation of trade barriers, including the use of economic sanctions and export control restrictions against certain countries and individual companies. For example, over the past two years, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) placed one of the largest mobile handset and 5G infrastructure providers in the world, Huawei, and China’s largest semiconductor foundry, SMIC, on the BIS Entity List. Violations of these economic sanctions and export control restrictions can result in significant civil and criminal penalties. These trade barriers have had a particular impact on the semiconductor industry and related markets. Prolonged or increased use of trade barriers may result in a decrease in the growth of the global economy and semiconductor industry and could cause turmoil in global markets, which in turn often results in declines in our customers’ electronic products sales and could decrease demand for our products and services. Also, any increase in the use of economic sanctions or export control restrictions to target certain countries and companies could impact our ability to continue supplying products and services to those customers and our customers’ demand for our products and services, and could disrupt semiconductor supply chains.

Any future systemic political, economic or financial crisis or market volatility, including interest rate fluctuations, inflation or deflation and changes in economic, trade, fiscal and monetary policies in major economies, could cause revenue or profits for us or the semiconductor industry as a whole to decline dramatically. If the economic conditions in the markets in which our customers operate or the financial condition of our customers were to deteriorate, the demand for our products and services may decrease and impairments, write-downs and other accounting charges may be required, which could reduce our operating income and net income. Further, in times of market instability, sufficient external financing may not be available to us on a timely basis, on commercially reasonable terms or at all. If sufficient external financing is not available when we need such financing to meet our demand-driven capital requirements, we may be forced to curtail expansion, modify plans and delay the deployment of new or differentiated technologies, products, or services until we obtain such financing. Further escalation of trade tensions, the increased use of economic sanctions or export control restrictions or any future global systemic crisis or economic downturn could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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We have long-term supply agreements with certain customers that obligate us to meet specific production requirements, which may expose us to liquidated and other damages, require us to return advanced payments, require us to provide products and services at reduced or negative margins and constrain our ability to reallocate our production capacity to serve new customers or otherwise.

In response to the current global semiconductor supply shortage and in connection with our focus on differentiated technology platforms and deeper customer engagements, we have entered into multiple long-term supply agreements that provide for significant customer commitments in return for capacity reservation commitments from us. In many cases, in connection with these arrangements we have received, or will receive, customer advanced payments and capacity reservation fees. If we are unable to satisfy our obligations under these contracts, we may be forced to return such payments which could result in significant cash expenditures. Under most of our long-term supply agreements, we must maintain sufficient capacity at our manufacturing facilities to meet anticipated customer demand for our proprietary products. From time to time, this requires us to invest in expansion or improvements of those facilities, which often involves substantial cost and other risks, such as delays in completion. Such expanded manufacturing capacity may still be insufficient, or may not come online soon enough, to meet customer demand and we may have to limit the amount of products we can supply to customers, forgo sales or lose customers as a result. Further, capacity reserved for certain customers could cause us to breach obligations to other customers due to capacity constraints, or prevent us from serving new customers. If we are unable to satisfy our obligations under our customer agreements, we may be subject to significant liquidated damages or penalties, which could result in significant cash expenditures and require us to raise additional capital. Conversely, if we overestimate customer demand or a customer defaults on its purchase or payment obligations to us, we could experience underutilization of capacity at these facilities without a corresponding reduction in fixed costs. Our inability to maintain appropriate capacity could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Our strategy of securing and maintaining long-term supply contracts and expanding our production capacity may not be successful.

We have undertaken, and will continue to undertake, various business strategies to sell a significant portion of our production capacity through long-term supply contracts, grow our production capacity, and improve operating efficiencies and generate cost savings. We cannot assure you that we will successfully implement those business strategies or that implementing these strategies will sustain or improve and not harm our results of operations. In particular, our ability to implement our strategy to enter into long-term supply contracts successfully is subject to certain risks, including:

As a result, we cannot assure you that we will successfully implement this strategy or realize the anticipated benefits of these contracts.

Additionally, the costs involved in implementing our strategies may be significantly greater than we currently anticipate. For example, our ability to complete production capacity expansions or make other operational improvements as planned may be delayed, interrupted or made more costly by the need to obtain environmental and other regulatory approvals, the availability of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, labor and materials, unforeseen hazards, such as weather conditions, and other risks customarily associated with construction projects. Moreover, the cost of expanding production capacity could have a negative impact on our financial results until shipment utilization is sufficient to absorb the incremental costs associated with the expansion.

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Our ability to successfully implement these strategies depends on a variety of factors, including, among other things, our ability to finance our operations, maintain high-quality and efficient manufacturing operations, respond to competitive and regulatory changes, access semiconductor manufacturing equipment or quality raw materials in a cost-effective and timely manner, and retain and attract highly skilled personnel. Further, some of our long-term supply agreements constrain our ability to change product mix within short time frames, given “end of life” provisions in our agreements that require substantial notice periods before we can cease production of existing products. Since 2018, we have been in the process of pivoting our development resources to focus on differentiated technologies, based an analysis of market dynamics and our competitive strengths. Any failure to continue implementing this strategic pivot in a timely and cost-effective manner could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We depend on a small number of customers for a significant portion of our revenues and any loss of this or our other key customers, including potentially through further customer consolidation, could result in significant declines in our revenues.

We have been largely dependent on a small number of customers for a substantial portion of our business. Our ten largest customers in 2018, 2019 and 2020 accounted for approximately 75%, 73% and 73% of our wafer shipment volume, respectively. We expect that a significant portion of our revenue will continue to come from a relatively limited number of customers. We cannot assure you that our revenue generated from these customers, individually or in the aggregate, will reach or exceed historical levels in any future period. Loss or cancellation of business from, significant changes in scheduled deliveries to, or decrease of products and services sold to any of these customers could significantly reduce our revenue. Additionally, the increasing trend in mergers and acquisition activities in the semiconductor industry could reduce the total available customer base.

We rely on a complex silicon supply chain and breakdowns in that chain could affect our ability to produce our products and could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We rely on a small number of suppliers for wafers, which is a key input into our products. In particular, only a limited number of companies in the world are able to produce SOI wafers. If there is an insufficient supply of wafers, particularly SOI wafers, to satisfy our requirements, we may need to limit or delay our production, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. If our limited source suppliers and suppliers for wafer preparation were to experience difficulties that affected their manufacturing yields or the quality of the materials they supply to us, it could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. In particular, we depend on Soitec S.A. (“Soitec”), our largest supplier of SOI wafers, for the timely provision of wafers in order to meet our production goals and obligations to customers. We have entered into multiple long-term agreements with Soitec across a wide spectrum of SOI products. Soitec supplied 52% of our SOI wafers in 2020. In April 2017, we entered into a multi-year materials supply agreement with Soitec that expires in 2022, with automatic annual extensions unless terminated by either party. In that same year, we agreed to an addendum to the materials supply agreement for FDX^TM wafers, in particular. In November 2020, we agreed to an addendum to our original materials supply agreement to secure supply for 300 mm RF SOI, partially-depleted SOI and SiPh wafers. Our supply agreements with Soitec impose mutual obligations, in the form of capacity requirements, minimum purchase requirements and supply share percentages. We may be subject to penalties if we fail to comply with such obligations. If we are unable to obtain 300mm SOI wafers from Soitec for any reason, we expect that it would be challenging, if not infeasible, to find a replacement supplier on commercially acceptable terms in the near term. While we are in the process of developing relationships with alternate suppliers, we do not expect to be able to acquire a significant amount of SOI wafers from those suppliers in the near term, and there is no assurance that we will ever be able to do so.

The ability of our suppliers to meet our requirements could be impaired or interrupted by factors beyond their control, such as earthquakes or other natural phenomena, labor strikes or shortages, or political unrest or

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failure to obtain materials for their suppliers. For example, Soitec is reliant on third-party providers to obtain raw silicon wafers—difficulties in obtaining raw silicon wafers may result in Soitec’s inability to produce SOI wafers. In the event one of our suppliers is unable to deliver products to us or is unwilling to sell materials or components to us, our operations may be adversely affected. Further, financial or other difficulties faced by our suppliers, or significant changes in demand for the components or materials they use in the products they supply to us, could limit the availability of those products, components, or materials to us. Any breakdown of our wafer supply chain could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Reductions in demand and average selling prices (“ASPs”) for our customers’ end products (e.g., consumer electronics) and increases in inflation may decrease demand for our products and services and could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

The substantial majority of our revenue is derived from customers who use our products in intelligent and highly connected devices in markets such as Smart Mobile Devices, Home and Industrial IoT, Communications Infrastructure & Datacenter, Automotive and Personal Computing. A deterioration or a slowdown in the growth of such end markets resulting in a substantial decrease in the demand for overall global semiconductor foundry services, including our products and services, could adversely affect our revenue and profit margins. Semiconductor manufacturing facilities require substantial investment to construct and are largely fixed-cost assets once they are in operation. Because we own our manufacturing facilities, a significant portion of our operating costs are fixed. In general, these costs do not decline when customer demand or our shipment utilization rate drops, and thus declines in customer demand, among other factors, may significantly decrease our profit margins. Our costs may also increase as a result of, among other things, inflation, which may have a greater impact on our profit margins than ASPs. In the past, there have been periods of sustained decline in ASPs of our customers’ end products and applications. A return to historical trends could place downward pressure on the prices of the components, including our products, that go into such end products and applications. If ASPs decline and our cost reduction programs and actions do not offset the decrease or our costs increase due to inflation or otherwise and are not offset by an increase in ASPs, our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects may be materially and adversely affected.

The seasonality and cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and periodic overcapacity make us vulnerable to significant and sometimes prolonged economic downturns.

The semiconductor industry has exhibited cyclicality in the past and, at various times, has experienced downturns. Fluctuations in our customers’ demand drive significant variations in order levels for our products and services and can result in volatility in our revenues and earnings. Because our business is, and will continue to be, largely dependent on the requirements of both consumer and industrial high-end technology product suppliers for our services, downturns in this broad industry will likely lead to reduced demand for our products and services.

Demand for our customers’ end products is affected by seasonal variations in market conditions that contribute to the fluctuations of demand and prices for semiconductor services and products. The seasonal sales trends for semiconductor services and products closely mirror those for automotive, consumer electronics, communication and computer sales. These seasonal variations, and seasonal variation changes that we cannot anticipate, may result in increased volatility in our results of operation and could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Overcapacity in the semiconductor industry may reduce our revenues, earnings and margins.

The prices that we can charge our customers for manufacturing services are significantly related to the overall worldwide supply of ICs and semiconductor products. The overall supply of semiconductors is based in

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part on the capacity of other companies, which is outside of our control. For example, in light of current market conditions, we and some other companies, including competitors with access to material government support, have announced plans to increase capacity expenditures significantly. Additionally, some nations, including China, are investing heavily in developing additional domestic capacity for semiconductor fabrication. We believe such plans, if carried out as planned, will increase the industry-wide capacity and could result in overcapacity in the future. In periods of overcapacity, if we are unable to offset the adverse effects of overcapacity through, among other things, our technology and product mix, we may have to lower the prices we charge our customers for our services and/or we may have to operate at significantly less than full capacity. Such actions could reduce our margin and profitability and weaken our financial condition and results of operations. We cannot give any assurance that an increase in the demand for foundry services in the immediate and short-term will not lead to overcapacity in the future, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

If we are unable to attract customers with our technology, respond to fast-changing semiconductor market dynamics or maintain our leadership in product quality, we will become less competitive.

The semiconductor industry and the technologies it brings to market are constantly being created and evolving. We compete by developing process technologies that incorporate increasingly higher performance and advanced features, offering increasing functionality depending upon the customer’s application requirements. If we do not anticipate these changes in technology requirements and fail to rapidly develop new and innovative solutions to meet these demands, we may not be able to provide foundry services on competitive terms with respect to cost, schedule or volume manufacturing capacity. There is a risk that our competitors may successfully adopt new or more differentiated technology before we do, resulting in us losing design wins (including in cases in which we have expended significant resources to pursue design wins) and market share. If we are unable to continue to offer differentiated services and processes on a competitive and timely basis, we may lose customers to competitors providing similar or better technologies.

A key differentiator in the marketplace is to significantly reduce the time in which technology products or services are launched into the market. If we are unable to meet the shorter time-to-market requirements of our customers or fail to impress them with our newer technology solutions or are unable to allocate or develop new production capacity to meet those customers’ demands in a timely manner, we risk losing their business and not generating the market adoption needed to pay for our development efforts. These factors have also been intensified by the shift of the global technology market to consumer-driven products and increasing concentration of customers and competition. Further, the increasing complexity of technology also imposes challenges for achieving expected product quality, cost and time-to-market expectations. If we fail to maintain quality, it may result in loss of revenue and additional cost, as well as loss of business or customer trust. If we are unable to meet the expected production yields of a new technology, we will not be able to meet the expected costs of that technology. In addition, the market prices for technology and services tend to fall over time, except in times of extreme supply shortage. As a result, if we are unable to offer new differentiated services and processes on a competitive and timely basis, we may need to decrease the prices that we set for our existing services and processes. If we are unable to innovate new and differentiated technologies and bring them to a cost-competitive volume manufacturing scale that meets the demand of our customers, we may become less competitive and our revenue and margins may decline significantly.

External risks also exist that can impact our position as a technology leader. Differentiated technology offerings may rely upon unique or specialized materials as compared to our competitors, including specialized wafers upon which some of our technologies are currently manufactured, raw materials for wafer fabrication, and materials used in the packaging of ICs to enable them to be used in the end products. A disruption in the availability of or quality of these new or unique materials during technology development can impact time-to-market, or have impact on the quality or cost of finished goods in the marketplace. Similarly, our technology roadmap relies on externally sourced design tools and component circuit designs that allow our end customers to more readily realize their products in our technologies, and disruption or delays in our ability to obtain those resources may impair our ability to compete effectively and serve our customers.

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The rapidly changing nature of advanced semiconductor technology can also culminate in the emergence of highly disruptive or unconventional technologies and new disruptive solutions using existing technologies which can create a rapid inflection point leaving those on a conventional technology roadmap path at a significant disadvantage and unprepared to react in a timely manner.

If we are unable to compete effectively with other sophisticated players in the highly competitive foundry segment of the semiconductor industry, we may lose customers and our profit margins and earnings may decrease.

The foundry market is comprised of five major pure-play foundries that accounted for the vast majority of worldwide foundry revenue in 2020, according to a March 2021 Gartner Semiconductor Foundry Worldwide Market Share report. TSMC at $46 billion of wafer revenue in 2020 accounted for more than 58% of the total market, while the next four players combined made up only 27% of the market. Other key competitors include SMIC and UMC, as well as the foundry operation services of some integrated device manufacturers, such as Samsung and, more recently, Intel Corporation (“Intel”). IDMs principally manufacture and sell their own proprietary semiconductor products but may also offer foundry services. Other smaller dedicated foundry competitors include X-FAB Silicon Foundries, Tower Semiconductor Ltd., Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (“Vanguard”) and WIN Semiconductors Corp. Some of our competitors may offer more advanced or differentiated technologies than we do and some have greater access to capital and substantially greater production capacity, R&D, marketing and other resources, including access to government subsidies and economic stimulus (including protective demand-side measures), than we do. As a result, these companies may be able to compete more aggressively over a longer period of time than we can.

The principal elements of competition in the wafer foundry market include:

Our ability to compete successfully also depends on factors partially outside of our control, including component supply, intellectual property, including cell libraries that our customers embed in their product designs, and industry and general economic trends.

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Our competitors have announced expansions and may continue to expand in the United States and Europe, which could materially and adversely affect our competitive position.

TSMC, Samsung and Intel have recently announced plans to develop new fabs and substantially increase their manufacturing capacity in the United States, and other competitors may seek to do likewise. Similarly, our competitors may seek to develop new fabs in Europe and substantially increase their manufacturing capacity. Such expansions may increase the attractiveness of our competitors to customers who wish to utilize fabs located in the United States or Europe, use geographically dispersed suppliers or mitigate risks posed by geopolitical tensions and export controls. Further, it may lead to increased competition for funding and talent in those jurisdictions. This increased competition could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

The semiconductor industry is capital-intensive and, if we are unable to invest the necessary capital to operate and grow our business, we may not remain competitive.

To remain competitive and comply with evolving regulatory requirements, we must constantly improve our facilities and process technologies and carry out extensive R&D, each of which requires investment of significant amounts of capital. The costs of manufacturing facilities and semiconductor manufacturing equipment continue to rise. We expect to incur additional capital expenditures in connection with our revenue expansion plans to expand our fabs in Dresden, Germany; Malta, New York; and Singapore. On June 22, 2021, we announced plans to spend approximately $4.0 billion to expand our Fab 7 operations in Singapore, and on July 19, 2021 announced fab expansion plans in Malta, New York involving approximately $1.0 billion, with the construction of a new fab on the same campus to follow. Our actual expenditures may exceed our planned spend due to global economic and industry-wide equipment or material price increases during the long lead time to build capacity. Given the fixed-cost nature of our business, we have in the past incurred, and may in the future incur, operating losses if our revenues do not adequately offset the impact of our capital expenditures and the cost of financing these expenditures. Additionally, a significant portion of any operating income we do generate is needed to service our outstanding debt.

We invest significantly in R&D, and to the extent our R&D efforts are unsuccessful, our competitive position may be harmed and we may not be able to realize a return on our investments. To compete successfully, we must maintain a successful R&D effort, develop new product technologies, features and manufacturing processes, and improve our existing products and services, technologies and processes. Our R&D efforts may not deliver the benefits we anticipate. To the extent we do not timely introduce new technologies and features relative to competitors, we could face cost, product performance, and time-to-market disadvantages, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Financing, including equity capital, debt financing, customer co-investments and government subsidies, may not be available on commercially acceptable terms or at all. Any additional debt financing we may undertake could require debt service and financial and operational requirements that could adversely affect our business. If we are unable to generate sufficient cash or raise sufficient capital to meet both our debt service and capital investment requirements, or if we are unable to raise required capital on favorable terms when needed, we may be forced to curtail revenue expansion plans or delay capital investment, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We may not be able to implement our planned growth and development or maintain the differentiation of our solutions if we are unable to recruit and retain key executives, managers and skilled technical personnel.

We rely on the continued services and contributions of our management team and skilled technical and professional personnel. In this industry, the competitive pressures to find and retain the most talented personnel are intense and constant. The top talent in the industry is often well-known and pursued by competitors. In

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addition, with the speed of technological and business change, skills need to be constantly refreshed and built upon. Our business could suffer if we are unable to fulfill and sustain resource requirements with qualified individuals in required positions globally. Fulfilling new resource needs on a timely basis continues to be a challenge in this highly competitive market for semiconductor talent. Competition for talent exists in all of our operating regions emphasizing the importance of strong employee retention, and if we fail to attract and retain top talent, our business and results of operations could be materially adversely impacted.

We receive subsidies and grants in certain countries and regions in which we operate, and a reduction in the amount of governmental funding available to us or demands for repayment could increase our costs and affect our results of operations.

As is the case with other large semiconductor companies, we receive subsidies and grants from governments in certain countries and regions in which we operate. In response to increased geopolitical tensions, national security and supply chain concerns, as well as recent supply shortages, government funding such as the proposed United States Innovation and Competition Act in the United States, which includes the CHIPS Act and the R&D funding in the Endless Frontiers Act, and the “second” IPCEI in Europe are in the process of being adopted or funded, resulting in potentially significant new sources of capital and R&D investment for our industry. Historically, we have benefitted from government investment programs, and we intend to continue to benefit from government programs to help fund our expansion efforts. However, we may be unable to secure government funding at the levels we expect or at all, and the availability of government funding is outside our control. Moreover, should we terminate any activities or operations related to government funds that we receive or upon which government funds have been conditioned, we may face adverse consequences. In particular, government agencies could seek to recover subsidies or grants from us, seek repayment of loans, or could cancel, reduce or deny our requests for future subsidies or grants. This could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Strong government support in China for capacity expansion, combined with weaker demand from and strained economic relations with that country, could lead to underutilization or significant ASP erosion for fab fill.

China’s aggressive investment in its “buy from China” initiatives have inflated the capital available for technology development in China and resulted in an expansion of fabrication capacity for semiconductors. China’s decision to build capacity for China, to be sourced primarily from indigenous suppliers like SMIC, will have the effect of limiting the Chinese market for other global suppliers like us. Increases in China’s fabrication capacity for semiconductors may also significantly increase the competition we face globally, which may make it more difficult for us to retain and obtain new customers and lead to material reductions in ASPs.

Any outbreak of contagious disease, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Any outbreak of contagious disease, including, but not limited to, COVID-19, Zika virus, Ebola virus, avian or swine influenza or severe acute respiratory syndrome, may disrupt our ability to adequately staff our business and may generally disrupt our operations. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has slowed economic growth, including in regions of the world where we, our customers and suppliers operate, and has negatively impacted the global supply chain, market and economies. We have significant operations in the United States, Europe, and Singapore, including supply chain and manufacturing facilities and sales and marketing channels and information technology (“IT”) design and other support services in these countries and regions as well as other countries such as Japan, India, Bulgaria, Taiwan and China.

If the COVID-19 outbreak worsens or continues longer term, or new outbreaks of COVID-19 or other contagious diseases occur, we may experience material adverse effects on our business, including, among other things:

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Likewise, such an outbreak of disease could slow or suspend the operations of our suppliers and cause them to be unable to deliver needed raw materials as required. Any of these factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Sales to government entities and highly regulated organizations are subject to a number of challenges and added risks, and our failure to comply with these heightened compliance requirements, or effectively manage these challenges or risks, could impact our operations and financial results.

We currently sell to the U.S. federal government and to customers in highly regulated industries, and may sell to state and local governments and to foreign governmental agency customers in the future. Sales to such entities are subject to a number of compliance challenges and risks, including regarding access to and required protection of classified information. Failure to comply with Foreign Ownership, Control or Influence, or “FOCI”, agreements could lead to a loss of our security clearance and certain government business and reputational harm. Selling to governmental and highly regulated entities can be highly competitive, expensive and time-consuming, often requiring significant upfront time and expense without any assurance that these efforts will generate a sale. Government contracting requirements may change and in doing so restrict our ability to sell into the government sector until we have attained any revised necessary certification or authorization. Government demand and payment for our products and services are affected by public sector budgetary cycles and funding authorizations, with funding reductions or delays adversely affecting public sector demand for our products and services. Such sales are made more difficult by the fact that many of our product design and life cycles are very long, compared to public fiscal budget calendars.

Further, governmental and highly regulated entities may demand contract terms that differ from our standard commercial arrangements, and those contract terms may be in some respects less favorable than terms agreed to by private sector customers. Governments routinely retain certain rights to IP developed in connection with government contracts. Such entities may have statutory, contractual or other legal rights to terminate contracts with us or our partners for convenience or for other reasons that are out of our control or influence. Any such terminations, or other adverse actions, may materially adversely affect our ability to contract with other government customers, as well as our reputation, results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. In addition, our U.S. government contracts obligate us to comply with various cybersecurity requirements. These requirements include ongoing investment in systems, policies and personnel, and we expect these requirements to continue to impact our business in the future by increasing our legal, operational and compliance costs.

Certain of our government contracts require us to notify the applicable governmental actor and discuss options with the governmental actor before making certain potential transfers of intellectual property developed under those contracts, and certain of our government contracts impose specific limitations on our use and licensing of certain of our intellectual property. Additionally, production of sensitive, export-controlled products for governmental and highly regulated entities requires adherence to strict export and security controls. In the event of a breach or other security event involving one of these products, we may be subject to investigations to determine the extent and impact to such products, regulatory proceedings, litigation, mitigation and other actions, as well as penalties, fines, increased insurance premiums, indemnification expenditures and administrative, civil and criminal liabilities and reputational harm, each of which could negatively impact operations for multiple

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products and future business, cause production and sales delays and materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We may be exposed to liabilities if it is determined that our compensation arrangements do not comply with, or are not exempt from, Section 409A of the Code.

Section 409A (“Section 409A”) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (“the Code”), sets forth the rules governing non-qualified deferred compensation arrangements. Section 409A contains many technical, complicated and ambiguous rules and regulations, including proposed but not yet finalized regulations that do not currently have the force of law, making compliance with Section 409A difficult to assess and to ensure. While we have attempted to structure our compensation arrangements (including our equity incentive awards) so that they either comply with, or are exempt from, Section 409A, it is possible that some of these compensation arrangements are not so exempt or compliant. In some instances, we have determined that amendments to certain of our compensation arrangements were advisable in order to mitigate or eliminate potential Section 409A non-compliance risk, though there can be no assurance that such amendments will mitigate or eliminate any such risk. If it is determined that any of our compensation arrangements are neither compliant with, nor exempt from, Section 409A, we may be subject to significant liabilities and costs, including penalties for failing to properly report deferred compensation arrangements under Section 409A and to withhold taxes payable by our service providers, including our employees, and we may be required to pay to the applicable governmental authorities the amount of taxes we should have withheld and related interest and penalties. In addition, those of our service providers, including our employees, participating in such arrangements may experience significant adverse tax consequences under Section 409A, including a 20% federal penalty tax imposed on the amount of compensation involved (and, as applicable, similar excise taxes under state law or foreign law). These liabilities may be significant and the imposition of such liabilities may materially affect our employee relations. In addition, in the event any such liabilities were imposed on our service providers, including our employees, we could decide to take remedial action, including making cash payments to adversely affected service providers, including our employees. Any amounts so paid by us could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

The market data and forecasts included in this prospectus may prove to be inaccurate, and you should not unduly rely on such market data and forecasts.

The market data and forecasts included in this prospectus are subject to significant uncertainty and are based on assumptions and estimates that may not prove to be accurate. Such reports speak as of their respective publication dates and the opinions expressed in such reports are subject to change, including as a result of the impact of COVID-19 on the global economy. Accordingly, potential investors in our ordinary shares should not place undue reliance on such forecasts and market data.

Improper disclosure of confidential information could negatively impact our business.

In the ordinary course of our business, we maintain sensitive data on our networks, including our intellectual property and proprietary or confidential business information relating to our business and that of our customers and business partners. In addition, we regularly enter into confidentiality obligations with our customers, suppliers and parties that we license intellectual property to or from. The secure maintenance of this information is critical to our business and reputation. We have put in place policies, procedures and technological safeguards designed to protect the security of this information. However, we cannot guarantee that this information will not be improperly disclosed or accessed. Disclosure of this information could harm our reputation, subject us to liability under our contracts and harm our relationships with key counterparties, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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Risks Related to Manufacturing, Operations and Expansion

If we are unable to manage our capacity and production facilities effectively, our competitiveness may be weakened.

We perform long-term market demand forecasts for our products to manage, and plan for, our overall capacity. Because market conditions are dynamic, our market demand forecasts may change significantly at any time. During periods of decreased demand, certain manufacturing lines or tools in some of our manufacturing facilities may be idled or shut down temporarily, to save costs while preserving capacity. However, if subsequent demand increases rapidly, we may not be able to restore the capacity in a timely manner to take advantage of the upturn. In light of market demand forecasts, we have recently been adding capacity to meet market needs for our products. Expansion of our capacity will increase our costs. For example, we will need to purchase additional equipment, and hire and train additional personnel to operate the new equipment. If demand does not increase as planned, we may not increase our net revenues accordingly, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Because we own and operate high-tech manufacturing facilities, our operations have high costs that are fixed or difficult to reduce in the short term, including our costs related to utilization of existing facilities, facility construction and equipment, R&D, and the employment and training of a highly skilled workforce. To the extent demand decreases or we fail to forecast demand accurately, we could be required to write off inventory or record underutilization charges, which would lower our gross margin. To the extent any demand decrease is prolonged, our manufacturing capacity could be underutilized, and we may be required to write down our long-lived assets, which would increase our expenses. We may also be required to shorten the useful life of under-used facilities and equipment and accelerate depreciation.

Our manufacturing processes are highly complex, costly and potentially vulnerable to impurities and other disruptions, and cost increases, that can significantly increase our costs and delay product shipments to our customers.

Our semiconductor manufacturing processes are highly complex, require advanced and costly equipment, and are continuously being modified to improve manufacturing yields and product performance intended to improve or protect our ability to achieve our revenue and profit plan. Disruptions in manufacturing operations could be caused by numerous issues including impurities in our raw materials (such as chemicals, gases and wafers), facilities issues (such as electrical power and water outages), equipment failures (such as performance issues or defects) or IT issues (such as down computer systems and viruses). Any of these issues, and others, could lower production yields or interrupt manufacturing, which could result in the loss of products in process that could cause delivery delays, reduced revenue, increased cost or reduced quality delivered to our customers. These factors could significantly affect our financial results as well as our ability to attract new and retain existing customers.

In the past, we have encountered, among other issues:

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If the above issues recur or we face similar challenges in the future, we may suffer delays in our ability to deliver our products, which could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. In addition, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to increase our manufacturing capacity and efficiency in the future to the same extent as in the past. Additionally, increases in the costs of key inputs to fabs, including raw materials, electric power and water, could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We are subject to risks associated with the development and implementation of new manufacturing technologies.

Production of ICs is a complex process. We are continually engaged in the development of new manufacturing process technologies and features. Forecasting our progress and schedule for developing new process technologies and features is challenging, and at times we encounter unexpected delays due to the complexity of interactions among steps in the manufacturing process, challenges in using new materials, and other issues. We may expend substantial resources on developing new technologies that are ultimately not successful, which may result in our recognizing significant impairment charges. Diagnosing defects in our manufacturing processes often takes a long time, as manufacturing throughput times can delay our receipt of data about defects and the effectiveness of fixes. We are not always successful or efficient in developing or implementing new technologies and manufacturing processes.

Our profit margin may substantially decline if we are unable to continually improve our manufacturing yields, maintain high shipment utilization or fail to optimize the process technology mix of our wafer production.

Our ability to maintain our profit margin depends, in part, on our ability to:

Our shipment utilization affects our operating results because a large percentage of our operating costs is fixed. Our manufacturing yields directly affect our ability to attract and retain customers, as well as the prices of our services. Different technologies load the available capacity differently, and an increase of lower margin product demand could lower the financial performance of a factory while still fully utilizing the available capacity. If we are unable to continuously maintain high capacity utilization, improve our manufacturing yields or optimize the technology mix of our wafer production, our profit margin may substantially decline.

Our manufacturing processes are highly complex, require advanced and costly equipment and are continuously being modified in an effort to improve yields and product performance. Minute impurities or other difficulties in the manufacturing process can lower yields. Further, at the beginning of each semiconductor technological upgrade, the manufacturing yield utilizing the new technology may be lower than the yield under current technology. Our manufacturing efficiency is an important factor in our profitability, and we cannot assure you that we will be able to maintain our manufacturing efficiency or increase manufacturing efficiency to the same extent as our competitors.

In addition, as is common in the semiconductor industry, we have from time to time experienced difficulty in effecting transitions to new manufacturing processes. As a consequence, we may suffer delays in product deliveries or reduced yields. We may experience manufacturing problems in achieving acceptable yields or experience product delivery delays in the future as a result of, among other things, capacity constraints, upgrading or expanding our existing facilities or changing our process technologies, any of which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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We may be unable to obtain manufacturing equipment in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost that is necessary for us to remain competitive.

Our operations and ongoing revenue expansion plans depend on our ability to obtain complex and specialized manufacturing equipment and related services from a limited number of suppliers in a market that is characterized from time to time by limited supply and long delivery cycles. During such times, supplier-specific or industry-wide lead times for delivery can be as long as twelve months or more. Further, growing complexities of the most valuable equipment may delay the timely delivery of such equipment and parts needed to capitalize on time-sensitive and perishable business opportunities. Industry-wide demand increases for this equipment could increase its market price as well as the market price of replacement parts and consumable materials needed to operate the equipment. As a result of demand driven by the semiconductor supply shortage, as well as significant new sources of funding in China as well as potentially other governments (such as Korea, the United States and Europe), the current demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and equipment supply constraints are resulting in longer than normal lead times for such equipment. If we are unable to obtain equipment in a timely manner to fulfill our customers’ demand on technology and production capacity, or at a reasonable cost, we may be unable to meet commitments under our contracts with customers, which could expose us to substantial liquidated damages and other claims and could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

If we are unable to obtain adequate supplies of raw materials in a timely manner and at commercially reasonable prices our revenue and profitability may decline.

Our production operations require that we obtain adequate supplies of raw materials, such as silicon wafers, gases, chemicals and photoresist, on a timely basis and at commercially reasonable prices, many of which are not commodities easily replaced with substitutions. In the past, shortages in the supply of some materials, whether by specific vendors or by the industry generally, have resulted in occasional industry-wide price adjustments and delivery delays. Moreover, major natural disasters, trade barriers and political or economic turmoil occurring within the country of origin of such raw materials may also significantly disrupt the availability of such raw materials or increase their prices. Further, since we procure some of our raw materials from sole-sourced suppliers, there is a risk that our need for such raw materials may not be met or that back-up supplies may not be readily available. In addition, recent trade tensions between the United States and China could result in increased prices or the unavailability of raw materials, including rare earth metals used in our products. Tariffs, export control or other non-tariff barriers, due to global or local economic conditions could also affect material cost and availability.

Certain raw materials and other inputs, such as electricity and water, necessary for our production operations may experience substantial price volatility. Hedging transactions for many of those raw materials and other inputs are not available to us, or are not available on terms we believe are commercially acceptable. Hedges that we enter into with respect to certain inputs, such as electricity, may not be effective. Additionally, once our prices with a customer are negotiated, we are generally unable to revise pricing with that customer until our next regularly scheduled price adjustment. As a result, if market prices for essential components increase, we will often be unable to pass the price increases through to our customers for products purchased under an existing agreement. Consequently, we are exposed to the risks associated with the volatility of prices for these components and our cost of revenues could increase and our gross margins could decrease in the event of price increases. Recently, as a result of demand driven by the semiconductor supply shortage, the costs of raw wafers as well as certain other raw materials are relatively high. Failure to obtain adequate supplies could result in our being unable to meet commitments under our contracts with customers, which could expose us to substantial liquidated damages and other claims, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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Failure to adjust our supply chain volume due to changing market conditions or failure to estimate our customers’ demand could adversely affect our sales and could result in additional charges for obsolete or excess inventories or non-cancelable purchase commitments.

We make significant decisions, including determining the levels of business that we will seek and accept, production schedules, personnel needs and other resource requirements, based on our estimates of customer requirements. The possibility of rapid changes in demand for our customers’ products reduces our ability to accurately estimate our customers’ future requirements for our products. On occasion, our customers may require rapid increases in production, which can challenge our resources. We may not have sufficient capacity at any given time to meet our customers’ demands. Conversely, downturns in the semiconductor industry have in the past caused and may in the future cause our customers to significantly reduce the amount of products ordered from us. Because many of our sales, R&D, and manufacturing expenses are relatively fixed, a reduction in customer demand may decrease our gross margins and operating income, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

In addition, we base many of our operating decisions, and enter into purchase commitments, on the basis of anticipated sales, which are highly unpredictable. Some of our purchase commitments are not cancelable, and in some cases we are required to recognize a charge representing the amount of material or capital equipment purchased or ordered that exceeds our actual requirements. For example, we have non-cancelable purchase commitments with vendors and long-term supply agreements with certain of our third-party wafer fabrication partners, under which we are required to purchase a minimum number of wafers per year or face financial penalties. These types of commitments and agreements could reduce our ability to adjust our inventory to address declining market demands. If demand for our products is less than we expect, we may experience additional excess and obsolete inventories and be forced to incur additional charges. If sales in future periods fall substantially below our expectations, or if we fail to accurately forecast changes in demand mix, we could again be required to record substantial charges for obsolete or excess inventories or non-cancelable purchase commitments.

Moreover, during a market upturn, we may not be able to purchase sufficient supplies or components to meet increasing product demand, which could prevent us from taking advantage of opportunities and reduce our sales. In addition, a supplier could discontinue a component necessary for our design, extend lead times, limit supply or increase prices due to capacity constraints or other factors. Our failure to adjust our supply chain volume or estimate our customers’ demands could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Until recently, as a result of current market conditions, we did not typically operate with any significant backlog, except in periods of capacity shortage. The historic lack of significant backlog and the unpredictable length and timing of semiconductor cycles made it more difficult for us to accurately forecast revenue in future periods. Additionally, as we now face more significant backlog, it may not necessarily be indicative of actual sales for any succeeding period. Moreover, our expense levels are based in part on our expectations of future revenue, and we may be unable to fully adjust costs in a timely manner to compensate for revenue shortfalls.

Certain of our debt agreements contain covenants that may constrain the operation of our business, and our failure to comply with these covenants could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Restrictive covenants in our credit facilities may prevent us from pursuing certain transactions or business strategies, including by limiting our ability to, in certain circumstances:

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Failure to comply with any of the covenants in our debt agreements, including due to events beyond our control, could result in an event of default. The holders of the defaulted debt could terminate commitments to lend and accelerate amounts outstanding to be due and payable immediately. This could also result in cross-defaults under our other debt instruments, significantly impacting our liquidity and ability to fund our operations. Any of these occurrences could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Aging infrastructure, power grids and risks to the supply of fresh water or natural gas could interrupt production.

The semiconductor fabrication process requires extensive amounts of fresh water and a stable source of electricity and natural gas. In addition, it requires effective facilities to manage wastewater. As our production capabilities and our business grow, our requirements for these factors will grow substantially. Although we have not, to date, experienced any instances of lack of sufficient supplies of water or natural gas or material disruptions in the electricity supply to, or wastewater processing capacity of, any of our fabs beyond temporary or short-term stoppages, we may not have access to sufficient supplies of water, natural gas, electricity or wastewater processing capacity to accommodate our planned growth. Droughts, pipeline interruptions, power interruptions, electricity shortages or government intervention, particularly in the form of rationing, are factors that could restrict our access to these utilities in the areas in which our fabs are located. If there is an insufficient supply of fresh water, natural gas, electricity or wastewater processing capacity to satisfy our requirements, we may need to limit or delay our production. In addition, a power outage, even of very limited duration, could result in a loss of wafers in production and a deterioration in yield. Any of these occurrences could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We may be subject to the risk of loss due to fire because the materials we use in our manufacturing processes are highly flammable.

We use highly flammable materials such as silane and hydrogen in our manufacturing processes and may therefore be subject to the risk of loss arising from fires. The risk of fire associated with these materials cannot be completely eliminated. We maintain insurance policies to reduce losses caused by fire, including business interruption insurance. However, our insurance coverage is subject to deductibles and self-insured retention and may not be sufficient to cover all of our potential losses. If any of our fabs were to be damaged or cease operations as a result of a fire, our manufacturing capacity would be reduced, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Our operations are subject to the risks of earthquakes, fires, floods, severe weather incidents and other natural catastrophic events, and to interruption by man-made problems such as power disruptions, industrial accidents, or terrorism.

Significant natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods, severe weather incidents or acts of terrorism occurring in any of our manufacturing or office locations, or where a business partner, such as a customer or supplier, is located, could adversely affect our operational and financial performance. In addition, natural disasters, spills or hazardous exposure incidents, accidents and acts of terrorism could cause disruptions in our business or our suppliers’ or customers’ businesses, national economies or the global economy as a whole, and

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we may not have insurance coverage for these matters. Our operations, as well as our computing systems, are vulnerable to interference, or interruption from terrorist attacks, natural disasters or pandemics (including COVID-19), the effects of climate change (such as sea level rise, drought, flooding, wildfires, and increased storm severity), power loss, telecommunications failures, criminal fraud or impersonation, inadvertent or intentional actions by our employees, or other attempts to harm or access our systems. In the event of a major disruption caused by a natural disaster or any of the foregoing, we may be unable to continue our operations and may endure system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our development activities, lengthy interruptions in service, breaches of data security and loss of critical data or personal information, any of which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. We are also at risk of data breaches, as further described below.

The risk of cyberattacks and other data security breaches requires us to incur significant costs to maintain the security of our networks and data, and, in the event of such breaches, may expose us to liability, adversely affect our operations, damage our reputation, and affect our net revenues and profitability, and our efforts to combat breach and misuse of our systems and unauthorized access to our data may not be successful.

We rely on our IT systems and those of our service providers to conduct much of our business operations. Our and our service providers’ IT and computer systems store and transmit customer information, trade secrets, corporate data and personal information, and are otherwise essential to the operation of our production lines, which may make us a target for cyberattacks. In addition, our accreditation as a Trusted Foundry by the Defense Microelectronics Activity (“DMEA”) and our processing of sensitive information may make us an attractive target for attacks, including industrial or nation-state espionage, organized criminals, and terrorist cyberattacks. Hackers may seek to disrupt our operations, blackmail us to regain control of our systems, or spy on us for sensitive information. Further, we depend on our employees and the employees of our service providers to appropriately handle confidential and sensitive data and deploy our IT resources in a safe and secure manner that does not expose our network systems to security breaches or the loss of data. However, there is always a risk that inadvertent disclosure or actions or internal malfeasance by our employees or those of our service providers could result in a loss of data or a breach or interruption of our IT systems.

We are making significant investments in cybersecurity and data security, as well as other efforts to combat breach and misuse of our systems and unauthorized access to our and our customers’ data by third parties. While we seek to continuously review and assess our cybersecurity policies and procedures to ensure their adequacy and effectiveness, all IT and computer systems are vulnerable to attacks, especially via methods that have not been observed yet or quickly evolve. The risk of security breaches may be higher during times of a natural disaster or pandemic (including COVID-19) due to remote working arrangements. We cannot guarantee that our IT and computer systems which control or maintain vital corporate functions, such as our manufacturing operations and enterprise accounting, would be immune to cyberattacks. In the event of a serious cyberattack, our systems may lose important customer information, trade secrets, corporate data or personal information or our production lines may be shut down pending the resolution of such an attack.

In addition, we employ certain third-party service providers for us and our affiliates worldwide with whom we need to share highly sensitive and confidential information to enable them to provide the relevant services. While, to date, we have not been subject to cyberattacks which, individually or in the aggregate, have been material to our operations or financial conditions, some of our third-party service providers have experienced cyberattacks of which we have been made aware. Despite requiring certain third-party service providers to comply with the confidentiality and security requirements in our service agreements with them, there is no assurance that each of them will strictly fulfill any of their obligations or that they will be successful in preventing further cyberattacks. The on-site network systems and the off-site cloud computing networks such as servers maintained by these service providers and/or their contractors are also subject to risks associated with cyberattacks. While we attempt to take prompt action once we are alerted to a cyberattack against one of our third-party service providers and implement steps designed to mitigate associated risks to our systems and data, we may in the future not be made aware of such events in a timely manner or may be unable to successfully sever network connectivity or otherwise limit the risk to our own systems.

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If we or our service providers are not able to timely contain, remediate and resolve the respective issues caused by cyberattacks and data breaches, or ensure the integrity and availability of our systems and data (or data belonging to our customers or other third parties) or control of our or our service providers’ IT or computer systems, then such attacks, breaches or failures could:

Further, remediation efforts may not be successful and could result in interruptions, delays or cessation of service, unfavorable publicity, damage to our reputation, customer allegations of breach-of-contract, possible litigation, and loss of existing or potential customers that may impede our sales or other critical functions. Additionally, any such attack or unauthorized access may require spending resources on correcting the breach and indemnifying the relevant parties and litigation, regulatory investigations, regulatory proceedings, increased insurance premiums, lost revenues, penalties fines and other potential liabilities, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Compliance with applicable data security and data privacy laws and regulations may be costly and, in the case of a breach of applicable law, could harm our reputation.

In the United States, federal and state laws impose limits on, or requirements regarding the collection, distribution, use, security and storage of personal information of individuals, and there has been increased regulation of data privacy and security particularly at the state level, including the California Consumer Privacy Act (effective on January 1, 2020), and the California Privacy Rights Act (expected to take effect on January 1, 2023). Currently, many states are actively considering or enacting similar laws and we operate in many of these jurisdictions. Outside the United States, the European Union and other countries in which we operate also have privacy and data protection laws, regulations and standards.

The interpretation and application of many of these existing or recently enacted laws and regulations are increasingly complex, uncertain and fluid, and could be inconsistent with our existing data management practices. For example, recent developments in Europe have created complexity and uncertainty regarding transfers of personal data from the EEA and the UK to the United States and other jurisdictions. Furthermore, the long-term regulation of data transfers between the EEA and the UK is uncertain, as a relevant adequacy decision

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enabling such transfers is due to expire. These developments could lead to substantial costs, require significant changes, divert the attention of our technology personnel, adversely affect our margins, increase costs and subject us to additional liabilities. If we are unable to transfer personal data between and among countries and regions in which we operate, it could affect the geographical location or segregation of our relevant systems and operations, and could adversely affect our financial results. In addition, the existing EU and UK privacy laws on cookies and e-marketing are also in flux and are likely to be replaced by new regulations, which may introduce more stringent requirements for using cookies and similar technologies for direct marketing and significantly increase fines for non-compliance in-line with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Stricter enforcement of such laws could limit the effectiveness of our marketing activities, divert the attention of our technology personnel, increase costs and subject us to additional liabilities.

Inappropriate disclosure of personal and other sensitive data, even if inadvertent, or other actual or perceived violations of or noncompliance with such laws and regulations could expose us to significant administrative, civil or criminal liability as well as reputational harm. For example, a breach of the GDPR could result in fines of up to 20 million euros (“EUR”) under the European GDPR or British pound sterling (“GBP”) 17.5 million under the U.K. GDPR or up to 4% of the annual global revenues of the infringer, whichever is greater, as well as regulatory investigations, reputational damage, orders to cease or change our processing of personal data, enforcement notices and/or assessment notices (for a compulsory audit). Privacy-related claims or lawsuits initiated by governmental bodies, employees or other third parties, whether meritorious or not, could be time-consuming, result in costly regulatory proceedings, litigation, penalties and fines, or require us to change our business practices, sometimes in expensive ways, or other potential liabilities.

Additionally, a failure to comply with the National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-171 or the DoD’s cybersecurity requirements, including the Cyber Security Material Model Certificate (“CMMC”), which will require all contractors to receive specific third-party cybersecurity certifications to be eligible for contract awards, could restrict our ability to bid for, be awarded and perform on DoD contracts. The DoD expects that all new contracts will be required to comply with the CMMC by 2026, and initial requests for information and for proposal have already begun. We are in the process of evaluating our readiness and preparing for the CMMC. To the extent we, or our subcontractors or other third parties on whom we rely are unable to achieve certification in advance of contract awards that specify the requirement, we may be unable to bid on contract awards or follow-on awards for existing work with the DoD, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. We will also be required to go through a recertification process every two years. In addition, any obligations that may be imposed on us under the CMMC may be different from or in addition to those otherwise required by applicable laws and regulations, which may cause additional expense for compliance.

Our products may contain defects that could harm our reputation, be costly to correct, delay revenues and expose us to litigation.

Our products are highly complex and sophisticated and, from time to time, may contain defects, errors, hardware failures or other failures that are difficult to detect and correct. Errors, defects and other failures may be found in new solutions, products or services or improvements to existing solutions, products or services after delivery to our customers. If these defects, errors and failures are discovered, we may not be able to successfully correct them in a timely manner or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the impact of the error or failure. The occurrence of errors, defects and other failures in our products could result in the delay or the denial of market acceptance of our products and alleviating such errors, defects and other failures may require us to make significant expenditure of our resources. Our products are often used for critical business processes and as a result, any defect in or failure of our products may cause customers to reconsider renewing their contract with us, cause significant customer dissatisfaction and possibly giving rise to claims for indemnification or other monetary damages. The harm to our reputation resulting from errors, defects and other failures may be material. Any claims for actual or alleged losses to our customers’ businesses may require us to spend significant time and money in litigation or arbitration or to pay significant settlements or damages. Defending a lawsuit, regardless of

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merit, can be costly and divert management’s attention and resources. Accordingly, any such claim could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Any problem in the semiconductor outsourcing infrastructure could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Many of our customers depend on third parties to provide assembly, testing and other related services. Many of these services are geographically concentrated primarily in Asia. If these customers cannot timely obtain those services on reasonable terms, they may not order foundry products and services from us, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Risks Related to Intellectual Property

Any failure to obtain, maintain, protect or enforce our intellectual property and proprietary rights could impair our ability to protect our proprietary technology and our brand.

Our success depends to a significant degree on our ability to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights. We rely on a combination of patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, and other forms of intellectual property, contractual restrictions and confidentiality procedures to establish and protect our proprietary rights. However, the steps we take to obtain, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights may be inadequate. We may not be able to protect our technology, know-how, and/or brand if we are unable to enforce our rights for whatever reason or if we do not detect unauthorized use of our intellectual property rights. If we fail to protect our intellectual property rights adequately, our competitors may gain access to our proprietary technology and develop and commercialize substantially similar products, services or technologies, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We have filed various applications for certain aspects of our intellectual property in the United States and other countries, and we have built a comprehensive patent portfolio of approximately 10,000 worldwide patents. In the future, we may acquire additional patents or patent portfolios, license patents from third parties or agree to license the technology of third parties, which could require significant cash expenditures. Our patents do not cover all of our technologies, systems, products and product components and our competitors or others may design around our patented technologies. Further, when we seek patent protection for a particular technology, there is no assurance that the applications we file will result in issued patents or that if patents do issue as a result that they will be found to be valid and enforceable or that they will effectively block competitors from creating competing technology. In addition, we may need to license technology from third parties to develop and market new products and we cannot be certain that we could license that technology on commercially reasonable terms or at all. Our inability to license this technology could harm our ability to compete and materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Some of our know-how or technology is not patented or patentable and may constitute trade secrets. To protect our trade secrets, we have a policy of requiring our employees, consultants, advisors and other collaborators who contribute to our material intellectual property to enter into confidentiality agreements. We also rely on customary contractual protections with our suppliers and customers, and we implement security measures intended to protect our trade secrets, know-how and other proprietary information. However, no assurances can be given that those contracts will not be breached. Further, those contracts and arrangements may be ineffective in protecting our intellectual property and may not prevent unauthorized disclosure. See also “There is a risk that our trade secrets, know-how and other proprietary information will be stolen, used in an unauthorized manner, or compromised, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.” In addition, third parties may independently develop technologies that may be substantially equivalent or superior to our technology.

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There is a risk that our trade secrets, know-how and other proprietary information will be stolen, used in an unauthorized manner, or compromised, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Our trade secrets, know-how and other proprietary information may be stolen, used in an unauthorized manner, or compromised through a direct intrusion by private parties or foreign actors, including those affiliated with or controlled by state actors, through cyber intrusions into our computer systems, physical theft through corporate espionage or other means, or through more indirect routes, including by joint venture partners, licensees that do not honor the terms of the license, potential licensees that were ultimately not licensed, or other parties reverse engineering our company’s solutions, products or components. Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

The laws of some foreign countries may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States, and mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be inadequate.

The absence of internationally harmonized intellectual property laws and different enforcement regimes makes it more difficult to ensure consistent protection of our proprietary rights. Our strong international presence may lead to increased exposure to unauthorized copying and use of our manufacturing technologies and proprietary information. Moreover, policing unauthorized use of our technologies, trade secrets, and intellectual property may be difficult, expensive and time-consuming, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not be as protective of intellectual property rights as those in the United States and where mechanisms for enforcement of intellectual property rights may be weak. Accordingly, despite our efforts, we may be unable to prevent third parties from infringing upon, misappropriating or otherwise violating our intellectual property rights. Our inability to secure or enforce our intellectual property rights could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We have been and may continue to become subject to intellectual property disputes, which are costly and may subject us to significant liability and increased costs of doing business.

The semiconductor industry is subject to claims of infringement by patent assertion entities and is characterized by frequent litigation regarding patent rights. From time to time, we receive communications from third parties that allege that our products or technologies infringe their patent or other intellectual property rights and we have had patent infringement lawsuits filed against us claiming that certain of our products, services, or technologies infringe the intellectual property rights of others. We may continue to become subject to such intellectual property disputes in the future. Further, we have entered into licenses, including patent licenses with third parties in settlements of claims or in order to avoid intellectual property disputes and the loss of license rights, including as a result of a termination or expiration of such licenses, may limit our ability to use certain technologies in the future, which could cause us to incur significant costs, prevent us from commercializing certain of our products or otherwise have a material adverse effect on us. In addition, there may be issued patents held by third parties that, if found to be valid and enforceable, could be alleged to be infringed by our current or future technologies or products. There also may be pending patent applications of others that may result in issued patents, which could be alleged to be infringed by our current or future technologies or products.

In order to protect our intellectual property rights, we may be required to spend significant resources to monitor and protect those rights. Litigation brought to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming and distracting to management. Further, our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights, and if such defenses, counterclaims or countersuits are successful, we could lose valuable intellectual property rights. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation or diversion of our management’s attention and resources, could delay the implementation of our manufacturing technologies, delay introductions of new solutions or injure our reputation and could have a material and adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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Further, many of our agreements with our customers and partners, the terms of which often survive termination or expiration of the applicable agreement, require us to defend such parties against certain intellectual property infringement claims and indemnify them for damages and losses arising from certain intellectual property infringement claims against them, which have in the past resulted, and could in the future result, in increased costs for defending such claims or significant damages if there is an adverse ruling in any such claims. These defense costs and indemnity payments could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. Such customers and partners may also discontinue the use of our products, services, and solutions, as a result of injunctions or otherwise, which could result in loss of revenues and adversely affect our business. We may also have to seek a license for the technology, which may not be available on reasonable terms, if at all, and may significantly increase our operating expenses or may require us to restrict our business activities and limit our ability to develop and deliver our products. As a result, we may also be required to develop alternative non-infringing technology, which could require significant effort and expense or which may not be possible, which could negatively affect our business. Moreover, intellectual property indemnities provided to us by our suppliers, when obtainable, may not cover all damages and losses suffered by us and our customers arising from intellectual property infringement claims. Even if we were to prevail in such a dispute, any litigation regarding our intellectual property could be costly and time-consuming and divert the attention of our management and key personnel from our business operations.

Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to develop and commercialize our technology without infringing, misappropriating or otherwise violating the intellectual property rights of third parties and we may not be aware of such infringements, misappropriations or violations.

Third parties may bring claims alleging infringement, misappropriation or violation of intellectual property rights. We cannot guarantee that we have not, do not or will not infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of others. Our technologies may not be able to withstand any third-party claims against their use. In addition, some companies may have the capability to dedicate substantially greater resources to enforce their intellectual property rights and to defend claims that may be brought against them. Furthermore, third parties have and may continue to assert infringement claims against us in the future, including the sometimes aggressive and opportunistic actions of non-practicing entities whose business model is to obtain patent-licensing revenues from operating companies such as us. Regardless of the merit of such claims, any claim that we have violated intellectual property or other proprietary rights of third parties, whether or not it results in litigation, is settled out of court or is determined in our favor, could be expensive and time-consuming, and could divert the time and attention of management and technical personnel from our business. The litigation process is subject to inherent uncertainties, and we may not prevail in litigation matters regardless of the merits of our position. In some jurisdictions, plaintiffs can also seek injunctive relief that may limit the operation of our business or prevent the marketing and selling of our services that infringe or allegedly infringe on the plaintiff’s intellectual property rights. If a third party is able to obtain an injunction preventing us from using our technology, accessing third-party intellectual property rights, or if we cannot license or develop alternative technology for any infringing aspect of our business, we could be forced to limit or stop manufacturing activities or sales of our products or cease other business activities related to such intellectual property. To resolve these claims, we may enter into licensing agreements with restrictive terms or significant fees, stop selling our products or services or be required to implement costly or inferior redesigns to the affected products or services, or pay damages to satisfy contractual obligations to others. If we do not resolve these claims in advance of a trial, there is no guarantee that we will be successful in court. These outcomes could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We may be unable to provide technology to our customers if we lose the support of our technology partners.

Enhancing our manufacturing process technologies is critical to our ability to provide services for our customers. We intend to continue to advance our process technologies through internal R&D and alliances with

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other companies. In addition to our internal R&D focused on developing new and improved semiconductor manufacturing process technologies, our business involves collaboration, including customization and other development of technologies and intellectual property, with and for our customers, vendors and other third parties. We frequently enter into agreements with customers, vendors, equipment suppliers and others that involve customization and other development of technologies and intellectual property. As a result of these agreements, we may be required to limit use of, or refrain from using, certain technologies and intellectual property rights in parts of our business. Determining inventorship and ownership of technologies and intellectual property rights resulting from development activities can be difficult and uncertain.

Disputes may arise with customers, vendors and other third parties regarding ownership of and rights to use and enforce these technologies and intellectual property rights or regarding interpretation of our agreements with these third parties, and these disputes may result in claims against us or claims that intellectual property rights are not owned by us, are not enforceable, or are invalid. The cost and effort to resolve these types of disputes, or the loss of rights in technologies in intellectual property rights if we lose these types of disputes, could harm our business and financial condition. In addition, our customers, vendors and other third parties may suffer delays, quality issues, or other problems affecting their development activities and ability to supply us with certain technology and intellectual property, which could adversely affect our business and operating results. Further, if we are unable to continue any of our joint development arrangements or other agreements, on mutually beneficial terms, or if we cannot re-evaluate the technological and economic benefits of such relationships with these partners, vendors or suppliers in a timely manner sufficient to support our ongoing technology development, we may be unable to continue providing our customers with leading edge or differentiated mass-producible process technologies and may, as a result, lose important customers, which could have a materially adverse effect on our results of operations, financial condition, businesses and prospects.

Risks Related to Strategic Transactions

We are in the process of divesting our EFK facility to ON Semiconductor as part of a transaction we entered into in 2019. Failure to successfully manage the divestment of that asset in a timely manner may adversely affect our operations and have a material impact on our cost savings initiatives.

In April 2019, we entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with Semiconductor Components Industries, LLC (“ON Semiconductor”) pursuant to which we agreed to transfer substantially all the assets and employees related to our EFK facility in return for $400 million in consideration and $30 million for a technology license. ON Semiconductor paid $100 million in advance upon signing, and an additional $100 million in 2020. We expect the completion of the sale will occur, subject to regulatory approvals, at the end of 2022. The transaction excluded the transfer of our commercial customer arrangements. Since the transaction was entered into, we have transferred a number of technologies from the EFK facility to our other global manufacturing sites to ensure continuous supply to key customers. In order to facilitate these transfers, we and ON Semiconductor have agreed to provide transition services, including reciprocal supply agreements and technology transfer and intellectual property licensing agreements. Pursuant to the Asset Purchase Agreement, we also agreed to transition approximately 1,000 employees to ON Semiconductor. While we do not anticipate issues related to the transfer and anticipate satisfying all the conditions to closing as set forth in the agreements, the divestment has taken and will continue to require management time and attention and, if for any reason, we fail to complete the transfer on a timely manner or at all or ON Semiconductor fails to fulfill its obligations under the applicable agreements, we may not be able to realize our anticipated benefits, including cost savings, related to the divestment, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We may make strategic acquisitions, and such acquisitions may introduce significant risks and uncertainties, including risks related to integrating the acquired companies, assets or businesses.

We have in the past sought, and may in the future seek, to acquire or invest in businesses, joint ventures and technologies that we believe could complement or expand our capacity, enhance our technology offerings or

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otherwise offer growth opportunities. These efforts may divert the attention of management and cause us to incur various expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing suitable opportunities, whether or not the transactions are completed, and may result in unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures. Our integration efforts may periodically expose deficiencies in the controls and procedures relating to cybersecurity and the compliance with data privacy and protection laws, regulations and standards of an acquired company or business that were not identified in our due diligence undertaken prior to consummating the acquisition. Additionally, we may encounter difficulties assimilating or integrating the businesses, technologies, products, personnel or operations of any acquired companies, particularly if the key personnel of an acquired company cannot be retained, or we have difficulty preserving the customers of any acquired business. Any such transactions that we are able to complete may not result in the synergies or other benefits we expected to achieve, which could result in substantial impairment charges. These transactions could also result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our results of operations. Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Political, Regulatory and Legal Risks

Environmental, health and safety laws and regulations expose us to liability and risk of non-compliance, and any such liability or non-compliance could adversely affect our business.

In each jurisdiction in which we operate, our operations are subject to diverse environmental, health and safety laws and regulations that govern, among other things, emissions of pollutants into the air, wastewater discharges, the use and handling of hazardous substances, waste disposal, the investigation and remediation of soil and ground water contamination and the health and safety of our employees. Semiconductor manufacturing depends on a wide array of process materials, including hazardous materials that are subject to local, state, national or international regulations. These materials, our manufacturing operations and our products and services are subject to diverse environmental, health and safety laws, regulations and regulatory requirements. Sourcing of materials could also present reputational risks if our direct or indirect suppliers are found to be in violation of environmental health and safety regulations, or of ethical or human rights regulations or standards.

Regulatory changes, including restrictions on new or existing materials critical to our manufacturing processes, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and perfluorooctane sulfonate, increased restrictions related to wastewater, air emissions and hazardous substances, or changes to necessary permitting requirements, could cause disruptions to our operations or necessitate additional costs or capital expenditures, such as those associated with identifying and qualifying substitute materials or processes, or with installing additional controls related to wastewater, air emissions or waste management. Regulatory limitations or restrictive covenants at contaminated properties could affect our ability to expand manufacturing operations or capacities and may affect our ability to import materials or equipment.

Industrial accidents or releases, including those associated with storage, use, transportation or disposal of hazardous materials or wastes, could expose us to liabilities or remediation obligations and we may not have insurance coverage for such matters. Non-compliance with environmental, health and safety regulations or associated permit requirements may result in liabilities or monetary penalties. Non-compliance with or public controversy regarding environmental, health and safety matters could result in reputational harm.

Certain environmental laws, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and state equivalents, make us potentially liable on a strict, joint and several basis for the investigation and remediation of contamination at, or originating from, facilities that are currently or formerly owned or operated by us and third-party sites to which we send or have sent materials for disposal or materials for recycling, along with related natural resources damages. We could become subject to potential material liabilities for the investigation and cleanup of historic contamination on the U.S. properties where we operate should the currently responsible parties cease their ongoing remediation efforts notwithstanding their contractual obligations to us.

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Regulations and customer-imposed requirements in response to climate change could result in additional costs related to changes in process materials, control of process emissions, “carbon taxes” or related fees, and sourcing of energy supplies. Increased frequency of extreme weather events, and chronic conditions like higher temperatures and droughts could cause disruptions to our manufacturing facilities, non-manufacturing operations and supply chain.

Although we have policies, controls, and procedures designed to help ensure compliance with applicable laws, there can be no assurance that our employees, contractors, suppliers or agents will not violate such laws or our policies. Violations of these laws and regulations can result in fines, criminal sanctions against us, our officers, or our employees, prohibitions on the conduct of our business, and damage to our reputation.

Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

We are subject to anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing laws and similar laws and regulations, and non-compliance with such laws, regulations and standards can subject us to administrative, criminal or civil liability and harm our business, financial condition, results of operations and reputation.

We are subject to the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, as amended, U.S. anti-bribery laws and other anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations in the countries in which we conduct business. Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been enforced aggressively in recent years and are interpreted broadly to generally prohibit companies, their employees and their third-party intermediaries from authorizing, offering or providing, directly or indirectly, improper payments or benefits to recipients in the public or private sectors. In connection with our international sales and business and sales to the public sector, we may engage with business partners and third-party intermediaries to market our products and services and to obtain necessary permits, licenses, and other regulatory approvals. In addition, our third-party intermediaries, or other business partners, may have direct or indirect interactions with officials and employees of government agencies or state-owned or affiliated entities. We can be held liable for corrupt or other illegal activities of these third-party intermediaries or other business partners, their employees, representatives, contractors, partners, and agents, even if we do not explicitly authorize such activities. Although we have policies and procedures to address compliance with such laws and regulations, there is a risk that our employees and agents will take actions in violation of our policies and applicable law, for which we may be ultimately held responsible.

Detecting, investigating and resolving actual or alleged violations of anti-corruption laws can require a significant diversion of time, resources and attention from senior management. In addition, noncompliance with anti-corruption, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering or counter-terrorist financing laws and regulations could subject us to whistleblower complaints, investigations, sanctions, settlements, prosecution, enforcement actions, fines, damages, other civil or criminal penalties or injunctions, suspension or debarment from contracting with certain persons, reputational harm, adverse media coverage and other collateral consequences. If any subpoenas or investigations are launched, or governmental or other sanctions are imposed, or if we do not prevail in any possible civil or criminal proceeding, our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects could be materially and adversely affected. Even in the event of a positive outcome in such an investigation or proceeding, the cost of the investigation or defense could be significant and negatively affect our financial performance.

These laws, regulations and standards are driving the review and updating of many corporate policies and systems, often at significant expense. Until there is a settling of a consistent and stable global approach, our company, with customers and employees around the world, will be exposed to financial risk in complying with these requirements. Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

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We are subject to governmental export and customs compliance requirements that could impair our ability to compete in international markets or subject us to liability if we violate the controls.

Our products and technology are subject to export controls in the jurisdictions where we do business. For example, in the United States, we are subject to the Export Administration Regulations and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”). Under these regulations, certain commodities, software and technology may be exported only with the required export authorizations. Some technology and software that we create or possess is controlled under these regulations, and in certain cases, we are required to maintain controls limiting the access to such technology and software, even among our own employees. Furthermore, our activities are subject to economic sanctions laws and regulations, including U.S. economic sanctions laws and regulations administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control that prohibit or restrict dealings that are within U.S. jurisdiction with, in or involving certain jurisdictions subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions and certain designated persons and entities. We have corporate policies and procedures in place reasonably designed to ensure compliance with all applicable export control and economic sanctions laws and regulations.

In some cases, our compliance obligations may result in the loss of sales opportunities. In other cases, we may experience delays in our ability to conduct business as we await government authorization. Violations of economic sanctions or export control regulations can result in significant administrative fines or penalties or even criminal prosecution.

We are currently and may in the future become subject to litigation that could result in substantial costs, divert or continue to divert management’s attention and resources, and materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

On June 7, 2021 we filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of New York seeking declaratory judgment that we had not violated certain agreements entered into with IBM relating to our acquisition of IBM’s Microelectronics division in 2015, and subsequent development and research activities and sales of our products to IBM. On June 8, 2021, IBM filed a complaint in the Supreme Court of New York asserting intentional breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation claims under the same set of agreements. IBM argues that it is entitled to a return of its $1.5 billon payment to the company and at least $1 billion in damages. We believe, based on discussions with legal counsel, that we have meritorious defenses against such claims. We dispute IBM’s claims and intend to vigorously defend against them. In addition, we are, and may become subject to, legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, such as claims brought by our customers in connection with commercial disputes, product liability claims, employment claims made by our current or former employees or claims of infringement raised by intellectual property owners, in connection with the technology used in our manufacturing operations. The risk of such litigation may increase due to use of our products in safety-related systems of other advanced technologies, including automobiles.

In 2017, we and the Chengdu, China local government (“CD”) entered into a set of agreements related to the establishment of a joint venture in Chengdu, China to establish and operate a greenfield wafer production site in Chengdu. The parties contemplated that the manufacturing operations would be implemented in two phases. Due to a variety of factors, including unanticipated market conditions, the manufacturing operations did not proceed as planned and the parties have been working to wind-down operations of the joint venture. On April 26, 2021, we received a claim from CD requesting that we share in CD’s alleged losses and related costs incurred to support the joint venture. We and CD are engaged in negotiations to settle the claim and we recorded a provision of $34 million in June 2021.

Any existing or future disputes, claims or proceedings could result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources. Insurance might not cover such claims, might not provide sufficient payments to cover all the costs to resolve one or more such claims and might not continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated

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costs, potentially harming our business, financial position and results of operations. Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects. Further, negative publicity arising from disputes, claims or proceedings may damage our reputation and adversely affect the image of our brand and our products. In addition, if any verdict or award is rendered against us, we could be required to pay significant monetary damages, assume other liabilities and even to suspend or terminate related business ventures or projects.

If regular or statutory consultation processes with employee representatives such as works councils fail or are delayed, or if our employees were to engage in a strike or other work stoppage, our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects could be materially and adversely affected.

We may be required to consult with our employee representatives, such as works councils, on items such as work hours, restructurings, acquisitions and divestitures. Although we believe that our relations with our employees, employee representatives and works councils are satisfactory, no assurance can be given that we will be able to successfully extend or renegotiate these agreements as they expire from time to time or, in the case of transactions, to conclude potential consultation processes in a timely way. Also, if we fail to extend or renegotiate our labor agreements and social plans, if significant disputes with unions arise, or if our workers engage in a strike or other work stoppage, we could incur higher ongoing labor costs or experience a significant disruption of operations. Recently, we have experienced minor work stoppages involving a small number of employees at our Dresden, Germany manufacturing facility. Although those work stoppages did not materially impact production, future work stoppages, if more frequent or on a larger scale, could impact our production and our ability to timely provide products to our customers. Any of the foregoing factors could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Currency and Interest Rate Risks

We are exposed to foreign currency risk, which could materially adversely affect our cost of expenses and profit margins and could result in exchange losses.

The majority of our sales are denominated in U.S. dollars, and therefore, our revenue is not subject to foreign currency risk. However, an increase in the value of the U.S. dollar can increase the real cost to our customers of our products and services in those markets outside of the United States where we sell in U.S. dollars. Conversely, a weakened U.S. dollar can increase the cost of expenses such as our direct labor, raw materials and overhead that are incurred outside of the United States. These operating expenses are denominated in foreign currencies and are subject to fluctuations due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Additionally, this could impact our capital expenditures with foreign suppliers we pay in non-U.S. dollar currencies. We also engage in financing activities in local currencies. Our hedging programs may not be able to effectively offset any, or more than a portion, of the impact of currency exchange rate movements. As a result, unfavorable changes in exchange rates could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

LIBOR and certain other interest “benchmarks” may be subject to regulatory guidance and/or reform that could cause interest rates under our current or future debt agreements to perform differently than in the past or cause other unanticipated consequences.

Because a majority of our debt is primarily based on the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”) and certain other benchmarks, fluctuations in interest rates could have a material effect on our business. We currently utilize, and may in the future utilize, derivative financial instruments such as interest rate swaps or interest rate caps to hedge some of our exposure to interest rate fluctuations, but such instruments may not be effective in reducing our exposure to interest fluctuations, and we may discontinue utilizing them at any time. As a result, we may incur higher interest costs if interest rates increase. These higher interest costs could have a material adverse impact on our financial condition and the levels of cash we maintain for working capital.

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In addition, LIBOR and certain other interest “benchmarks” may be subject to regulatory guidance and/or reform that could cause interest rates under our current or future debt agreements to perform differently than in the past or cause other unanticipated consequences. The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority, which regulates LIBOR, has announced that it intends to stop encouraging or requiring banks to submit LIBOR rates after 2021, and it is unclear if LIBOR will cease to exist or if new methods of calculating LIBOR will evolve. On March 5, 2021, ICE Benchmark Administration announced that all LIBOR settings will either cease to be provided by any benchmark administrator, or no longer be representative immediately after December 31, 2021 for all GBP, EUR, Swiss franc (“CHF”) and Japanese yen (“JPY”) LIBOR and for one-week and two-month U.S. dollar (“USD”) LIBOR tenors, and immediately after June 30, 2023 for the remaining USD LIBOR tenors. Notwithstanding this extension, a joint statement by key regulatory authorities called on banks to cease entering into new contracts that use LIBOR as a reference rate by no later than December 31, 2021. If LIBOR ceases to exist or if the methods of calculating LIBOR change from their current form, interest rates on our current or future debt obligations may be adversely affected.

If a published USD LIBOR rate is unavailable, we may be required to substitute an alternative reference rate, such as a different benchmark interest rate or the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”), in lieu of LIBOR. The Alternative Reference Rates Committee has proposed SOFR as its recommended alternative to LIBOR and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began publishing SOFR rates in April 2018. SOFR is intended to be a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight that is collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities. However, because SOFR is a broad U.S. Treasury repo financing rate that represents overnight secured funding transactions, it differs fundamentally from LIBOR. For example, SOFR is a secured overnight rate, while LIBOR is an unsecured rate that represents interbank funding over different maturities. In addition, because SOFR is a transaction-based rate, it is backward-looking, whereas LIBOR is forward-looking. Because of these and other differences, there is no assurance that SOFR will perform in the same way as LIBOR would have performed at any time, and there is no guarantee that it is a comparable substitute for LIBOR. SOFR may fail to gain market acceptance. A change from LIBOR to any of the proposed alternative reference rates could result in interest obligations that are more than or that do not otherwise correlate over time with the payments that would have been made on this debt if USD LIBOR were available in its current form. Any of these proposals or consequences could have a material adverse effect on our financing costs. Moreover, the phase-out of LIBOR may adversely affect our assessment of effectiveness or measurement of ineffectiveness for accounting purposes of any future interest rate hedging agreements indexed to LIBOR.

Risks Related to Changes in Effective Tax Rate and Accounting Principles

Changes in our effective tax rate or tax liability may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.

Our effective tax rate could increase due to several factors, including, but not limited to:

Changes, such as these, that affect our effective tax rate could materially and adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition.

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Our international operations subject us to potentially adverse tax consequences.

We generally conduct our international operations through subsidiaries and report our taxable income in various jurisdictions worldwide based upon our business operations in those jurisdictions. Our intercompany relationships are subject to complex transfer pricing regulations administered by taxing authorities in various jurisdictions. The relevant taxing authorities may disagree with our determinations as to the value of assets sold or acquired or income and expenses attributable to specific jurisdictions. If such a disagreement were to occur, and our position were not sustained, we could be required to pay additional taxes, interest, and penalties, which could result in one-time tax charges, higher effective tax rates, reduced cash flows, and lower overall profitability of our operations.

There is also a high level of uncertainty in today’s tax environment stemming from both global initiatives put forth by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or the OECD, and unilateral measures being implemented by various countries due to a historic lack of consensus on these global initiatives. As an example, the OECD has put forth two proposals—Pillar One and Pillar Two—that revise the existing profit allocation and nexus rules (profit allocation based on location of sales versus physical presence) and ensure a minimal level of taxation, respectively. If these proposals are passed, it is likely that we will have to pay higher income taxes in countries where such rules are applicable.

Our reported financial results may be adversely affected by changes in accounting principles.

IFRS, as adopted by the IASB, is subject to interpretation by the IASB and various bodies formed to promulgate and interpret appropriate accounting principles. A change in these principles or interpretations could have a significant effect on our reported results of operations, financial position and cash flows and could affect the reporting of transactions already completed before the announcement of a change.

Risks Related to Our Status as a Controlled Company and Foreign Private Issuer

Our shareholder, Mubadala, will continue to have substantial control after this offering, which could limit your ability to influence the outcome of key transactions, including a change of control, and otherwise affect the prevailing market price of our ordinary shares.

After this offering, our shareholder, Mubadala, will beneficially own, in the aggregate, approximately                 % of our outstanding ordinary shares, and approximately                 % of our outstanding ordinary shares if the underwriters’ option to purchase additional shares of ordinary shares in this offering is exercised in full. See “Principal and Selling Shareholders.” In addition, as described in more detail under “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions,” prior to the consummation of this offering, we intend to enter into a shareholder’s agreement with Mubadala, which will entitle Mubadala, subject to the level of Mubadala’s beneficial ownership of our ordinary shares, to certain consent rights and director nomination rights. As a result, Mubadala will continue to have significant influence over the management and affairs of our company, as well as the ability to control the outcome of matters submitted to our shareholders for approval, including the election of directors and the approval of significant corporate transactions, including any merger, consolidation or sale of all or substantially all of our assets and the issuance or redemption of equity interests in certain circumstances. The interests of Mubadala may not always coincide with, and in some cases may conflict with, our interests and the interests of our other shareholders. For instance, Mubadala could attempt to delay or prevent a change in control of our company, even if such change in control would benefit our other shareholders, which could deprive our shareholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their ordinary shares. This concentration of ownership may also affect the prevailing market price of our ordinary shares due to investors’ perceptions that conflicts of interest may exist or arise, and because Mubadala may sell, or investors may perceive that Mubadala is likely to sell, a significant amount of our ordinary shares.

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As a foreign private issuer and a controlled company, we are not subject to certain corporate governance rules applicable to U.S. listed companies.

As a foreign private issuer that intends to apply to list our ordinary shares on the Nasdaq, we rely on a provision in the Nasdaq corporate governance listing standards that allows us to follow Cayman Island law with regard to certain aspects of corporate governance. This allows us to follow certain corporate governance practices that differ in significant respects from the corporate governance requirements applicable to U.S. companies listed on the Nasdaq.

For example, we are exempt from Nasdaq regulations that require a listed U.S. company to:

As a foreign private issuer, we are permitted to follow home country practice in lieu of the above requirements. Our audit, risk and compliance committee is required to comply with the provisions Rule 10A-3 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), which is applicable to U.S. companies listed on the Nasdaq. However, because we are a foreign private issuer, our audit, risk and compliance committee is not subject to additional Nasdaq corporate governance requirements applicable to listed U.S. companies, including the requirements to have a minimum of three members and to affirmatively determine that all members are “independent,” using more stringent criteria than those applicable to us as a foreign private issuer.

We are a foreign private issuer and, as a result, are not subject to U.S. proxy rules but are subject to reporting obligations that, to some extent, are more lenient and less frequent than those of a U.S. issuer.

We are a non-U.S. company with foreign private issuer status. Because we qualify as a foreign private issuer under the Exchange Act, and although we follow the laws and regulations of the Cayman Islands with regard to such matters, we are exempt from certain provisions of the Exchange Act that are applicable to U.S. public companies, including: (i) the sections of the Exchange Act regulating the solicitation of proxies, consents or authorizations in respect of a security registered under the Exchange Act, (ii) the sections of the Exchange Act requiring insiders to file public reports of their stock ownership and trading activities and liability for insiders who profit from trades made in a short period of time and (iii) the rules under the Exchange Act requiring the filing of quarterly reports on Form 10-Q containing unaudited financial and other specified information, or current reports on Form 8-K, upon the occurrence of specified significant events. Foreign private issuers are required to file their annual report on Form 20-F within four months after the end of each fiscal year. Foreign private issuers are also exempt from the Regulation Fair Disclosure, aimed at preventing issuers from making selective disclosures of material information. As a result of the above, you may not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are not foreign private issuers. This may be the case even though we intend to make interim reports available to our shareholders, copies of which we are required to furnish to the SEC on a Form 6-K, and even though we are required to file reports on Form 6-K disclosing whatever information we have made or are required to make public pursuant to Cayman Islands law or distribute to our shareholders and that is material to us.

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We are a Cayman Islands company and, because judicial precedent regarding the rights of shareholders is more limited under Cayman Islands law than that under U.S. law, you may have less protection for your shareholder rights than you would under U.S. law.

Our corporate affairs are governed by our Amended and Restated Memorandum and Articles of Association (the “Memorandum and Articles of Association”), as amended and restated from time to time, the Cayman Islands Companies Act (as amended) (the “Cayman Companies Act”) and the common law of the Cayman Islands. The rights of shareholders to take action against the directors, actions by minority shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors to us under Cayman Islands law are to a large extent governed by the common law of the Cayman Islands. The common law of the Cayman Islands is derived in part from comparatively limited judicial precedent in the Cayman Islands as well as that from English common law, which has persuasive, but not binding, authority on a court in the Cayman Islands. The rights of our shareholders and the fiduciary responsibilities of our directors under Cayman Islands law are not as clearly defined as they would be under statutes or judicial precedent in some jurisdictions in the United States. In particular, the Cayman Islands has a less prescriptive body of securities laws than the United States. In addition, some U.S. states, such as Delaware, have more fulsome and judicially interpreted bodies of corporate law than the Cayman Islands.

As a result of all of the above, public shareholders may have more difficulty in protecting their interests in the face of actions taken by management, members of the board of directors or controlling shareholders than they would as shareholders of a corporation incorporated in a jurisdiction in the United States.

The Cayman Islands Economic Substance Law may affect our operations.

As the global regulatory and tax environment evolves, we may be subject to new or different statutory and regulatory requirements (for example, the Cayman Islands has recently enacted the International Tax Co-operation (Economic Substance) Act (As Revised)). It is difficult to predict what impact the adoption of new laws or regulations, or changes in the interpretation of existing laws or regulations, could have on us. For example, compliance with various additional obligations may create significant additional costs or otherwise affect the management and operation of our company, and could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects.

Risks Related to Operating as a Public Company

We will incur increased costs and expenses as a result of operating as a public company and our management will be required to devote substantial time to compliance with our public company responsibilities and corporate governance practices.

As a public company, we will incur greater legal, accounting and other expenses than we incurred as a private company. After this offering, we will be subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (“SOX”), the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (the “Dodd-Frank Act”), and the rules and regulations of the Nasdaq, which impose various requirements on public companies, including establishment and maintenance of effective disclosure and financial controls and corporate governance practices. These requirements will increase our legal, accounting, and financial compliance costs and will make some activities more difficult, time-consuming, and costly, and place significant strain on our personnel, systems and resources. For example, we expect these rules and regulations to make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to maintain the same or similar coverage.

We are evaluating these rules and regulations and cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs. These rules and regulations are often subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices.

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We will also need to comply with auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of SOX. In that regard, as we prepare for such compliance, we will need to hire additional accounting and financial staff with appropriate public company experience and technical accounting knowledge. We cannot predict or estimate the amount of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs.

If we fail to establish and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting, our operating results and our ability to operate our business could be harmed.

Ensuring that we have adequate internal financial and accounting controls and procedures in place so that we can produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis is a costly and time-consuming effort that needs to be re-evaluated frequently. Our internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. In connection with this offering, we intend to begin the process of documenting, reviewing and improving our internal controls and procedures for compliance with Section 404 of SOX, which will require annual management assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Implementing any appropriate changes to our internal controls may distract our officers and employees, entail substantial costs to modify our existing processes and take significant time to complete. These changes may not, however, be effective in maintaining the adequacy of our internal controls, and any failure to maintain that adequacy, or consequent inability to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis, could increase our operating costs and harm our business. In addition, investors’ perceptions that our internal controls are inadequate or that we are unable to produce accurate financial statements on a timely basis may harm the trading price of our ordinary shares following this offering and make it more difficult for us to effectively market and sell our service to new and existing customers.

Risks Related to our Ordinary Shares

There has been no prior public market for our ordinary shares, and an active trading market may never develop or be sustained.

Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for our ordinary shares. The initial public offering price for our ordinary shares was determined by negotiations between us, Mubadala and the representatives of the underwriters and may not be indicative of prices that will prevail in the trading market following the closing of this offering. Although we intend to apply to have our ordinary shares listed on the Nasdaq, an active trading market for our ordinary shares may never develop or be sustained following this offering. If an active market for our ordinary shares does not develop, it may be difficult for you to sell shares you purchase in this offering without depressing the market price for our ordinary shares, or at all. An inactive trading market may also impair our ability to raise capital by selling shares of our ordinary shares and enter into strategic partnerships or acquire other complementary products, technologies or businesses by using shares of our ordinary shares as consideration. Furthermore, although we intend to apply to have our ordinary shares listed on the Nasdaq, even if listed, there can be no guarantee that we will continue to satisfy the continued listing standards of the Nasdaq. If we fail to satisfy the continued listing standards, we could be de-listed, which would negatively impact the value and liquidity of your investment.

The trading price of our ordinary shares following this offering may be volatile, and investors in our ordinary shares may not be able to resell shares of our ordinary shares at or above the price paid, or at all.

The trading price of our ordinary shares following this offering could be volatile and subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, many of which are beyond our control, including, but not limited to:

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Furthermore, the stock market in general has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of particular companies. Broad market and industry factors may significantly affect the market price of our ordinary shares, regardless of our actual operating performance. These fluctuations may be even more pronounced in the trading market for our ordinary shares shortly following the closing of this offering, including potential volume fluctuations related to the exercise of a significant number of our employee stock options and subsequent sale of shares prior to the end of the calendar year in which our management lock-up expires. We expect that if such options are in-the-money they will be exercised prior to expiration.

These and other factors may cause the market price and demand for our ordinary shares to fluctuate significantly, which may limit or prevent investors from readily selling their shares of ordinary shares and may otherwise negatively affect the liquidity of our ordinary shares. In addition, in the past, when the market price of a stock has been volatile, holders of that stock have sometimes instituted securities class action litigation against the company that issued the stock. If any of our shareholders were to bring a lawsuit against us, we could incur substantial costs defending the lawsuit. Such a lawsuit could also divert the time and attention of our management from our core business operations.

We have broad discretion to use the net proceeds that we receive from this offering, and our investment of these proceeds may not yield a favorable return. We may invest such proceeds of this offering in ways you disagree with.

Our management has broad discretion as to how to spend and invest the proceeds that we receive from this offering, and we may spend or invest these proceeds in ways with which our shareholders may disagree. Accordingly, investors will need to rely on our judgment with respect to the use of these proceeds. We intend to use the proceeds that we receive from this offering for capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes, including the costs associated with being a public company and potentially for paying down indebtedness. We could spend the proceeds that we receive from this offering in ways that our shareholders may not agree with or

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that do not yield a favorable return. You will not have the opportunity as part of your investment decision to assess whether the net proceeds that we receive from this offering are being used appropriately. If we do not use the net proceeds that we receive in this offering effectively, our results of operations, financial condition, business and prospects could be materially adversely affected, and the market price of our ordinary shares could decline.

If you purchase our ordinary shares in this offering, you will incur immediate and substantial dilution, and issuance of additional capital stock could lead to further dilution.

The assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share (the midpoint of the estimated offering price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus) will be substantially higher than the pro forma net tangible book value per share of our outstanding ordinary shares of $                 per share as of                , 2021 after this offering. Investors purchasing shares of our ordinary shares in this offering will pay a price per share that substantially exceeds the book value of our tangible assets after subtracting our liabilities. As a result, investors purchasing ordinary shares in this offering will incur immediate dilution of $                 per share, based on the assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, which is the midpoint of the estimated offering price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus.

This dilution is due to the substantially lower price paid by our shareholders who purchased shares prior to this offering as compared to the price offered to the public in this offering. As a result of the dilution to investors purchasing shares in this offering, investors may receive less than the purchase price paid in this offering, if anything, in the event of our liquidation. See “Dilution.”

Future sales or distributions of our shares by Mubadala could depress the price of our ordinary shares.

After this offering, and subject to the lock-up period described below, Mubadala may sell all or a portion of the ordinary shares that it owns. Immediately following the offering, Mubadala will own approximately                 % of our outstanding ordinary shares. Sales by Mubadala in the public market or other distributions of substantial amounts of our ordinary shares, or the filing of a registration statement relating to a substantial amount of our ordinary shares, could depress our ordinary share price. Mubadala is not subject to any contractual obligation to maintain its ownership position in our shares, except that it has agreed not to sell or otherwise dispose of any of our ordinary shares for a period ending                days (subject to extension) after the date of this prospectus without the prior written consent of Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC on behalf of the underwriters, subject to specified limited exceptions and extensions described in “Underwriters.” Consequently, Mubadala may decide not to maintain its ownership of our ordinary shares once the lock-up period expires. See “Shares Eligible for Future Sale.”

In addition, Mubadala will have the right, subject to certain conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering its shares or to include its shares in other registration statements that we may file. By exercising its registration rights and selling a large number of shares, Mubadala could cause the price of our ordinary shares to decline.

We do not expect to declare or pay any dividends on our ordinary shares for the foreseeable future.

We do not intend to pay cash dividends on our ordinary shares for the foreseeable future. Consequently, investors must rely on sales of their shares of our ordinary shares after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investment. Investors seeking dividends should not purchase shares of our ordinary shares. Any future determination to pay dividends will be at the discretion of our board of directors and subject to, among other things, our compliance with applicable law, and depending on, among other things, our business prospects, financial condition, results of operations, cash requirements and availability, debt repayment obligations, capital expenditure needs, the terms of any preferred equity securities we may issue in the future, covenants in the agreements governing our current and future indebtedness, other

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contractual restrictions, industry trends and any other factors or considerations our board of directors may regard as relevant. See “Dividend Policy.”

Anti-takeover provisions in our organizational documents and Cayman Islands law may discourage or prevent a change of control, even if an acquisition would be beneficial to our shareholders, which could depress the price of our ordinary shares and prevent attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current management.

Our Memorandum and Articles of Association contain provisions that may discourage unsolicited takeover proposals that shareholders may consider to be in their best interests. Our board of directors is divided into three classes with staggered, three-year terms. Our board of directors has the ability to designate the terms of and issue preferred shares without shareholder approval. We are also subject to certain provisions under Cayman Islands law that could delay or prevent a change of control. Together these provisions may make more difficult the removal of management and may discourage transactions that otherwise could involve payment of a premium over prevailing market prices for our ordinary shares. See “Description of Share Capital.”

Our Memorandum and Articles of Association provide for indemnification of officers and directors at our expense and limit their liability, which may result in a major cost to us and hurt the interests of our shareholders because corporate resources may be expended for the benefit of officers and/or directors.

Our Memorandum and Articles of Association and applicable law of the Cayman Islands provide for the indemnification of our directors, officers, employees, and agents, under certain circumstances, against attorney’s fees and other expenses incurred by them in any litigation to which they become a party arising from their association with or activities on our behalf. We will also bear the expenses of such litigation for any of our directors, officers, employees, or agents, upon such person’s promise to repay us if it is ultimately determined that any such person shall not have been entitled to indemnification. This indemnification policy could result in substantial expenditures by us that we will be unable to recoup.

We have been advised that, in the opinion of the SEC, indemnification for liabilities arising under federal securities laws is against public policy as expressed in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (“Securities Act”), and is, therefore, unenforceable.

If equity research analysts or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they change their recommendations regarding our stock adversely, our stock price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our ordinary shares, should one develop, will be influenced by the research and reports that industry or equity research analysts publish about us or our business. As a newly public company, we may be slow to attract research coverage and the analysts who publish information about our ordinary shares will have had relatively little experience with us, which could affect their ability to accurately forecast our results and could make it more likely that we fail to meet their estimates. If no or few securities or industry analysts commence coverage of us, the trading price for our ordinary shares will be negatively impacted. In the event we do obtain industry or equity research analyst coverage, we will not have any control over the analysts’ content and opinions included in their reports. If any of the analysts who cover us issue an adverse or misleading opinion regarding us, our business model, financial performance, stock price or otherwise, our stock price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts ceases coverage of our company or fails to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline and result in the loss of all or a part of your investment in us.

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SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This prospectus contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, beliefs, expectations and current views with respect to, among other things, future events and financial performance. The forward-looking statements appear in a number of places in this prospectus including, but not limited to, the sections titled “Prospectus Summary,” “Risk Factors,” “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Business.” Forward-looking statements are based on our management’s beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management.

You can identify some of these forward-looking statements by words or phrases such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “is/are likely to,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “shall,” “should,” “target,” “will,” the negative of these words or other similar expressions, or by discussions of strategy, plans or intentions. Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, including those listed under “Risk Factors,” may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to:

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We caution you that the foregoing list does not contain all of the forward-looking statements made in this prospectus.

Forward-looking statements are based on current plans, estimates and projections, and therefore you should not place undue reliance on them. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update them publicly in light of new information or future events, except as required by law. The inclusion of this forward-looking information should not be regarded as a representation by us, the underwriters or any other person that the future plans, estimates or expectations contemplated by us will be achieved. Actual future results may be materially different from what we expect.

You should carefully consider the “Risk Factors” and subsequent public statements, or reports filed with or furnished to the SEC, before making any investment decision with respect to our securities. If any of these trends, risks or uncertainties actually occurs or continues, our business, financial condition or operating results could be materially adversely affected, the trading prices of our securities could decline and you could lose all or part of your investment. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.

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INDUSTRY AND MARKET DATA

This prospectus contains statistical data, estimates and forecasts about our industry and the market in which we operate, including our general expectations and market position, market opportunity and market size. That information is based on our own internal estimates and research, as well as independent industry publications such as those published by Gartner, Inc., Boston Consulting Group, International Data Corporation, IoT Analytics, Dell’Oro Group, Inc. (“Gartner”), IC Insights, U.S. Census Bureau, IHS Markit Ltd., Omdia, the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium and the Semiconductor Industry Association, and is subject to a number of assumptions and limitations. The Gartner content described herein (the “Gartner Content”) represents research opinion or viewpoints published, as part of a syndicated subscription service, by Gartner, and are not representations of fact. Gartner Content speaks as of its original publication date (and not as of the date of this prospectus), and the opinions expressed in the Gartner Content are subject to change without notice.

Although we are responsible for all of the disclosure contained in this prospectus and we believe the information from the industry publication and other third-party sources included in this prospectus is reliable, neither we nor the underwriters have independently verified market and industry data from third-party sources. While we believe our internal company research is reliable and the definitions of our market and industry are appropriate, neither this research nor these definitions have been verified by any independent source.

The industry in which we operate is subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in the section titled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this prospectus. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties and by us.

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USE OF PROCEEDS

We estimate that the net proceeds from the sale of                ordinary shares that we are selling in this offering will be approximately $                million (or $                million if the underwriters exercise in full their option to purchase additional shares), based on an assumed initial public offering price of $                per share, which is the midpoint of the price range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We will not receive any proceeds from the sale of ordinary shares by the selling shareholder.

Each $1.00 increase or decrease in the assumed initial public offering price would increase or decrease, respectively, the net proceeds to us by approximately $                million, assuming the number of shares offered by us, as set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, remains the same and after deducting the estimated underwriting discounts and commissions. Similarly, each increase (decrease) of                shares in the number of common shares offered by us would increase (decrease) the net proceeds to us from this offering by approximately $             , assuming the assumed initial public offering price remains the same and after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses payable by us. We do not expect that a change in the initial price to the public or the number of shares by these amounts would have a material effect on uses of the proceeds from this offering, although it may accelerate the time at which we will need to seek additional capital.

The principal purposes of selling our ordinary shares in this offering are to obtain additional capital, to create a public market for our ordinary shares and to facilitate our future access to the public equity markets. We intend to use the net proceeds for capital expenditures and other general corporate purposes, including the costs associated with being a public company and potentially for paying down indebtedness. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds for the acquisition of, or investment in, businesses or technologies that complement our business, although we have no present commitments or agreements to do so.

We have not yet determined our anticipated expenditures and therefore cannot estimate the amounts to be used for each of the purposes discussed above. The amounts and timing of any expenditures will vary depending on the amount of cash generated by our operations, competitive and technological developments and the rate of growth, if any, of our business. Accordingly, our management will have significant flexibility in applying the net proceeds from this offering, and investors will be relying on the judgment of our management regarding the application of these net proceeds. Pending the uses described above, we intend to invest the net proceeds from this offering in short-term, interest-bearing obligations, investment-grade instruments, certificates of deposit or direct or guaranteed obligations of the U.S. government. The goal with respect to the investment of these net proceeds will be capital preservation and liquidity so that these funds are readily available to fund our operations.

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DIVIDEND POLICY

We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings to fund the development and growth of our business. Therefore, we do not anticipate declaring or paying any cash dividends to our shareholders in the foreseeable future. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our board of directors, subject to applicable laws, and will depend on a number of factors, including our business prospects, results of operations, financial condition, cash requirements and availability, debt repayment obligations, capital expenditure needs, covenants in the agreements governing our current and future indebtedness, other contractual restrictions, industry trends and any other factors or considerations our board of directors may regard as relevant.

Under Cayman Islands law, dividends may be declared and paid only out of funds legally available therefor, namely out of either profit or distributable reserves, including our share premium account, and provided further that a dividend may not be paid if this would result in us being unable to pay our debts as they fall due in the ordinary course of business.

For additional information, see “Risk Factors—We do not expect to declare or pay any dividends on our ordinary shares for the foreseeable future” and “Description of Share Capital—Dividends.”

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CAPITALIZATION

The following table sets forth our capitalization as of December 31, 2020:

This table should be read in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” our consolidated financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, and with other financial information contained in this prospectus.

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DILUTION

If you invest in our ordinary shares in this offering, your ownership interest will be diluted to the extent of the difference between the initial public offering price per share and the pro forma as adjusted net tangible book value per share of our ordinary shares immediately after this offering. Dilution results from the fact that the initial public offering price per share is substantially in excess of the book value per share attributable to the existing shareholders for our presently outstanding ordinary shares.

Our pro forma net tangible book value as of                      , 2021 was $                 or $                 per share of ordinary shares. Pro forma net tangible book value per share is determined by dividing our tangible net worth, total assets less total liabilities, by the aggregate number of ordinary shares outstanding. After giving effect to the sale of the                ordinary shares in this offering, at an assumed initial public offering price of $                 per share, the midpoint of the range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, and the receipt and application of the net proceeds, our pro forma net tangible book value at                 , 2021 would have been $                 or $                 per share. This represents an immediate increase in pro forma net tangible book value to existing shareholder of $                 per share and an immediate dilution to new investors of $                 per share. The following table illustrates this per share dilution:

Dilution is determined by subtracting pro forma net tangible book value per share after the offering from the initial public offering price per share.

The following table sets forth, on a pro forma basis, as of                     , 2021, the number of ordinary shares purchased from us, the total consideration paid, or to be paid, and the average price per share paid, or to be paid, by the existing shareholder and by the new investors, at an assumed initial public offering price of $            per share, the midpoint of the range set forth on the cover page of this prospectus, before deducting estimated underwriting discounts and commissions and offering expenses payable:

The foregoing tables assume no exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option or of outstanding share options after                     , 2021. At                     , 2021,                  ordinary shares were subject to outstanding options, at a weighted average exercise price of $                . To the extent these options are exercised there will be further dilution to new investors. See Note 33 to our consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus for additional details.

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MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with the section titled “Summary Consolidated Financial Data” and the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this prospectus. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed below. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those identified below and those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included elsewhere in this prospectus.

Overview

We are one of the world’s leading semiconductor foundries. We manufacture complex, feature-rich ICs that enable billions of electronic devices that are pervasive throughout nearly every sector of the global economy. With our specialized foundry manufacturing processes, a library consisting of thousands of IP titles, and differentiated transistor and device technology, we serve a broad range of customers, including the global leaders in IC design, and provide optimized solutions for the function, performance and power requirements of critical applications driving key secular growth end markets. As the only scaled pure-play foundry with a global footprint that is not based in China or Taiwan, we help customers mitigate geopolitical risk and provide greater supply chain certainty. We define a scaled pure-play foundry as a company that focuses on producing ICs for other companies, rather than those of its own design, with more than $2 billion of annual foundry revenue.

Technology megatrends including IoT, 5G, cloud, artificial intelligence and next-generation automotive are reshaping the global economy and driving a new golden age for semiconductors. As the manufacturing backbone of the semiconductor industry, foundries are the bedrock of the global technology ecosystem. We provide differentiated foundry solutions that enable the era for data-centric and connected technologies. We have a large and growing market opportunity with an estimated SAM of $54 billion in 2020, which reflects the sum of all foundry revenues excluding memory and revenues from <12nm wafers, as estimated by Gartner. Our SAM is supported by significant opportunities in our core markets of Smart Mobile Devices, Home and Industrial IoT, Communications Infrastructure & Datacenter, Automotive and Personal Computing. Our combination of highly-differentiated technology and large share of single-sourced products and long-term supply agreements provides a high degree of revenue visibility and significant operating leverage, resulting in improved financial performance and bottom line growth.

Since our founding in 2009, we have achieved the following key milestones:

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Strategic Repositioning

Beginning in 2018, we embarked on a new strategy to significantly reposition our business to better align with our customers’ needs, drive margin expansion and accelerate value creation for our stakeholders. Today, we focus on and are growing sales of foundry solutions for the pervasive semiconductor market, where we are trusted to reliably innovate and deliver premium performance, functionality, efficiency and quality specifically developed for customer applications, rather than focusing merely on transistor density and processing speed.

Key elements of our strategy include:

How We Generate Revenue

We generate the vast majority of our revenue from wafer fabrication and sales of finished semiconductor wafers, which accounted for approximately 92% of our net revenues in 2020. We derived the remainder of our revenue primarily from photomask manufacturing and sourcing services and post-fab manufacturing services.

In 2020, our net revenues were $4.9 billion, which included a one-time, non-recurring reduction in revenue due to our moving from recognizing wafer revenue on a Percentage-of-Completion basis to recognizing revenue on a Wafer Shipment basis, as a result of amendments to the majority of our customer contractual terms. See “—Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates—Revenue Recognition.” Had the change in terms not occurred, net revenues in 2020 would have been an estimated $810 million higher than reported results and 2020 cost of revenues would have likewise been higher by an estimated $634 million, with a commensurate decrease in our inventories. In addition, we divested our ASIC business in 2019. The divested business generated $391 million of revenue in 2019 and $402 million in 2018.

Key Financial and Operating Metrics

We monitor the following key metrics to help us evaluate our business, identify trends affecting our business, measure our performance, formulate business plans and make strategic decisions. We believe the

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following metrics are useful in evaluating our business but should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for IFRS financial measures. Certain judgments and estimates are inherent in our processes to calculate these metrics.

Wafer Shipment Volume

We define wafer shipment volume as the number of finished wafers shipped in a period expressed in 300mm equivalent wafers. We manufacture semiconductors on silicon wafers based on proprietary circuitry designs provided by and developed in conjunction with our customers.

Non-IFRS Financial Metrics

We believe that in addition to our results determined in accordance with IFRS, adjusted gross loss, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net loss from continuing operations are useful in evaluating our business and the underlying trends that are affecting our performance. These non-IFRS financial measures provide supplemental information regarding our operating performance that excludes certain gains, losses and non-cash charges that occur relatively infrequently and/or that we consider to be unrelated to our core operations. These non-IFRS measures are used by both our management and our board of directors, together with the comparable IFRS information, in evaluating our current performance and planning future business activities.

We believe that these non-IFRS measures, when used in conjunction with our IFRS financial information, also allow investors to better evaluate our financial performance in comparison to other periods and to other companies in our industry. However, non-IFRS financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with IFRS. Our presentation of non-IFRS measures should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by unusual or nonrecurring items. Other companies in our industry may calculate these measures differently, which may limit their usefulness as a comparative measure.

See “Summary Consolidated Financial Data” for reconciliation to the most directly comparable financial measure stated in accordance with IFRS.

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Adjusted Gross Loss

We regularly monitor adjusted gross loss to assess our manufacturing efficiency and pricing strategy. We define adjusted gross loss for a particular period as gross loss before share-based compensation expense. Adjusted gross loss has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under IFRS.

Adjusted EBITDA

We regularly monitor adjusted EBITDA to assess our operating performance. We define adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) from continuing operations, excluding the impact of interest expense, tax expense, depreciation, amortization adjusted for stock-based compensation expense, one-time transaction gains or losses or related expenses and one-time restructuring charges and litigation settlements. Adjusted EBITDA is used to facilitate a comparison of the ordinary, ongoing and customary course of our operations on a consistent basis from period to period and provides an additional understanding of factors and trends affecting our business. Adjusted EBITDA has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under IFRS.

Adjusted Net Loss from Continuing Operations

We regularly monitor adjusted net loss from continuing operations to assess our operating performance. We define adjusted net loss from continuing operations for a particular period as net loss from continuing operations before share-based compensation expense. Adjusted net loss from continuing operations has limitations as an analytical tool, and you should not consider it in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under IFRS.

Key Factors and Trends Affecting Our Operating Results

Our financial condition and results of operations have been, and will continue to be, affected by numerous factors and trends, including the following:

Global Demand for Semiconductor Products

Demand for our products is dependent on market conditions in the end markets in which our customers operate, which are generally subject to seasonality, cyclicality and competitive conditions. Additionally, we derive a portion of our net revenues from sales to customers that purchase large volumes of our products. Customers generally provide periodic forecasts of their requirements, but these forecasts do not commit such customers to minimum purchases except when long-term contracts are in place.

Increasing Design Wins with New and Existing Customers

We believe that we provide highly-differentiated solutions that enable our customers to innovate and deliver exceptional products to the marketplace. A key measure of our success is customer design wins, and we have secured more than $32 billion in design wins from 2018 to 2020. As our number of design wins has increased,

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our customer base has become larger and more diverse, having grown from only one customer, AMD, in 2009, to a global base of more than 200 customers as of December 31, 2020. As design wins for our highly-differentiated solutions are put into production and generate revenue, we expect significant benefits to our bottom line as our core solutions sell at premium pricing. We define a design win as the successful completion of the evaluation stage, where a customer has assessed our technology solution, verified that it meets its requirements, qualified it for their products and confirmed to us their selection.

Increasing Single-sourced Revenue Mix

We manufacture products based on a combination of our own technologies and our customers’ IP, resulting in a significant number of products that can only be sourced from us. Our sales and marketing strategy centers on deepening relationships with top customers and investing in technologies to become their single-source supplier for mission-critical applications. We believe a key measure of our success as a differentiated technology partner to our customers is the mix of our wafer shipment volume attributable to single-sourced business, which represented approximately 61% of wafer shipment volume in 2020, up from 47% in 2018. We define single-sourced products as those that we believe can only be manufactured with our technology and cannot be manufactured elsewhere without significant customer redesigns. Approximately 80% of our more than 350 design wins in 2020 were for single-sourced business, a record-breaking year in terms of number of design wins, up from 69% in 2018.

Technology Solution Mix and Pricing

Product mix is among the most important factors affecting revenue and margins, as our wafer price varies significantly across technology platforms. The value of a wafer is determined principally by the uniqueness and complexity of the technology, performance characteristics, yield and defect density. Devices with richer feature sets, higher performance, better yields and greater system-level integration require more substantial R&D investments and more complex manufacturing expertise and equipment, and thus generally command higher wafer prices.

Pricing and margins depend on the volumes and features of the solutions we deliver. We continually monitor and work to reduce the cost of our products and improve the potential value that our solutions deliver to our customers as we target new design win opportunities. While individual product prices may decline, we believe our R&D investments, differentiated product and single-sourced strategy should lead to improvements in pricing mix and overall ASPs if we compete effectively. We establish pricing levels for specific periods of time with our customers, some of which are subject to adjustment during the course of that period to take into account market conditions and other factors. We believe our efforts to provide a wide range of highly-differentiated solutions support our premium position in the marketplace.

Customer Advanced Payments

We recently began to more frequently enter into multiple long-term supply agreements with leading companies in the industry. Many of these contracts include customer advanced payments and capacity reservation fees in order to secure future supply. We have in place multiple long-term supply agreements with more than $17 billion in aggregate revenue commitments between 2022 and 2025. These revenue commitments provide significant visibility for our company.

Government Policy and Grants

We have received investment grants from the Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Saxony, various agencies of the Government of Singapore and the Empire State Development Corporation in New York. These grants are primarily provided in connection with construction and operation of our wafer manufacturing facilities, employment and R&D. We incorporate committed government grants into our planning process for future expansions.

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Shipment Utilization

Beginning in 2020, our shipment utilization rates began to increase significantly compared to prior years, as we have optimized and streamlined our manufacturing footprint. We define shipment utilization as the ratio of wafer shipment volume divided by our estimated total capacity for wafer manufacturing in a specified period. Shipment utilization remains a very important factor in driving our financial performance, as we incur significant costs regardless of the number of wafers we actually produce. These fixed costs include staffing, electricity, infrastructure, depreciation and maintenance costs at each fab.

Our average shipment utilization rate across our 300mm fabs was 80%, 70% and 84% for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively. Factors affecting shipment utilization rates include efficiency in production facilities, complexity and mix of wafer types ordered by customers, including the impact of export controls and other regulatory changes affecting customers and competitors. Our production capacity is determined based on the capacity ratings of the equipment in the fab, adjusted for expected down time due to set up for production runs and maintenance and R&D.

Impact of COVID-19 on Our Business

All of our manufacturing facilities continue to remain open and are operating at normal production levels. We have been classified as an essential business in the United States, Germany and Singapore and we expect our facilities to remain open throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Our manufacturing sites are limited to essential personnel only and we are able to maintain appropriate staffing levels to support production. We are also taking all appropriate measures to protect our workforce and community.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we increased the frequency of monitoring our cash flows and working capital, and to date we have seen no impacts. In March 2020, we drew down a $235 million revolving credit facility as a safeguard measure in case of pressure on the banking system, which was fully paid back in July 2020. Our suppliers continue to support our business without material impacts from the pandemic.

We are also evaluating and participating in government initiatives as appropriate. To date, we have benefited from approximately $29 million from payroll tax deferrals in the United States and approximately $26 million in grants from the government of Singapore.

Our customers have not signaled material demand shifts at this point and non-cancellable revenue coverage is within the normal historical range. We continue to closely monitor the business environment for changes and are prepared to adjust capital and operational spending as appropriate.

Components of Results of Operations

Net Revenues

We generate the majority of our revenue from volume production and sales of semiconductor wafers, which are priced on a per-wafer basis for the applicable design. We also generate revenue from pre-fabrication services such as rendering of non-recurring engineering (“NRE”) services, mask production and post-fabrication services such as bump, test, and packaging. Pricing is typically agreed prior to production and then updated based on subsequent period negotiations.

We recognize the vast majority of our revenue upon shipment of finished wafers to our customers. Prior to 2020, we recognized wafer revenue primarily on a Percentage-of-Completion basis. In 2020, the majority of our customer contractual terms were amended in a manner that resulted in moving from recognizing wafer revenue on a Percentage-of-Completion basis to recognizing revenue on a Wafer Shipment basis. This resulted in a one-time, non-recurring reduction in net revenues recognized in 2020. Our net revenues in 2020 were

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$4.8 billion, and had the change in terms not occurred, net revenues would have been an estimated $810 million higher than reported results. In addition, we divested our ASIC business in 2019. The divested business generated $391 million and $402 million of revenue in 2019 and 2018, respectively.

Cost of Revenues

Cost of revenues consists primarily of material expenses, depreciation and amortization, employee-related expenses, facility costs and costs of fixed assets, including maintenance and spare parts. Costs related to NRE services are also included within the cost of revenues.

Material expenses primarily include the costs of raw wafers, test wafers, photomasks, resists, process gases, process chemicals, other operating supplies and external service costs for wafer manufacturing. Depreciation and amortization charges primarily include the depreciation of clean room production equipment. We depreciate equipment on a straight-line basis over a two- to ten-year period and buildings on a straight-line basis over up to 26 years (or the remaining lease term of related land on which the buildings are erected, if shorter). Prior to 2021, we depreciated equipment on a straight-line basis over a two- to eight-year period. Employee-related expenses primarily include employee wages and salaries, social security contributions and benefits costs for operators, maintenance technicians, process engineers, supply chain, IT production, yield improvement and health and safety roles. Facility costs primarily consist of the costs of electricity, water and other utilities and services.

Operating Expenses

Our operating expenses consist of R&D and selling, general and administrative expenses. Personnel costs are the most significant component of our operating expenses and consist of salaries, benefits, bonuses, share-based compensation, and commissions.

Research and Development (“R&D”)

Our R&D efforts are focused on developing highly-differentiated process technologies and solutions. As part of our strategic repositioning, we shifted our R&D efforts to focus on technologies where we can deliver a highly- differentiated solution and discontinued our R&D-intensive single-digit node program. Our R&D expense includes personnel costs, materials costs, software license and intellectual property expenses, facility costs, supplies, professional and consulting fees, and depreciation on equipment used in R&D activities. Our development roadmap includes new platform investments, platform features and extensions, and investments in emerging technology capabilities and solutions. We expense R&D costs as incurred. We believe that continued investment in our technology portfolio is important for our future growth and acquisition of new customers. We expect our R&D expense as a percentage of revenue to moderately decline over time as revenue increases.

Selling, General and Administrative (“SG&A”)

SG&A expenses consist primarily of personnel-related costs, including sales commissions to independent sales representatives and professional fees, including the costs of accounting, audit, legal, regulatory and tax compliance. Additionally, costs related to advertising, trade shows, corporate marketing and allocated overhead costs are also included in SG&A expenses.

We expect our SG&A expenses to decrease as a percentage of net revenues. We anticipate that we will incur increased accounting, audit, legal, regulatory, compliance and director and officer insurance costs as well as investor and public relations expenses associated with becoming and operating as a public company.

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Other Operating Charges

Restructuring Charges

During the year ended December 31, 2018, we committed to a company-wide transformation program that resulted in the reorganization of our global business infrastructure. The company-wide transformation program resulted in restructuring charges relating to employee separation costs, which include one-time termination benefits that were recognized as a liability at estimated fair value at the time of communication to employees. During the year ended December 31, 2020, we also undertook transformation programs in targeted areas that resulted in restructuring charges related to employee separation costs.

Impairment Charges

We review, at each reporting date, or upon occurrence of a triggering event, the carrying amount of our property, plant and equipment and finite lived intangible assets to determine whether there is any indication that those assets have suffered an impairment loss. If it is determined that impairment of an asset has occurred, impairment losses are recognized in the consolidated statements of operations and comprehensive loss to the extent that the recoverable amount, measured at the present value of discounted cash flows attributable to the assets, is less than its carrying value.

Finance Expense

Finance expense consists primarily of interest on borrowings, amortization of debt issuance costs under our term loans, revolving credit facility, finance leases and the other credit facilities we maintain with various financial institutions.

Share of Profit from Joint Ventures and Associates

Share of profit from joint ventures and associates relates to our portion of profit and loss in investments that we do not consolidate. See Note 16 in the consolidated financial statements for more information.

Gain on Sale of a Fabrication Facility and ASIC Business

Gain on sale of a fabrication facility and ASIC business relates to the sale of Fab 3E facility in Singapore in December 2019, and the sale of our ASIC business in November 2019.

Other Income

Other income consists of one-time gains and losses and other miscellaneous income and expense items unrelated to our core operations. Included are payments received related to a recent legal settlement as part of a patent dispute with one of our competitors, as well as one-time gains related to a remeasurement of existing equity interests.

Income Tax Benefit (Expense)

Income tax expense consists primarily of income taxes in certain foreign jurisdictions in which we conduct business, which mainly include the United States, Germany, Singapore and U.S. federal and state income taxes.

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Annual Results of Operations

The following table sets forth our consolidated statements of operations data for the periods indicated:

Net Revenues

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Net revenues decreased by $962 million, or 16.6%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. In 2020, the majority of our customer contractual terms were amended in a manner that resulted in moving from recognizing wafer revenue on a Percentage-of-Completion basis to recognizing revenue on a Wafer Shipment basis. This resulted in a one-time, non-recurring reduction in net revenues recognized in 2020. Had the change in terms not occurred, our net revenues in 2020 would have been an estimated $810 million higher than reported results. In addition, we divested our ASIC business, which

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generated $391 million of revenue in 2019. These changes were offset by an increase in wafer shipment volume of approximately 272,000.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Net revenues decreased by $383 million, or 6.2%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. The decrease was driven primarily due to a reduction of wafer fabrication revenue of $270 million as a result of lower shipment to customers, as well as a decrease in ASPs.

Cost of Revenues

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Cost of revenues decreased by $782 million, or 12.3%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. The decrease was primarily attributable to the change in our customer contractual terms, which were amended in a manner that resulted in moving from recognizing wafer revenue on a Percentage-of-Completion basis to recognizing revenue on a Wafer Shipment basis. Had the change in terms not occurred, our cost of revenues in 2020 would have been an estimated $634 million higher than reported results, with a commensurate decrease in inventories. In addition, we divested our ASIC business in 2019. Cost of revenues related to this business was approximately $150 million in 2019.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Cost of revenues decreased by $301 million, or 4.5%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. The decrease was primarily attributable to a $208 million reduction in depreciation expense and lower wafer fabrication shipments.

Research and Development Expenses

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

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Research and development expenses decreased by $107 million, or 18.4%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily due to the sale of our ASIC business, which incurred research and development expenses of $91 million in 2019, and a $9 million increase in grants and NRE, reducing R&D.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Research and development expenses decreased by $343 million, or 37.1%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. This decrease was primarily related to a $152 million decrease related to a reduction in headcount, a $68 million decrease in indirect materials spend (purchase of raw materials used in the manufacturing of wafers), and a $115 million reduction in professional and other services fees. These reductions were largely as a result of our suspension of 7nm development in 2018.

Selling, General and Administrative Expenses

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by $1 million, or 0.2%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily due to a reduction in administrative expenses related to the ASIC business which was sold to Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (“Marvell”).

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased by $7 million, or 1.6%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. This decrease was primarily due to a reduction in professional and marketing expenses.

Other operating charges

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

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Other operating charges decreased by $41 million, or 64.1%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily due to lower impairment charges in 2020 related to equipment held for sale.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Other operating charges decreased by $630 million for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. This decrease was primarily due to lower impairment charges in 2019, compared to 2018. In 2018, we recorded $494 million of impairment charges related to our 7nm assets and $112 million of restructuring-related charges.

Finance income

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Finance income decreased by $8 million for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily due to lower cash balances and lower interest rates in 2020 compared to 2019, resulting in a decrease of interest earned.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Finance income increased by $1 million, or 10.7%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This increase was primarily due to higher cash balances in 2019, compared to 2018, resulting in an increase of interest earned.

Finance expense

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

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Finance expenses decreased by $76 million, or 32.9%, for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily driven by lower outstanding loan balances, and matured loans refinanced with lower interest rates.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Finance expenses increased by $65 million, or 39.4%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018. This increase was primarily due to higher interest expense following a modification of one of our credit facilities and new financing.

Share of profit of joint ventures and associates

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Share of profit of joint ventures and associates decreased by $4 million for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This decrease was primarily due to the consolidation of our AMTC (as defined below) mask operations joint venture in Germany.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Share of profit of joint ventures and associates increased by $1 million, or 13.9%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018.

Gain on Sale of a Fabrication Facility and ASIC Business

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

In 2019, we recorded a $197 million gain on sale of Fab 3E and a $418 million gain on the sale of our ASIC business.

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Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

As discussed above, we recorded gains in 2019 related to the sale of Fab 3E and our ASIC business.

Other Income, net

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019

Other income, net increased by $366 million for the year ended December 31, 2020, compared to the year ended December 31, 2019. This increase was primarily due to gains of $333 million related to a legal settlement and remeasurement of existing equity interests in 2020.

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018

Other income, net increased by $13 million, or 21.3%, for the year ended December 31, 2019, compared to the year ended December 31, 2018, primarily due to a decrease in interest related to lease expenses.

Income tax benefit (expense)

Comparison of Year ended December 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019