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UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2010

OR

For the Transition Period From                     to                    

Commission file number: 001-34666

MaxLinear, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

(760) 692-0711

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act: None

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes  ¨    No  þ

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes  ¨    No  þ

Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes  þ    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes  ¨    No  ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.   ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ¨ No þ

The aggregate market value of the registrant’s common stock, $0.0001 par value per share, held by non-affiliates of the registrant on June 30, 2010, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was $200 million (based on the closing sales price of the registrant’s Class A common stock on that date). Shares of the registrant’s Class A or Class B common stock held by each officer and director and each person known to the registrant to own 10% or more of the outstanding voting power of the registrant have been excluded in that such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not a determination for other purposes.

As of February 2, 2011, the registrant has 13,316,099 shares of Class A common stock, par value $0.0001, and 18,618,048 shares of Class B common stock, par value $0.0001, outstanding.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Information required by Part III of this Form 10-K is incorporated by reference to the registrant’s proxy statement (the “Proxy Statement”) for the 2011 annual meeting of stockholders, which proxy statement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Form 10-K.

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MAXLINEAR, INC.

PART I

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010, or this Form 10-K, contains forward-looking statements and information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which are subject to the “safe harbor” created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning our strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenues, projected costs, prospects and plans and objectives of management. The words “anticipates”, “believes”, “estimates”, “expects”, “intends”, “may”, “plans”, “projects”, “will”, “would” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements that we make. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the risks set forth in Part I, Item 1A, “Risk Factors” in this Form 10-K. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Corporate Information

We incorporated in the State of Delaware in September 2003. Our executive offices are located at 2051 Palomar Airport Road, Suite 100, Carlsbad, California 92011, and our telephone number is (760) 692-0711. In this Form 10-K, unless the context otherwise requires, the “Company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to MaxLinear, Inc. and its subsidiaries. Our website address is www.MaxLinear.com. The contents of our website are not incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K. We provide free of charge through a link on our website access to our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, as well as amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practical after the reports are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. The names “MxL” and “digIQ” are our registered trademarks. All other trademarks and trade names appearing in this Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.

Overview

We are a provider of highly integrated, radio-frequency analog and mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for broadband communications applications. Our high performance radio-frequency, or RF, receiver products capture and process digital and analog broadband signals to be decoded for various applications. These products include both RF receivers and RF receiver systems-on-chip, or SoCs, which incorporate our highly integrated radio system architecture and the functionality necessary to demodulate broadband signals. Our current products enable the display of broadband video content in a wide range of electronic devices, including cable and terrestrial set top boxes, digital televisions, mobile handsets, personal computers, netbooks and in-vehicle entertainment devices.

We combine our high performance RF and mixed-signal semiconductor design skills with our expertise in digital communications systems, software and embedded systems to provide highly integrated semiconductor devices that are manufactured using low-cost complementary metal oxide semiconductor, or CMOS, process technology. In addition, our ability to design analog and mixed-signal circuits in CMOS allows us to efficiently

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combine analog and digital signal processing functionality in the same integrated circuit. As a result, our RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs have high levels of performance, small silicon die size and low power consumption. Moreover, our proprietary CMOS-based radio system architecture provides to our customers the benefits of superior RF system performance, shorter design cycles, significant design flexibility and low system cost across a broad range of broadband communications applications.

We sell our products to original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, module makers and original design manufacturers, or ODMs. During 2010, we sold our products to more than 90 end customers. From inception through December 31, 2010, we shipped 130 million RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. For the year ended December 31, 2010, our net revenue was $68.7 million as compared to $51.4 million in the year ended December 31, 2009.

Industry Background

Recent technological advances in the display and broadcast TV markets are driving dramatic changes in the way consumers access and experience multimedia content. These advances include the ongoing worldwide conversion from analog to digital television broadcasting; the increasing availability of high-speed broadband and wireless connectivity; rapid improvements in display technology; the transition from standard to high definition television; and the proliferation of multimedia content accessible through terrestrial broadcast digital television, cable, satellite and telecommunications carrier services. As a result, system designers are adding enhanced television functionality to set top boxes and digital televisions. Television is also being incorporated in stationary and mobile electronic devices that previously did not include this functionality, such as mobile handsets, PCs and netbooks. Each electronic device equipped with broadcast digital TV or video functionality must incorporate one or more RF receivers that reliably capture and process broadcast signals. We believe that several favorable trends, across multiple target markets, are contributing to the increase in revenue opportunity for providers of RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. These trends include the following:

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As a result of these trends, RF receiver technology is being deployed in a variety of devices for the cable, consumer, automotive and mobile markets. The proliferation of applications with advanced features has led to an increase in the number of devices with multiple RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. RF receivers incorporate RF, digital and analog signal processing functions.

Challenges Faced by Providers of Systems and RF Receivers

The stringent performance requirements of broadband communications applications and the distinct technological challenges associated with the cable, consumer, automotive and mobile markets present significant obstacles to service providers and system designers. In particular, designing and implementing RF receivers to capture broadcast digital television signals is extremely challenging due in part to the wide frequency band across which broadcast digital television signals are transmitted. As compared to other digital radio technologies, such as cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth, television signals are acquired over a much wider frequency band and encounter many more sources of interference. As a result, traditionally, design and implementation of these RF receivers have been accomplished using conventional radio system architectures that employ multiple discrete components and are fabricated using expensive special purpose semiconductor manufacturing processes, such as silicon germanium and gallium arsenide-based process technologies.

The core challenges of capturing and processing a high quality broadband communications signal are common to the cable, consumer, automotive and mobile markets. These challenges include:

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Limitations of Existing RF Receiver Solutions

For the past several decades, the RF receiver technology of choice has been the electro-mechanical can tuner. Despite field-proven performance attributes such as signal clarity, can tuners are often prohibitively large in size and have high power consumption, low reliability and high cost, especially in systems requiring multiple RF receivers in a single device. Further, can tuners utilize multiple external discrete components that limit the use of a system design to a single region or standard. Regional or standard specific customization can be tedious, time consuming and costly for the system designers.

Silicon RF receiver solutions eliminate some of the mechanical and discrete electronic components found in can tuners. However, existing silicon RF receivers typically have been designed using a conventional radio system architecture that employs multiple external discrete components, although fewer than in traditional can-tuners. In addition, these silicon RF receivers have been fabricated using expensive, special purpose semiconductor manufacturing processes such as gallium arsenide and silicon germanium process technologies. The use of multiple components and exotic semiconductor manufacturing process technologies increases system design complexity and overall cost. It reduces the feasibility of further integrating digital baseband circuits on the

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same chip as the RF receiver. We believe that a new RF receiver technology is required to address the drawbacks of traditional can-tuners and silicon receivers for the cable, consumer, automotive and mobile TV markets.

Our Solution

We are a provider of highly integrated, mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for broadband communications applications. Our products are deployed in a wide range of electronic devices, including cable and terrestrial set top boxes, digital televisions, mobile handsets, personal computers, netbooks and in-vehicle entertainment devices. We combine our high performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductor design skills with our expertise in digital communications systems, software and embedded systems to develop RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. We integrate our RF receivers with digital demodulation and other communications functions in standard CMOS process technology. Our solutions have the following key features:

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Our Strategy

Our objective is to be the leading provider of mixed-signal RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs for stationary and mobile broadband video and data communications applications and, in the future, to leverage this core competency to expand into other communications markets with similar performance requirements. The key elements of our strategy are:

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Products

Our products are integrated into a wide range of electronic devices, including cable and terrestrial set top boxes, digital televisions, mobile handsets, personal computers, netbooks and in-vehicle entertainment devices. We are currently shipping production volumes of RF receiver and RF receiver SoCs that incorporate the third generation of our core technology platform. We provide customers guidelines known as reference designs so that they can efficiently use our products in their product designs. We currently provide two types of semiconductors:

Customers

We sell our products, directly and indirectly, to OEMs, module makers and ODMs. By providing a highly integrated reference design solution that our customers can incorporate in their products with minimal modifications, we enable our customers to design cost-effective high performance digital RF receiver and RF receiver SoC solutions rapidly. During the year ended December 31, 2010, we sold our products to more than 90 end customers. Substantially all of our sales to these and other customers are through distributors based in Asia. Although we actually sell the products to, and are paid by, the distributors, we refer to these end customers as our customers.

We currently rely, and expect to continue to rely, on a limited number of customers for a significant portion of our revenue. During the year ended December 31, 2010 and the year ended December 31, 2009, ten customers accounted for approximately 71% and 83% of our net revenue, respectively. For the year ended December 31, 2010, Panasonic and Toshiba represented 16% and 10% of revenue, respectively. In 2009, Panasonic, Murata, and MTC represented 23%, 13% and 12% of net revenue, respectively. At Panasonic, we sell our products into several applications, including modules for digital TV sets, automotive navigation displays and mobile handsets.

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Substantially all of our sales are made to customers outside the United States, and we anticipate that such sales will continue to be a significant portion of our revenue. Sales to end customers in Asia accounted for 97% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010 and 99% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2009. Sales to end customers in Japan accounted for 57% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010 and 54% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2009. Sales to end customers in China and Taiwan accounted for 24% and 13%, respectively, of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010. Sales to end customers in China accounted for 39% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2009. Although a significant portion of our sales are to customers in Asia, the end users who purchase products incorporating our integrated circuits may be in locations different than our own sales destination. See Note 1 to our consolidated financial statements for a discussion of total revenue by geographical region for 2010, 2009 and 2008.

Sales and Marketing

We sell our products worldwide through multiple channels, using both our direct sales force and a network of domestic and international distributors. We have direct sales personnel covering the United States, Europe and Asia, and operate customer engineering support offices in Carlsbad, California, Tokyo, Japan and Shenzhen, China. In each of these locations we employ a staff of field applications engineers to provide direct engineering support locally to our customers. We also provide many of our customers with access to individualized, web-based support.

Our distributors are independent entities that assist us in identifying and servicing customers in a particular territory, usually on a non-exclusive basis. Sales through distributors accounted for approximately 93% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010 and 96% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2009.

In October 2005, we entered into a non-exclusive distributor agreement with Tomen Electronics Corporation, or Tomen, for distribution of our products in Japan. Our distributor agreement with Tomen is effective for one year, unless it is terminated earlier by either party for any or no reason with written notice provided three months prior to the expiration of the agreement or by failure of the breaching party to cure a material breach within fifteen days following written notice of such material breach by the non-breaching party. Our agreement with Tomen will automatically renew for additional successive one-year terms unless at least three months before the end of the then-current term either party provides written notice to the other party that it elects not to renew the agreement. In June 2009, we entered into a non-exclusive distributor agreement with Moly Tech Limited, or Moly Tech, for distribution of our products in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Our distributor agreement with Moly Tech is effective for one year, unless it is terminated earlier by either party for any or no reason within sixty days of prior written notice or by failure to cure a material breach within thirty days following written notice of such material breach by the non-breaching party. Our agreement with Moly Tech will automatically renew for additional successive one-year terms unless at least sixty days before the end of the then-current term either party provides written notice to the other party that it elects not to renew the agreement. In August 2009, we entered into a non-exclusive distributor agreement with Lestina International Limited, or Lestina, for distribution of our products in China and Taiwan. Our distributor agreement with Lestina is effective for one year, unless it is terminated earlier by either party for any or no reason within sixty days of prior written notice or by failure to cure a material breach within thirty days following written notice of such material breach by the non-breaching party. Our agreement with Lestina will automatically renew for additional successive one-year terms unless at least sixty days before the end of the then-current term either party provides written notice to the other party that it that it elects not to renew the agreement.

Our sales cycles typically require a significant amount of time and a substantial expenditure of resources before we can realize revenue from the sale of products, if any. Our typical sales cycle consists of a multi-month sales and development process involving our customers’ system designers and management. The typical time from early engagement by our sales force to actual product introduction runs from nine to twelve months for the consumer market, to as much as 12 to 36 months for the automotive TV display market. If successful, this process culminates in a customer’s decision to use our products in its system, which we refer to as a design-win.

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Volume production may begin within three to nine months after a design-win, depending on the complexity of our customer’s product and other factors upon which we may have little or no influence. Once our products have been incorporated into a customer’s design, they are likely to be used for the life cycle of the customer’s product. Thus, a design-win may result in an extended period of revenue generation. Conversely, a design-loss to our competitors, may adversely impact our financial results for an extended period of time.

Our sales, generally, are made to purchase orders received approximately six to twelve weeks prior to the scheduled product delivery date. These purchase orders may be cancelled without charge upon notification, received within an agreed period of time in advance of the delivery date. Because of the scheduling requirements of our foundries and assembly and test contractors, we generally provide our contractors production forecasts, and place firm orders for products with our suppliers, up to thirteen weeks prior to the anticipated delivery date, often without a purchase order from our own customers. Our standard warranty provides that products containing defects in materials, workmanship or product performance may be returned for a refund of the purchase price or for replacement, at our discretion.

Manufacturing

We use third-party foundries and assembly and test contractors to manufacture, assemble and test our semiconductor products. This outsourced manufacturing approach allows us to focus our resources on the design, sale and marketing of our products. Our engineers work closely with our foundries and other contractors to increase yield, lower manufacturing costs and improve product quality.

Wafer Fabrication. We have selected standard CMOS process technology for our integrated circuit production. We currently manufacture our products in 0.18µ, 0.13µ and 0.11µ silicon wafer production process geometries at our principal foundry, United Microelectronics Corporation, or UMC, in Taiwan, and in Singapore. Current product developments are in 65nm and will be manufactured at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, UMC and Global Foundries, Inc. We are also looking to further expand our foundry network by including Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. for 0.13µ.

Package and Assembly. Upon the completion of silicon processing at the foundry, we forward the finished silicon wafers to our third-party assemblers for packaging and assembly. We and our customers have qualified multiple package and assembly vendors. Currently, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc., Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd., or SPIL, and Unisem (M) Berhad are our vendors for conventional chip packaging technologies. Jiangyin Changdian Advanced Packaging Co., Ltd., SPIL and Casio Micronics Co., Ltd. are our vendors for advanced chip packaging technologies, such as wafer level chip scale packages, or WLCSP.

Test. At the last stage of integrated circuit production, our third-party test service providers test the packaged and assembled integrated circuits. Currently, we have qualified three test service providers, Giga Solution Technology Co., Ltd., SIGURD Microelectronics Corp. and King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd.

Quality Assurance. We have implemented significant quality assurance procedures to assure high levels of product quality for our customers. We closely monitor the work-in-progress information and production records maintained by our suppliers, and communicate with our third-party contractors to assure high levels of product quality and an efficient manufacturing time cycle. Upon successful completion of the quality assurance procedures, all of our products are stored and shipped to our customers or distributors directly from our third-party contractors in accordance with our shipping instructions.

Research and Development

We believe that our future success depends on our ability to both improve our existing products and to develop new products for both existing and new markets. We direct our research and development efforts largely to the development of new high performance, mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for broadband

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communications applications. We target applications that require stringent overall system performance and low power consumption. As new and challenging communication applications proliferate, we believe that many of these applications will benefit from our SoC solutions combining analog and mixed-signal processing with digital signal processing functions. We have assembled a team of highly skilled semiconductor and embedded software design engineers with expertise in broadband RF and mixed-signal integrated circuit design, digital signal processing, communications systems and SoC design. As of December 31, 2010, we had 151 employees in our research and development group. Our engineering design teams are located in Carlsbad and Irvine in California, and in Shanghai, China. Our research and development expense was $27.7 million in 2010, $19.8 million in 2009 and $14.3 million in 2008.

Competition

We compete with both established and development-stage semiconductor companies that design, manufacture and market analog and mixed-signal broadband RF receiver products. Our competitors include companies with much longer operating histories, greater name recognition, access to larger customer bases and substantially greater financial, technical and operational resources. Our competitors may develop products that are similar or superior to ours. We consider our primary competitors to be companies with a proven track record of supporting market leaders and the technical capability to develop and bring to market competing broadband RF receiver and RF receiver SoC products. Our primary competitors include Broadcom Corporation, Entropic Communications, Inc., Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., Newport Media Inc., NXP B.V., Silicon Laboratories Inc. and Zoran Corporation. In addition, we believe that a number of other public and private companies, including some of our customers, are developing competing products for digital TV and other broadband communications applications.

The market for analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products is highly competitive, and we believe that it will grow more competitive as a result of continued technological advances. We believe that the principal competitive factors in our markets include the following:

We believe that we compete favorably as measured against each of these criteria. However, our ability to compete in the future will depend upon the successful design, development and marketing of compelling RF and mixed-signal semiconductor integrated solutions for high growth communications markets. In addition, our competitive position will depend on our ability to continue to attract and retain talent while protecting our intellectual property.

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Intellectual Property Rights

Our success and ability to compete depend, in part, upon our ability to establish and adequately protect our proprietary technology and confidential information. To protect our technology and confidential information, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, trade secrets, copyrights and trademarks. We also protect our proprietary technology and confidential information through the use of internal and external controls, including contractual protections with employees, contractors, business partners, consultants and advisors. Protecting mask works, or the “topography” or semiconductor material designs, of our integrated circuit products is of particular importance to our business and we seek to prevent or limit the ability of others to copy, reproduce or distribute our mask works.

We have three issued patents and 65 patent applications pending in the United States. We also have nine issued foreign patents and 33 other pending foreign patent applications, based on our issued patents and pending patent applications in the United States. The three issued patents in the United States will expire in 2025, 2025 and 2026, respectively. The nine issued foreign patents will expire in 2025.

We are the owner of two registered trademarks in the United States, “MxL” and “digIQ”, and we claim common law rights in certain other trademarks that are not registered.

We may not gain any competitive advantages from our patents and other intellectual property rights. Our existing and future patents may be circumvented, designed around, blocked or challenged as to inventorship, ownership, scope, validity or enforceability. It is possible that we may be provided with information in the future that could negatively affect the scope or enforceability of either our present or future patents. Furthermore, our pending and future patent applications may or may not be granted under the scope of the claims originally submitted in our patent applications. The scope of the claims submitted or granted may or may not be sufficiently broad to protect our proprietary technologies. Moreover, we have adopted a strategy of seeking limited patent protection with respect to the technologies used in or relating to our products.

We are a party to a license agreement with Intel Corporation relating to demodulator technologies that are licensed specifically for use in our products for cable set top boxes. The agreement was originally entered into with Texas Instruments but was subsequently assigned to Intel Corporation as part of Intel Corporation’s acquisition of Texas Instruments’ cable modem product line in 2010. The license agreement with Intel Corporation has a perpetual term, but Intel Corporation may terminate the agreement for our uncured material breach or for our bankruptcy. If the agreement is terminated, we would not be able to manufacture or sell products that contain the demodulator technology licensed from Intel Corporation, and there would be a delay in the shipment of our products containing the technology until we found a replacement for the demodulator technology in the marketplace on commercially reasonable terms or we developed the demodulator technology itself. We believe we could find a substitute for the currently licensed demodulator technology in the marketplace on commercially reasonable terms or develop the demodulator technology ourselves. In either case, obtaining new licenses or replacing existing technology could have a material adverse effect on our business, as described in “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—We utilize a significant amount of intellectual property in our business. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, our business could be adversely affected.”

The semiconductor industry is characterized by frequent litigation and other vigorous offensive and protective enforcement actions over rights to intellectual property. Moreover, there are numerous patents in the semiconductor industry, and new patents are being granted rapidly worldwide. Our competitors may obtain patents that block or limit our ability to develop new technology and/or improve our existing products. If our products were found to infringe any patents or other intellectual property rights held by third parties, we could be prevented from selling our products or be subject to litigation fees, statutory fines and/or other significant expenses. We may be required to initiate litigation in order to enforce any patents issued to us, or to determine the scope or validity of a third-party’s patent or other proprietary rights. We may in the future be contacted by third parties suggesting that we seek a license to intellectual property rights that they may believe we are

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infringing. In addition, in the future, we may be subject to lawsuits by third parties seeking to enforce their own intellectual property rights, as described in “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—We may face claims of intellectual property infringement, which could be time-consuming, costly to defend or settle and result in the loss of significant rights.”

Employees

As of December 31, 2010, we had 210 employees, including 151 in research and development, 32 in sales and marketing, 5 in operations and semiconductor technology and 22 in administration. None of our employees is represented by a labor organization or under any collective bargaining arrangement, and we have never had a work stoppage. We consider our employee relations to be good.

Backlog

Our sales are made primarily pursuant to standard purchase orders. Because industry practice allows customers to reschedule or cancel orders on relatively short notice, we believe that backlog is not a good indicator of our future sales.

Geographic Information

During our last three years, substantially all of our revenue was generated within Japan, China and Taiwan, and substantially all of our long-lived assets are located within the United States.

This Annual Report on Form 10-K, or Form 10-K, including any information incorporated by reference herein, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, referred to as the Securities Act, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, referred to as the Exchange Act. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “anticipates”, “believes”, “estimates”, “expects”, “intends”, “may”, “plans”, “projects”, “will”, “would” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements contained in this Form 10-K involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and situations that may cause our or our industry’s actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these statements. These factors include those listed below in this Item 1A and those discussed elsewhere in this Form 10-K. We encourage investors to review these factors carefully. We may from time to time make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in our filings with the SEC. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of us, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Before you invest in our securities, you should be aware that our business faces numerous financial and market risks, including those described below, as well as general economic and business risks. The following discussion provides information concerning the material risks and uncertainties that we have identified and believe may adversely affect our business, our financial condition and our results of operations. Before you decide whether to invest in our securities, you should carefully consider these risks and uncertainties, together with all of the other information included in this Form 10-K.

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Risks Related to Our Business

We face intense competition and expect competition to increase in the future, which could have an adverse effect on our revenue, revenue growth rate, if any, and market share.

The global semiconductor market in general, and the RF receiver market in particular, are highly competitive. We compete in different target markets to various degrees on the basis of a number of principal competitive factors, including our products’ performance, features and functionality, energy efficiency, size, ease of system design, customer support, product roadmap, reputation, reliability and price, as well as on the basis of our customer support, the quality of our product roadmap and our reputation. We expect competition to increase and intensify as more and larger semiconductor companies as well as the internal resources of large, integrated original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, enter our markets. Increased competition could result in price pressure, reduced profitability and loss of market share, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, revenue, revenue growth rates and operating results.

As our products are integrated into a variety of stationary and mobile electronic devices, we compete with suppliers of both can tuners and traditional silicon RF receivers. Our competitors range from large, international companies offering a wide range of semiconductor products to smaller companies specializing in narrow markets and internal engineering groups within mobile device, television and STB manufacturers, some of which may be our customers. Our primary competitors include Broadcom Corporation, Entropic Communications, Inc., Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., Newport Media Inc., NXP B.V., Silicon Laboratories Inc. and Zoran Corporation. We expect competition in the markets in which we participate to increase in the future as existing competitors improve or expand their product offerings. In addition, we believe that a number of other public and private companies are in the process of developing competing products for digital television and other broadband communication applications. Because our products often are building block semiconductors which provide functions that in some cases can be integrated into more complex integrated circuits, we also face competition from manufacturers of integrated circuits, some of which may be existing customers that develop their own integrated circuit products.

Our ability to compete successfully depends on elements both within and outside of our control, including industry and general economic trends. During past periods of downturns in our industry, competition in the markets in which we operate intensified as manufacturers of semiconductors reduced prices in order to combat production overcapacity and high inventory levels. Many of our competitors have substantially greater financial and other resources with which to withstand similar adverse economic or market conditions in the future. Moreover, the competitive landscape is changing as a result of consolidation within our industry as some of our competitors have merged with or been acquired by other competitors, and other competitors have begun to collaborate with each other. These developments may materially and adversely affect our current and future target markets and our ability to compete successfully in those markets.

We depend on a limited number of customers for a substantial portion of our revenue, and the loss of, or a significant reduction in orders from, one or more of our major customers could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and operating results.

During the year ended December 31, 2010, Panasonic and Toshiba accounted for 16% and 10%, respectively, of our net revenue, and our ten largest customers collectively accounted for 71% of our net revenue. Our operating results for the foreseeable future will continue to depend on sales to a relatively small number of customers and on the ability of these customers to sell products that incorporate our RF receivers or RF receiver SoCs. In the future, these customers may decide not to purchase our products at all, may purchase fewer products than they did in the past, or may defer or cancel purchases or otherwise alter their purchasing patterns. Factors that could affect our revenue from these large customers include the following:

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In the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2010, customers either reduced the amount of purchase orders within lead time or requested rescheduling of shipments, which adversely affected our revenues for the year. We believe these reductions or reschedulings resulted from macroeconomic uncertainties associated with end user markets for products deploying our integrated circuits as well as inventory management initiatives by our customers. We currently expect this uncertainty to continue in the first quarter of 2011.

In addition, delays in development could impair our relationships with our strategic customers and negatively impact sales of the products under development. Moreover, it is possible that our customers may develop their own product or adopt a competitor’s solution for products that they currently buy from us. If that happens, our sales would decline and our business, financial condition and results of operations could be materially and adversely affected.

Our relationships with some customers may deter other potential customers who compete with these customers from buying our products. To attract new customers or retain existing customers, we may offer these customers favorable prices on our products. In that event, our average selling prices and gross margins would decline. The loss of a key customer, a reduction in sales to any key customer or our inability to attract new significant customers could seriously impact our revenue and materially and adversely affect our results of operations.

If we fail to penetrate new markets, our revenue, revenue growth rate, if any, and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected.

Currently, we sell most of our products to manufacturers of applications for digital television, automotive TV display and mobile electronic devices in Japan, and to Chinese manufacturers of set top boxes for sale in various markets worldwide. Our future revenue growth, if any, will depend in part on our ability to expand beyond these markets with our RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs, particularly in markets for cable set top boxes, automotive entertainment, set top boxes for internet protocol television, or IPTV, and digital television on personal computers, or PCTV. Each of these markets presents distinct and substantial risks. If any of these markets does not develop as we currently anticipate or if we are unable to penetrate them successfully, it could materially and adversely affect our revenue and revenue growth rate, if any.

In the future, we expect cable set top boxes to represent our largest North American target market. The North American cable set top box market is dominated by only a few OEMs, including Motorola Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Arris Group, Inc. and Technicolor S.A. These OEMs are large, multinational corporations with substantial negotiating power relative to us. Securing design wins with any of these companies will require a substantial investment of our time and resources. Even if we succeed, additional testing and operational certifications will be required by the OEMs’ customers, which include large cable television companies such as Comcast Corporation and Time Warner Cable Inc. In addition, our products will need to be compatible with other components in our customers’ designs, including components produced by our competitors or potential competitors. There can be no assurance that these other companies will support or continue to support our products.

Finally, the markets for IPTV and PCTV are new, still developing and relatively small. We have sold limited quantities of our products into these markets and cannot predict how or to what extent demand for our products in these markets will develop.

If we fail to penetrate these or other new markets upon which we target our resources, our revenue and revenue growth rate, if any, likely will decrease over time and our financial condition could suffer.

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Our business, revenue and revenue growth, if any, will depend in part on the timing and development of the global transition from analog to digital television, which is subject to numerous regulatory and business risks outside our control.

For the year ended December 31, 2010, sales of our RF receiver products used in digital terrestrial television applications, or DTT, including digital televisions, automotive navigation displays, set top box devices and PCTV, represented a significant portion of our revenues. We expect a significant portion of our revenue in future periods to continue to depend on the demand for DTT applications in Europe and Japan. In contrast to the United States, where the transition from analog to digital television occurred on a national basis in June 2009, in Europe the digital transition is being phased in on a local and regional basis and is expected to occur over many years. Most countries in Western Europe are expected to convert completely to digital television by the end of 2012, with the transition in Eastern Europe expected to continue through 2015. Similarly, in Japan, there is a government mandate to completely switch off analog TV transmissions before July 2012. As a result, our future revenue will depend in part on government mandates requiring conversion from analog to digital television and on the timing and implementation of those mandates. If the transition to digital TV standards does not take place or is substantially delayed in Europe or other international markets, our business, revenue, operating results and financial condition would be materially and adversely affected.

If we fail to develop and introduce new or enhanced products on a timely basis, our ability to attract and retain customers could be impaired and our competitive position could be harmed.

We operate in a dynamic environment characterized by rapidly changing technologies and industry standards and technological obsolescence. To compete successfully, we must design, develop, market and sell new or enhanced products that provide increasingly higher levels of performance and reliability and meet the cost expectations of our customers. The introduction of new products by our competitors, the market acceptance of products based on new or alternative technologies, or the emergence of new industry standards could render our existing or future products obsolete. Our failure to anticipate or timely develop new or enhanced products or technologies in response to technological shifts could result in decreased revenue and our competitors winning more competitive bid processes, known as “design wins.” In particular, we may experience difficulties with product design, manufacturing, marketing or certification that could delay or prevent our development, introduction or marketing of new or enhanced products. If we fail to introduce new or enhanced products that meet the needs of our customers or penetrate new markets in a timely fashion, we will lose market share and our operating results will be adversely affected.

If we do not offer a competitive solution for applications where competitors offer integrated tuner/demodulator/video processing products, we may lose significant market share to our competitors.

If we cannot offer an attractive solution for applications where our competitors offer more fully integrated tuner/demodulator/video processing products, we may lose significant market share to our competitors. Certain of our competitors have fully integrated tuner/demodulator/video processing solutions targeting high performance cable or DTV applications, and thereby potentially provide customers with smaller and cheaper solutions.

To date, a significant portion of our revenue has been attributable to demand for our products in markets for mobile electronic devices; however, revenue contribution from this market has declined in 2010 and is no longer an area of focus for the Company from a product development standpoint given the competitive dynamics and severe price erosion.

Sales of our products to customers in the mobile electronic device market accounted for a significant portion of our revenue in prior periods. The development of the market for mobile digital television will depend, among other factors, on regulatory decisions concerning adoption of mobile digital television standards, decisions by regulators and service providers concerning mobile television product offerings and agreements between service providers and content providers relating to economic aspects of mobile digital television broadcasts. Predicting

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how the global market for mobile digital television will develop is difficult because it is relatively new and subject to substantial regulatory and market risks, which vary from country to country.

As a result, we are unable to predict the timing or direction of the development of mobile digital television markets with any accuracy. In addition, because some of our products are not limited in the devices or geographic areas in which they may be deployed and we sell our products principally to distributors for subsequent sale to end user manufacturers, we cannot always determine with accuracy how, where or into which applications our products are being deployed. Delays in the development of, or unexpected developments in, these markets could have an adverse effect on order activity by mobile device manufacturers and, as a result, on our business, revenue, operating results and financial condition.

We may be unable to make the substantial and productive research and development investments which are required to remain competitive in our business.

The semiconductor industry requires substantial investment in research and development in order to develop and bring to market new and enhanced technologies and products. Many of our products originated with our research and development efforts and have provided us with a significant competitive advantage. Our research and development expense was $27.7 million in 2010, $19.8 million in 2009 and $14.3 million in 2008. In 2010, we increased our research and development expenditures as compared to prior periods as part of our strategy of devoting focused research and development efforts on the development of innovative and sustainable product platforms. We are committed to investing in new product development internally in order to stay competitive in our markets and plan to maintain research and development fabrication capabilities to develop manufacturing processes for devices that are invented internally. We do not know whether we will have sufficient resources to maintain the level of investment in research and development required to remain competitive. In addition, we cannot assure you that the technologies which are the focus of our research and development expenditures will become commercially successful.

Continued adverse U.S. and international economic conditions, including factors that adversely affect consumer spending for the products that incorporate our integrated circuits, could adversely affect our revenues, margins, and operating results.

Since September 2008, the global credit markets and the financial services industry have been experiencing a period of unprecedented turmoil and upheaval characterized by the bankruptcy, failure, collapse or sale of various financial institutions and an unprecedented level of intervention from U.S. and foreign governments. Recently, the credit crisis has reemerged in Europe with threats of credit default by certain member countries of the European Union such as Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, and by substantial budgetary and fiscal constraints, including proposals for severe budget reductions in larger European Union countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom. Our products are incorporated in numerous consumer devices, and demand for our products will ultimately be driven by consumer demand for products such as mobile telephones, televisions, automobiles, and set top boxes. Many of these purchases are discretionary. In addition, our recent revenue growth has been attributable in large part to purchases of digital-to-analog set top converter boxes in various geographies including Europe. Partially in response to economic and political developments, Greece recently extended the date for its deadline for switching to exclusive digital television broadcasts. Similar extensions in other European countries could adversely affect our revenue and growth. These events, together with the current adverse economic conditions facing the broader economy and, in particular, the semiconductor and communications industries, have adversely affected, and may continue to adversely affect, our business, particularly to the extent that consumers decrease their discretionary spending for devices deploying our products.

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We rely on a limited number of third parties to manufacture, assemble and test our products, and the failure to manage our relationships with our third-party contractors successfully could adversely affect our ability to market and sell our products.

We do not have our own manufacturing facilities. We operate an outsourced manufacturing business model that utilizes third-party foundry and assembly and test capabilities. As a result, we rely on third-party foundry wafer fabrication and assembly and test capacity, including sole sourcing for many components or products. Currently, all of our products are manufactured by United Microelectronics Corporation, or UMC, at foundries in Taiwan and Singapore. We also use third-party contractors for all of our assembly and test operations.

Relying on third party manufacturing, assembly and testing presents significant risks to us, including the following:

The ability and willingness of our third-party contractors to perform is largely outside our control. If one or more of our contract manufacturers or other outsourcers fails to perform its obligations in a timely manner or at satisfactory quality levels, our ability to bring products to market and our reputation could suffer. For example, in the event that manufacturing capacity is reduced or eliminated at one or more facilities, including as a response to the recent worldwide decline in the semiconductor industry, manufacturing could be disrupted, we could have difficulties fulfilling our customer orders and our net revenue could decline. In addition, if these third parties fail to deliver quality products and components on time and at reasonable prices, we could have difficulties fulfilling our customer orders, our net revenue could decline and our business, financial condition and results of operations would be adversely affected.

Additionally, our manufacturing capacity may be similarly reduced or eliminated at one or more facilities due to the fact that our fabrication and assembly and test contractors are all located in the Pacific Rim region, principally in Taiwan and Singapore. The risk of earthquakes in these geographies is significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines, and Taiwan in particular is also subject to typhoons and other Pacific storms. Earthquakes, fire, flooding, or other natural disasters in Taiwan or the Pacific Rim region, or political unrest, war, labor strikes, work stoppages or public health crises, such as outbreaks of H1N1 flu, in countries where our contractors’ facilities are located could result in the disruption of our foundry, assembly or test capacity. Any disruption resulting from these events could cause significant delays in shipments of our products until we are able to shift our manufacturing, assembly or test from the affected contractor to another third-party vendor. There can be no assurance that alternative capacity could be obtained on favorable terms, if at all.

We do not have any long-term supply contracts with our contract manufacturers or suppliers, and any disruption in our supply of products or materials could have a material adverse affect on our business, revenue and operating results.

We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of our third-party vendors, including UMC. We make substantially all of our purchases on a purchase order basis, and neither UMC nor our other contract manufacturers are required to supply us products for any specific period or in any specific quantity. Foundry

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capacity may not be available when we need it or at reasonable prices. Availability of foundry capacity has in the past been reduced from time to time due to strong demand. Foundries can allocate capacity to the production of other companies’ products and reduce deliveries to us on short notice. It is possible that foundry customers that are larger and better financed than we are, or that have long-term agreements with our foundry, may induce our foundry to reallocate capacity to them. This reallocation could impair our ability to secure the supply of components that we need. We expect that it would take approximately nine to twelve months to transition performance of our foundry or assembly services to new providers. Such a transition would likely require a qualification process by our customers or their end customers. We generally place orders for products with some of our suppliers approximately four to five months prior to the anticipated delivery date, with order volumes based on our forecasts of demand from our customers. Accordingly, if we inaccurately forecast demand for our products, we may be unable to obtain adequate and cost-effective foundry or assembly capacity from our third-party contractors to meet our customers’ delivery requirements, or we may accumulate excess inventories. On occasion, we have been unable to adequately respond to unexpected increases in customer purchase orders and therefore were unable to benefit from this incremental demand. None of our third-party contractors has provided any assurance to us that adequate capacity will be available to us within the time required to meet additional demand for our products.

To address capacity considerations, we are in the process of qualifying additional semiconductor fabricators. Qualification will not occur if we identify a defect in a fabricator’s manufacturing process or if our customers choose not to invest the time and expense required to qualify the proposed fabricator. If full qualification of a fabricator does not occur, we may not be able to sell all of the materials produced by this fabricator or to fulfill demand for our products, which would adversely affect our business, revenue and operating results. In addition, the resulting write-off of unusable inventories would have an adverse effect on our operating results.

Average selling prices of our products could decrease rapidly, which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and gross margins.

We may experience substantial period-to-period fluctuations in future operating results due to the erosion of our average selling prices. From time to time, we have reduced the average unit price of our products due to competitive pricing pressures, new product introductions by us or our competitors and for other reasons. We expect that we will have to do so again in the future. If we are unable to offset any reductions in our average selling prices by increasing our sales volumes or introducing new products with higher operating margins, our revenue and gross margins will suffer. To maintain our gross margins, we must develop and introduce new products and product enhancements on a timely basis and continually reduce our and our customers’ costs. Failure to do so would cause our revenue and gross margins to decline.

Due to our limited operating history and our sell-through revenue recognition policy, we may have difficulty accurately predicting our future revenue and appropriately budgeting our expenses.

We have only a limited operating history from which to predict future revenue. This limited operating experience, combined with the rapidly evolving nature of the markets in which we sell our products, substantial uncertainty concerning how these markets may develop and other factors beyond our control, reduces our ability to accurately forecast quarterly or annual revenue. In addition, because we record revenue from sales when our products are shipped to end customers by our distributors, some of the revenue we record in a quarter may be derived from sales of products shipped to distributors during previous quarters. This revenue recognition policy reduces our ability to forecast quarterly or annual revenue accurately. We are currently expanding our staffing and increasing our expense levels in anticipation of future revenue growth. If our revenue does not increase as anticipated, we could incur significant losses due to our higher expense levels if we are not able to decrease our expenses in a timely manner to offset any shortfall in future revenue.

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We may not sustain our growth rate, and we may not be able to manage future growth effectively.

We have experienced significant growth in a short period of time. Our net revenue increased from approximately $31.3 million in 2008 to approximately $51.4 million in 2009 and approximately $68.7 million in 2010. We may not achieve similar growth rates in future periods. You should not rely on our operating results for any prior quarterly or annual periods as an indication of our future operating performance. If we are unable to maintain adequate revenue growth, our financial results could suffer and our stock price could decline.

To manage our growth successfully and handle the responsibilities of being a public company, we believe we must effectively, among other things:

If we are unable to manage our growth effectively, we may not be able to take advantage of market opportunities or develop new products and we may fail to satisfy customer requirements, maintain product quality, execute our business plan or respond to competitive pressures.

Our customers require our products and our third-party contractors to undergo a lengthy and expensive qualification process which does not assure product sales.

Prior to purchasing our products, our customers require that both our products and our third-party contractors undergo extensive qualification processes, which involve testing of the products in the customer’s system and rigorous reliability testing. This qualification process may continue for six months or more. However, qualification of a product by a customer does not assure any sales of the product to that customer. Even after successful qualification and sales of a product to a customer, a subsequent revision to the RF receiver or RF receiver SoC, changes in our customer’s manufacturing process or our selection of a new supplier may require a new qualification process, which may result in delays and in us holding excess or obsolete inventory. After our products are qualified, it can take six months or more before the customer commences volume production of components or devices that incorporate our products. Despite these uncertainties, we devote substantial resources, including design, engineering, sales, marketing and management efforts, to qualifying our products with customers in anticipation of sales. If we are unsuccessful or delayed in qualifying any of our products with a customer, sales of this product to the customer may be precluded or delayed, which may impede our growth and cause our business to suffer.

We are subject to risks associated with our distributors’ product inventories and product sell-through. Should any of our distributors cease or be forced to stop distributing our products, our business would suffer.

We currently sell substantially all of our products to customers through our distributors, who maintain their own inventories of our products. Sales to distributors accounted for 93% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010. If our distributors are unable to sell an adequate amount of their inventories of our products in a given quarter to manufacturers and end users or if they decide to decrease their inventories of our products for any reason, our sales to these distributors and our revenue may decline. In addition, if some distributors decide to purchase more of our products than are required to satisfy end customer demand in any particular

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quarter, inventories at these distributors would grow in that quarter. These distributors likely would reduce future orders until inventory levels realign with end customer demand, which could adversely affect our product revenue in a subsequent quarter.

Our reserve estimates with respect to the products stocked by our distributors are based principally on reports provided to us by our distributors, typically on a monthly basis. To date, we believe that this data typically has been accurate. To the extent that this resale and channel inventory data is inaccurate or not received in a timely manner, we may not be able to make reserve estimates for future periods accurately or at all.

We are subject to order and shipment uncertainties, and differences between our estimates of customer demand and product mix and our actual results could negatively affect our inventory levels, sales and operating results.

Our revenue is generated on the basis of purchase orders with our customers rather than long-term purchase commitments. In addition, our customers can cancel purchase orders or defer the shipments of our products under certain circumstances. Our products are manufactured using a silicon foundry according to our estimates of customer demand, which requires us to make separate demand forecast assumptions for every customer, each of which may introduce significant variability into our aggregate estimate. We have limited visibility into future customer demand and the product mix that our customers will require, which could adversely affect our revenue forecasts and operating margins. Moreover, because our target markets are relatively new, many of our customers have difficulty accurately forecasting their product requirements and estimating the timing of their new product introductions, which ultimately affects their demand for our products. Historically, because of this limited visibility, actual results have been different from our forecasts of customer demand. Some of these differences have been material, leading to excess inventory or product shortages and revenue and margin forecasts above those we were actually able to achieve. These differences may occur in the future, and the adverse impact of these differences between forecasts and actual results could grow if we are successful in selling more products to some customers. In addition, the rapid pace of innovation in our industry could render significant portions of our inventory obsolete. Excess or obsolete inventory levels could result in unexpected expenses or increases in our reserves that could adversely affect our business, operating results and financial condition. Conversely, if we were to underestimate customer demand or if sufficient manufacturing capacity were unavailable, we could forego revenue opportunities, potentially lose market share and damage our customer relationships. In addition, any significant future cancellations or deferrals of product orders or the return of previously sold products due to manufacturing defects could materially and adversely impact our profit margins, increase our write-offs due to product obsolescence and restrict our ability to fund our operations.

Winning business is subject to lengthy competitive selection processes that require us to incur significant expenditures. Even if we begin a product design, a customer may decide to cancel or change its product plans, which could cause us to generate no revenue from a product and adversely affect our results of operations.

We are focused on securing design wins to develop RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs for use in our customers’ products. These selection processes typically are lengthy and can require us to incur significant design and development expenditures and dedicate scarce engineering resources in pursuit of a single customer opportunity. We may not win the competitive selection process and may never generate any revenue despite incurring significant design and development expenditures. These risks are exacerbated by the fact that some of our customers’ products likely will have short life cycles. Failure to obtain a design win could prevent us from offering an entire generation of a product, even though this has not occurred to date. This could cause us to lose revenue and require us to write off obsolete inventory, and could weaken our position in future competitive selection processes.

After securing a design win, we may experience delays in generating revenue from our products as a result of the lengthy development cycle typically required. Our customers generally take a considerable amount of time to evaluate our products. The typical time from early engagement by our sales force to actual product

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introduction runs from nine to twelve months for the consumer market, to as much as 12 to 36 months for the automotive TV display market. The delays inherent in these lengthy sales cycles increase the risk that a customer will decide to cancel, curtail, reduce or delay its product plans, causing us to lose anticipated sales. In addition, any delay or cancellation of a customer’s plans could materially and adversely affect our financial results, as we may have incurred significant expense and generated no revenue. Finally, our customers’ failure to successfully market and sell their products could reduce demand for our products and materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If we were unable to generate revenue after incurring substantial expenses to develop any of our products, our business would suffer.

Our operating results are subject to substantial quarterly and annual fluctuations and may fluctuate significantly due to a number of factors that could adversely affect our business and our stock price.

Our revenue and operating results have fluctuated in the past and are likely to fluctuate in the future. These fluctuations may occur on a quarterly and on an annual basis and are due to a number of factors, many of which are beyond our control. These factors include, among others:

The foregoing factors are difficult to forecast, and these, as well as other factors, could materially adversely affect our quarterly or annual operating results. We typically are required to incur substantial development costs in advance of a prospective sale with no certainty that we will ever recover these costs. A substantial amount of time may pass between a design win and the generation of revenue related to the expenses previously incurred, which can potentially cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly from period to period. In addition, a significant amount of our operating expenses are relatively fixed in nature due to our significant sales, research and development costs. Any failure to adjust spending quickly enough to compensate for a revenue shortfall could magnify its adverse impact on our results of operations.

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Our business would be adversely affected by the departure of existing members of our senior management team.

Our success depends, in large part, on the continued contributions of our senior management team, in particular, the services of Kishore Seendripu, Ph.D., our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Curtis Ling, Ph.D., our Chief Technical Officer and a Director, and Madhukar Reddy, Ph.D., our Vice President, IC and RF Systems Engineering. None of our senior management team is bound by written employment contracts to remain with us for a specified period. In addition, we have not entered into non-compete agreements with members of our senior management team. The loss of any member of our senior management team could harm our ability to implement our business strategy and respond to the rapidly changing market conditions in which we operate.

If we are unable to attract, train and retain qualified personnel, especially our design and technical personnel, we may not be able to execute our business strategy effectively.

Our future success depends on our ability to retain, attract and motivate qualified personnel, including our management, sales and marketing and finance, and especially our design and technical personnel. We do not know whether we will be able to retain all of these personnel as we continue to pursue our business strategy. Historically, we have encountered difficulties in hiring and retaining qualified engineers because there is a limited pool of engineers with the expertise required in our field. Competition for these personnel is intense in the semiconductor industry. As the source of our technological and product innovations, our design and technical personnel represent a significant asset. The loss of the services of one or more of our key employees, especially our key design and technical personnel, or our inability to retain, attract and motivate qualified design and technical personnel, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The complexity of our products could result in unforeseen delays or expenses caused by undetected defects or bugs, which could reduce the market acceptance of our new products, damage our reputation with current or prospective customers and adversely affect our operating costs.

Highly complex products like our RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs may contain defects and bugs when they are first introduced or as new versions are released. Due to our limited operating history, defects and bugs that may be contained in our products may not yet have manifested. We have in the past experienced, and may in the future experience, defects and bugs. If any of our products contains defects or bugs, or has reliability, quality or compatibility problems, we may not be able to successfully correct these problems. Consequently, our reputation may be damaged and customers may be reluctant to buy our products, which could materially and adversely affect our ability to retain existing customers and attract new customers, and our financial results. In addition, these defects or bugs could interrupt or delay sales to our customers. If any of these problems are not found until after we have commenced commercial production of a new product, we may be required to incur additional development costs and product recall, repair or replacement costs. These problems may also result in claims against us by our customers or others. As a result, our operating costs could be adversely affected.

We may face claims of intellectual property infringement, which could be time-consuming, costly to defend or settle and result in the loss of significant rights.

The semiconductor industry is characterized by companies that hold large numbers of patents and other intellectual property rights and that vigorously pursue, protect and enforce intellectual property rights. From time to time, third parties may assert against us and our customers and distributors their patent and other intellectual property rights to technologies that are important to our business.

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Claims that our products, processes or technology infringe third-party intellectual property rights, regardless of their merit or resolution, could be costly to defend or settle and could divert the efforts and attention of our management and technical personnel. In addition, many of our customer and distributor agreements require us to indemnify and defend our customers or distributors from third-party infringement claims and pay damages in the case of adverse rulings. Claims of this sort also could harm our relationships with our customers or distributors and might deter future customers from doing business with us. We do not know whether we will prevail in these proceedings given the complex technical issues and inherent uncertainties in intellectual property litigation. If any pending or future proceedings result in an adverse outcome, we could be required to:

Any of the foregoing results could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We utilize a significant amount of intellectual property in our business. If we are unable to protect our intellectual property, our business could be adversely affected.

Our success depends in part upon our ability to protect our intellectual property. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets in the United States and in selected foreign countries where we believe filing for such protection is appropriate. Effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may be unavailable, limited or not applied for in some countries. Some of our products and technologies are not covered by any patent or patent application. We cannot guarantee that:

In addition, our competitors or others may design around our protected patents or technologies. Effective intellectual property protection may be unavailable or more limited in one or more relevant jurisdictions relative

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to those protections available in the United States, or may not be applied for in one or more relevant jurisdictions. If we pursue litigation to assert our intellectual property rights, an adverse decision in any of these legal actions could limit our ability to assert our intellectual property rights, limit the value of our technology or otherwise negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Monitoring unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult and costly. Unauthorized use of our intellectual property may have occurred or may occur in the future. Although we have taken steps to minimize the risk of this occurring, any such failure to identify unauthorized use and otherwise adequately protect our intellectual property would adversely affect our business. Moreover, if we are required to commence litigation, whether as a plaintiff or defendant, not only would this be time-consuming, but we would also be forced to incur significant costs and divert our attention and efforts of our employees, which could, in turn, result in lower revenue and higher expenses.

We also rely on customary contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, distributors, employees and consultants, and we implement security measures to protect our trade secrets. We cannot assure you that these contractual protections and security measures will not be breached, that we will have adequate remedies for any such breach or that our suppliers, employees or consultants will not assert rights to intellectual property arising out of such contracts.

In addition, we have a number of third-party patent and intellectual property license agreements. Some of these license agreements require us to make one-time payments or ongoing royalty payments. Also, a few of our license agreements contain most-favored nation clauses or other price restriction clauses which may effect the amount we may charge for our products, processes or technology. We cannot guarantee that the third-party patents and technology we license will not be licensed to our competitors or others in the semiconductor industry. In the future, we may need to obtain additional licenses, renew existing license agreements or otherwise replace existing technology. We are unable to predict whether these license agreements can be obtained or renewed or the technology can be replaced on acceptable terms, or at all.

In connection with settling a trademark dispute with Linear Technology Corporation, we agreed not to register the “MAXLINEAR” mark or any other marks containing the term “LINEAR”. We may continue to use “MAXLINEAR” as a corporate identifier, including to advertise our products and services, but may not use that mark on our products. The agreement does not affect our ability to use our registered trademark “MxL”, which we use on our products. Due to our agreement not to register the “MAXLINEAR” mark, our ability to effectively prevent third parties from using the “MAXLINEAR” mark in connection with similar products or technology may be affected. If we are unable to protect our trademarks, we may experience difficulties in achieving and maintaining brand recognition and customer loyalty.

The use of open source software in our products, processes and technology may expose us to additional risks and harm our intellectual property.

Our products, processes and technology sometimes utilize and incorporate software that is subject to an open source license. Open source software is typically freely accessible, usable and modifiable. Certain open source software licenses require a user who intends to distribute the open source software as a component of the user’s software to disclose publicly part or all of the source code to the user’s software. In addition, certain open source software licenses require the user of such software to make any derivative works of the open source code available to others on unfavorable terms or at no cost. This can subject previously proprietary software to open source license terms.

While we monitor the use of all open source software in our products, processes and technology and try to ensure that no open source software is used in such a way as to require us to disclose the source code to the related product, processes or technology when we do not wish to do so, such use could inadvertently occur. Additionally, if a third party software provider has incorporated certain types of open source software into

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software we license from such third party for our products, processes or technology, we could, under certain circumstances, be required to disclose the source code to our products, processes or technology. This could harm our intellectual property position and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We rely on third parties to provide services and technology necessary for the operation of our business. Any failure of one or more of our vendors, suppliers or licensors to provide these services or technology could have a material adverse effect on our business.

We rely on third-party vendors to provide critical services, including, among other things, services related to accounting, billing, human resources, information technology, network development, network monitoring, in-licensing and intellectual property that we cannot or do not create or provide ourselves. We depend on these vendors to ensure that our corporate infrastructure will consistently meet our business requirements. The ability of these third-party vendors to successfully provide reliable and high quality services is subject to technical and operational uncertainties that are beyond our control. While we may be entitled to damages if our vendors fail to perform under their agreements with us, our agreements with these vendors limit the amount of damages we may receive. In addition, we do not know whether we will be able to collect on any award of damages or that these damages would be sufficient to cover the actual costs we would incur as a result of any vendor’s failure to perform under its agreement with us. Any failure of our corporate infrastructure could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Upon expiration or termination of any of our agreements with third-party vendors, we may not be able to replace the services provided to us in a timely manner or on terms and conditions, including service levels and cost, that are favorable to us and a transition from one vendor to another vendor could subject us to operational delays and inefficiencies until the transition is complete.

Additionally, we incorporate third-party technology into and with some of our products, and we may do so in future products. The operation of our products could be impaired if errors occur in the third-party technology we use. It may be more difficult for us to correct any errors in a timely manner if at all because the development and maintenance of the technology is not within our control. There can be no assurance that these third parties will continue to make their technology, or improvements to the technology, available to us, or that they will continue to support and maintain their technology. Further, due to the limited number of vendors of some types of technology, it may be difficult to obtain new licenses or replace existing technology. Any impairment of the technology or our relationship with these third parties could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Unanticipated changes in our tax rates could affect our future results.

Since we operate in different countries and are subject to taxation in different jurisdictions, our future effective tax rates could be impacted by changes in such countries’ tax laws or their interpretations. Both domestic and international tax laws are subject to change as a result of changes in fiscal policy, changes in legislation, evolution of regulation and court rulings. The application of these tax laws and related regulations is subject to legal and factual interpretation, judgment and uncertainty. Recently, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration proposed significant changes to the U.S. international tax laws that could limit U.S. deductions for expenses related to un-repatriated foreign-source income, and modify the U.S. foreign tax credit and “check-the-box” rules. We cannot determine whether these proposals will be enacted into law or what, if any, changes may be made to such proposals prior to their being enacted into law. If the U.S. tax laws change in a manner that increases our tax obligation, it could result in a material adverse impact on our net income and our financial position.

Our future effective tax rate could be unfavorably affected by unanticipated changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities. Changes in our effective tax rate could have a material adverse impact on our results of operations. We record a valuation allowance to reduce our net deferred tax assets to the amount that we believe is more likely than not to be realized. In assessing the need for a valuation allowance, we consider

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historical levels of income, expectations and risks associated with estimates of future taxable income and ongoing prudent and practical tax planning strategies. On a periodic basis we evaluate our deferred tax asset balance for realizability. To the extent we believe it is more likely than not that some portion of our deferred tax assets will not be realized, we will increase the valuation allowance against the deferred tax assets. Realization of our deferred tax assets is dependent primarily upon future U.S. taxable income. During the year ended December 31, 2010, we released the valuation allowance in the amount of $6.7 million previously recorded against our federal deferred tax assets. This release resulted in a net tax benefit for the year.

Our business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely affected by the political and economic conditions of the countries in which we conduct business and other factors related to our international operations.

We sell our products throughout the world. Sales to end customers in Asia accounted for 97% our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010. Sales to end customers in Japan accounted for 57% of our net revenue in the year ended December 31, 2010. In addition, approximately 23% of our employees are located outside of the United States, including 47 in Asia and two in Europe. All of our products are manufactured, assembled and tested in Asia, and all of our major distributors are located in Asia. Multiple factors relating to our international operations and to particular countries in which we operate could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. These factors include:

Substantially all of our products are manufactured in Taiwan. Any conflict or uncertainty in this country, including due to natural disaster or public health or safety concerns, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, if the government of any country in which our products are manufactured or sold sets technical standards for products manufactured in or imported into their country that are not widely shared, it may lead some of our customers to suspend imports of their products into that country, require manufacturers in that country to manufacture products with different technical standards and

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disrupt cross-border manufacturing relationships which, in each case, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

We also are subject to risks associated with international political conflicts involving the U.S. government. For example, in 2008 we were instructed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to cease using Polar Star International Company Limited, a distributor based in Hong Kong, that delivered third-party products, to a political group that the U.S. government did not believe should have been provided with the products in question. As a result, we immediately ceased all business operations with that distributor. The loss of Polar Star as a distributor did not materially delay shipment of our products because Polar Star was a non-exclusive distributor and we had in place alternative distribution arrangements. However, we cannot provide assurances that similar disruptions of distribution arrangements in the future will not result in delayed shipments until we are able to identify alternative distribution channels, which could include a requirement to increase our direct sales efforts. Loss of a key distributor under similar circumstances could have an adverse effect on our business, revenues and operating results.

If we suffer losses to our facilities or distribution system due to catastrophe, our operations could be seriously harmed.

Our facilities and distribution system, and those of our third-party contractors, are subject to risk of catastrophic loss due to fire, flood or other natural or man-made disasters. A number of our facilities and those of our contract manufacturers are located in areas with above average seismic activity. The UMC foundries that manufacture all of our wafers are located in Taiwan and Singapore, and all of the third-party contractors who assemble and test our products also are located in Asia. In addition, our headquarters are located in Southern California. The risk of an earthquake in the Pacific Rim region or Southern California is significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines. For example, in 2002 and 2003, major earthquakes occurred in Taiwan. Any catastrophic loss to any of these facilities would likely disrupt our operations, delay production, shipments and revenue and result in significant expenses to repair or replace the facility. In particular, any catastrophic loss at the Carlsbad and Irvine, California, Taiwan, Singapore or Shanghai facilities would materially and adversely affect our business.

Our business is subject to various governmental regulations, and compliance with these regulations may cause us to incur significant expenses. If we fail to maintain compliance with applicable regulations, we may be forced to recall products and cease their manufacture and distribution, and we could be subject to civil or criminal penalties.

Our business is subject to various international and U.S. laws and other legal requirements, including packaging, product content, labor and import/export regulations. These regulations are complex, change frequently and have generally become more stringent over time. We may be required to incur significant costs to comply with these regulations or to remedy violations. Any failure by us to comply with applicable government regulations could result in cessation of our operations or portions of our operations, product recalls or impositions of fines and restrictions on our ability to conduct our operations. In addition, because many of our products are regulated or sold into regulated industries, we must comply with additional regulations in marketing our products.

Our products and operations are also subject to the rules of industrial standards bodies, like the International Standards Organization, as well as regulation by other agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. If we fail to adequately address any of these rules or regulations, our business could be harmed.

We must conform the manufacture and distribution of our semiconductors to various laws and adapt to regulatory requirements in all countries as these requirements change. If we fail to comply with these requirements in the manufacture or distribution of our products, we could be required to pay civil penalties, face

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criminal prosecution and, in some cases, be prohibited from distributing our products in commerce until the products or component substances are brought into compliance.

We are subject to warranty claims, product liability and product recalls.

From time to time, we are subject to warranty or product liability claims that may require us to make significant expenditures to defend these claims or pay damage awards. In the event of a warranty claim, we may also incur costs if we compensate the affected customer. We maintain product liability insurance, but this insurance is limited in amount and subject to significant deductibles. There is no guarantee that our insurance will be available or adequate to protect against all claims. We also may incur costs and expenses relating to a recall of one of our customers’ products containing one of our devices. The process of identifying a recalled product in devices that have been widely distributed may be lengthy and require significant resources, and we may incur significant replacement costs, contract damage claims from our customers and reputational harm. Costs or payments made in connection with warranty and product liability claims and product recalls could materially affect our financial condition and results of operations.

Investor confidence may be adversely impacted if we are unable to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and as a result, our stock price could decline.

We will be subject to rules adopted by the Securities Exchange Commission, or SEC, pursuant to Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which require us to include in our Annual Report on Form 10-K our management’s report on, and assessment of the effectiveness of, our internal controls over financial reporting. Beginning with our fiscal year ending December 31, 2011, our independent auditors will be required to attest to and report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.

If we fail to achieve and maintain the adequacy of our internal controls, there is a risk that we will not comply with all of the requirements imposed by Section 404. Moreover, effective internal controls, particularly those related to revenue recognition, are necessary for us to produce reliable financial reports and are important to helping prevent financial fraud. Any of these possible outcomes could result in an adverse reaction in the financial marketplace due to a loss of investor confidence in the reliability of our consolidated financial statements and could result in investigations or sanctions by the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, or other regulatory authorities or in stockholder litigation. Any of these factors ultimately could harm our business and could negatively impact the market price of our securities. Ineffective control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information, which could adversely affect the trading price of our common stock.

Our disclosure controls and procedures are designed to provide reasonable assurance of achieving their objectives. However, our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures will prevent all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected.

We are subject to the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry.

The semiconductor industry is highly cyclical and is characterized by constant and rapid technological change, rapid product obsolescence and price erosion, evolving standards, short product life cycles and wide fluctuations in product supply and demand. The industry is experiencing a significant downturn during the current global recession. These downturns have been characterized by diminished product demand, production

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overcapacity, high inventory levels and accelerated erosion of average selling prices. The current downturn and any future downturns could have a material adverse effect on our business and operating results. Furthermore, any upturn in the semiconductor industry could result in increased competition for access to third-party foundry and assembly capacity. We are dependent on the availability of this capacity to manufacture and assemble our RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. None of our third-party foundry or assembly contractors has provided assurances that adequate capacity will be available to us in the future.

Our products must conform to industry standards in order to be accepted by end users in our markets.

Generally, our products comprise only a part of a communications device. All components of these devices must uniformly comply with industry standards in order to operate efficiently together. We depend on companies that provide other components of the devices to support prevailing industry standards. Many of these companies are significantly larger and more influential in driving industry standards than we are. Some industry standards may not be widely adopted or implemented uniformly, and competing standards may emerge that may be preferred by our customers or end users. If larger companies do not support the same industry standards that we do, or if competing standards emerge, market acceptance of our products could be adversely affected, which would harm our business.

Products for communications applications are based on industry standards that are continually evolving. Our ability to compete in the future will depend on our ability to identify and ensure compliance with these evolving industry standards. The emergence of new industry standards could render our products incompatible with products developed by other suppliers. As a result, we could be required to invest significant time and effort and to incur significant expense to redesign our products to ensure compliance with relevant standards. If our products are not in compliance with prevailing industry standards for a significant period of time, we could miss opportunities to achieve crucial design wins. We may not be successful in developing or using new technologies or in developing new products or product enhancements that achieve market acceptance. Our pursuit of necessary technological advances may require substantial time and expense.

Risks Relating to Our Class A Common Stock

The dual class structure of our common stock as contained in our charter documents will have the effect of allowing our founders, executive officers, employees and directors and their affiliates to limit your ability to influence corporate matters that you may consider unfavorable.

We sold Class A common stock in our initial public offering. Our founders, executive officers, directors and their affiliates and employees hold shares of our Class B common stock, which is not publicly traded. Until March 29, 2017, the dual class structure of our common stock will have the following effects with respect to the holders of our Class A common stock:

Thus, our dual class structure will limit your ability to influence corporate matters and, as a result, we may take actions that our stockholders do not view as beneficial, which may adversely affect the market price of our Class A common stock.

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The concentration of our capital stock ownership with our founders, executive officers, employees and our directors and their affiliates will limit your ability to influence corporate matters and their interests may differ from other stockholders.

As of December 31, 2010, our founders, executive officers, directors and their affiliates beneficially owned, in the aggregate, approximately 58% of our Class B common stock, representing approximately 91% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock with respect to change of control matters and the adoption of or amendment to our equity incentive plans. In particular, our founders and our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Seendripu, together control approximately 23% of our outstanding Class B common stock, representing approximately 37% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock with respect to change of control matters and the adoption of or amendment to our equity incentive plans. Additionally, approximately 21% of our outstanding common stock is collectively owned by investment funds affiliated with U.S. Venture Partners and Battery Ventures. Representatives of U.S. Venture Partners and Battery Ventures are directors of MaxLinear. Together with these funds, Dr. Seendripu and the other founders therefore have significant influence over the management and affairs of the Company and over all matters requiring stockholder approval, including the election of two Class B directors and significant corporate transactions, such as a merger or other sale of our Company or its assets, for the foreseeable future.

Our management team may invest or spend the proceeds from our initial public offering in ways with which you may not agree or in ways which may not yield a return.

The net proceeds from our initial public offering may be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital. We may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire complementary businesses, products, services or technologies. However, we do not have any agreements or commitments for any specific acquisitions at this time. Our management will have considerable discretion in the application of the net proceeds, and you will not have the opportunity, as part of your investment decision, to assess whether the proceeds are being used appropriately. The net proceeds may be used for corporate purposes that do not increase our operating results or market value. Until the net proceeds are used, they may be placed in investments that do not produce significant income or that may lose value.

Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our Class A common stock.

Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, as amended and restated, may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management. These provisions provide for the following:

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These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our Board of Directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder.

Our share price may be volatile and you may be unable to sell your shares at or above the offering price, if at all.

Our shares of Class A common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2010. An active public market for our shares on the New York Stock Exchange may not be sustained. In particular, limited trading volumes and liquidity may limit the ability of stockholders to purchase or sell our common stock in the amounts and at the times they wish. Trading volume in our Class A common stock tends to be modest relative to our total outstanding shares, and the price of our Class A common stock may fluctuate substantially (particularly in percentage terms) without regard to news about us or general trends in the stock market. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by selling shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies or technologies by using our shares as consideration.

In addition, the trading price of our Class A common stock could become highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. These factors include those discussed in this “Risk Factors” section of this Annual Report on Form 10-K and others such as:

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Furthermore, the stock markets recently have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. These fluctuations often have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. These broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes or international currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our Class A common stock. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and divert our management’s attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or publish negative reports about our business, especially due to our dual-class voting structure, our share price and trading volume could decline.

The trading market for our Class A common stock depends in part on the research and reports that securities or industry analysts publish about us or our business, especially with respect to our unique dual-class voting structure as to the election of directors, change of control matters and matters related to our equity incentive plans. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of the analysts who cover us downgrade our shares or change their opinion of our shares, our share price would likely decline. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of our Company or fail to regularly publish reports on us, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which could cause our share price or trading volume to decline.

Future sales of our Class A common stock in the public market could cause our share price to decline.

Sales of a substantial number of shares of our Class A common stock in the public market, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our Class A common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. As of December 31, 2010, we had 13,169,904 shares of Class A common stock and 18,720,367 shares of Class B common stock outstanding.

All shares of Class A common stock are freely tradable without restrictions or further registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Act, except for any shares held by our affiliates as defined in Rule 144 under the Securities Act.

The holders of 6,716,471 shares of Class B common stock, or 21% of our total outstanding Class A and Class B common stock, are entitled to rights with respect to registration of these shares under the Securities Act

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pursuant to a registration rights agreement. Shares of our Class B common stock automatically will convert into shares of our Class A common stock upon any sale or transfer, whether or not for value, except for certain transfers described in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. If these holders of our Class B common stock, by exercising their registration rights, sell a large number of shares, they could adversely affect the market price for our Class A common stock. If we file a registration statement for the purposes of selling additional shares to raise capital and are required to include shares held by these holders pursuant to the exercise of their registration rights, our ability to raise capital may be impaired. We filed a registration statement on Form S-8 under the Securities Act to register 9,877,133 shares of our Class A common stock for issuance under our 2010 Equity Incentive Plan and 2010 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. These shares may be freely sold in the public market upon issuance and once vested, subject to other restrictions provided under the terms of the applicable plan and/or the option agreements entered into with option holders.

The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.

As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the listing requirements of the NYSE and other applicable securities rules and regulations. None of our senior executives has managed a public company prior to our becoming a public company in March 2010. Compliance with these rules and regulations have increased our legal and financial compliance costs, made some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly and increased the demand on our systems and resources. The Exchange Act requires, among other things, that we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that we maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. In order to maintain and, if required, improve our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting to meet this standard, significant resources and management oversight may be required. As a result, management’s attention may be diverted from other business concerns, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Although we have already hired additional staff to comply with these requirements, we may need to hire more employees in the future, which will increase our costs and expenses.

In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are 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. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention from revenue-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be harmed.

We also expect that being a newly public company and these new rules and regulations will make it more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These factors could also make it more difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our Board of Directors, particularly to serve on our audit committee and compensation committee, and qualified executive officers.

We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future.

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We anticipate that we will retain all of our future earnings for use in the

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development of our business and for general corporate purposes. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our Board of Directors. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their Class A common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize any future gains on their investments.

None.

Our corporate headquarters occupy approximately 29,000 square feet in Carlsbad, California under a lease that expires in August 2014. All of our business and engineering functions are represented at our corporate headquarters, including three laboratories for research and development and manufacturing operations. In addition to our principal office space in Carlsbad, we have leased facilities for use as design centers in Irvine, California and Shanghai, China. We also have engineering support offices in Shenzhen, China and Tokyo, Japan. We believe that our current facilities are adequate to meet our ongoing needs and that additional facilities are available for lease to meet our future needs.

We are not currently a party to any material litigation, and we are not aware of any pending or threatened litigation against us that we believe would adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition or cash flows. The semiconductor industry is characterized by frequent claims and litigation, including claims regarding patent and other intellectual property rights as well as improper hiring practices. As a result, in the future, we may be involved in various legal proceedings from time to time.

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PART II

Market Information and Holders

In March 2010, we completed the initial public offering of our Class A common stock. Our Class A common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, under the symbol MXL. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the high and low sale prices for our Class A common stock as reported by the NYSE:

On December 31, 2010, the last reported sales price of our common stock was $10.76 and, according to our transfer agent, as of February 2, 2011, there were 7 record holders of our Class A common stock and 90 record holders of our Class B common stock.

Our Class B common stock is not publicly traded. Each share of Class B common stock is convertible at any time at the option of the holder into one share of Class A common stock and in most instances automatically converts upon sale or other transfer.

Dividend Policy

We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock. We currently intend to retain all available funds and any future earnings for use in the operation of our business and do not anticipate paying any dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to declare dividends will be made at the discretion of our Board of Directors and will depend on our financial condition, operating results, capital requirements, general business conditions and other factors that our Board of Directors may deem relevant.

Stock Performance Graph

Notwithstanding any statement to the contrary in any of our previous or future filings with the SEC, the following information relating to the price performance of our common stock shall not be deemed “filed” with the SEC or “Soliciting Material” under the Exchange Act, or subject to Regulation 14A or 14C, or to liabilities of Section 18 of the Exchange Act except to the extent we specifically request that such information be treated as soliciting material or to the extent we specifically incorporate this information by reference.

The graph below compares the cumulative total stockholder return on our Class A common stock with the cumulative total return on The NYSE Composite Index and The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. The period shown commences on March 23, 2010 and ends on December 31, 2010, the end of our last fiscal year. The graph assumes an investment of $100 on March 23, 2010, and the reinvestment of any dividends. In addition, the graph assumes the value of our common stock on March 23, 2010 was the initial public offering price of $14.00 per share.

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The comparisons in the graph below are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of possible future performance of our common stock.

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010, we issued an aggregate of 601,305 shares of our Class B common stock to certain employees upon the exercise of options awarded under our 2004 Stock Plan. We received aggregate proceeds of approximately $1 million in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2010 as a result of the exercise of these options. We believe these transactions were exempt from the registration requirements of the Securities Act in reliance on Rule 701 thereunder as transactions pursuant to compensatory benefit plans and contracts relating to compensation as provided under Rule 701. As of December 31, 2010, options to purchase an aggregate of 4,125,655 shares of our Class B common stock remain outstanding. All issuances of shares of our Class B common stock pursuant to the exercise of these options will be made in reliance on Rule 701. All option grants made under the 2004 Stock Plan were made prior to the effectiveness of our initial public offering. No further option grants will be made under our 2004 Stock Plan.

None of the foregoing transactions involved any underwriters, underwriting discounts or commissions, or any public offering.

Each share of our Class B common stock is convertible at any time at the option of the holder into one share of our Class A common stock. In addition, each share of our Class B common stock will convert automatically into one share of Class A common stock upon any transfer, whether or not for value, except for certain transfers described in our certificate of incorporation.

Use of Proceeds

Our initial public offering of Class A common stock was effected through a Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333- 162947) that was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 23, 2010. From the effective date of the registration statement through December 31, 2010, we have used the net proceeds of the offering for working capital purposes, including expenditures for inventory, personnel costs, equipment and acquired intellectual property, and other operating expenses.

We have derived the selected consolidated statement of operations data for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2010, 2009 and 2008 and selected consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2010 and 2009 from our audited consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report. We

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have derived the statement of operations data for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2007 and 2006 and the balance sheet data as of December 31, 2008, 2007 and 2006 from our audited consolidated financial statements not included in this report. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any future period. The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report.

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The following discussion and analysis of the financial condition and results of our operations should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this report. 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 report.

Overview

We are a provider of highly integrated, radio-frequency analog and mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for broadband communications applications. Our high performance radio-frequency, or RF, receiver products capture and process digital and analog broadband signals to be decoded for various applications. These products include both RF receivers and RF receiver systems-on-chip, or SoCs, which incorporate our highly integrated radio system architecture and the functionality necessary to demodulate broadband signals. Our current products enable the display of broadband video content in a wide range of electronic devices, including cable and terrestrial set top boxes, digital televisions, mobile handsets, personal computers, netbooks and in-vehicle entertainment devices.

The history of our product development and sales and marketing efforts is as follows:

Our net revenue has grown from approximately $600,000 in fiscal 2006 to $68.7 million in fiscal 2010. Through December 31, 2008, a substantial majority of our net revenue was derived from sales of our mobile handset digital television receivers in the Japanese market. More recently, in 2009 and 2010, a majority of our

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net revenue was derived from sales of global digital television RF receiver products for digital set top box applications, automotive navigation displays and digital televisions. Our ability to achieve revenue growth in the future will depend, among other factors, on our ability to further penetrate existing markets, the timing of the global transition from analog to digital television, our ability to obtain design wins with manufacturers of set top boxes for the cable industry, trends in the development markets for mobile digital television and our ability to penetrate additional markets.

Substantially all of our sales have been to customers outside the United States. Sales to customers in Asia accounted for 97%, 99% and 97% of net revenue in the years ended December 31, 2010, 2009 and 2008, respectively. Substantially all of our sales to these and other customers are through distributors based in Asia. Although we actually sell the products to, and are paid by, the distributors, we refer to these end customers as our customers. Because many of our customers or their OEM manufacturers are located in Asia, we anticipate that a majority of our revenue will continue to come from sales to customers in that region. Although a large percentage of our sales are made to customers in Asia, we believe that a significant number of the systems designed by these customers and incorporating our semiconductor products are then sold to end users outside Asia. For example, we believe revenue generated from sales of our digital terrestrial set top box products during the years ended December 31, 2010 and 2009 related principally to sales to Asian set top box manufacturers delivering products into European markets. To date, all of our sales have been denominated in United States dollars.

A significant portion of our net revenue has historically been generated by a limited number of customers. Our three largest customers collectively represented 34% of net revenue for the year ended December 31, 2010. For certain customers, we sell multiple products into disparate end user applications such as modules for televisions, in-vehicle or automotive applications and mobile handsets.

We have incurred substantial losses from the time of our incorporation. We achieved profitability in the second quarter of 2008 and were again profitable in 2009 and 2010. As of December 31, 2010, we had an accumulated deficit of $11.7 million.

Our business depends on winning competitive bid selection processes, known as design wins, to develop semiconductors for use in our customers’ products. These selection processes are typically lengthy, and as a result, our sales cycles will vary based on market served, whether the design-win is with an existing or a new customer and whether our product being designed in our customer’s device is a first generation or subsequent generation product. Our customers’ products can be complex and, if our engagement results in a design win, can require significant time to define, design and result in volume production. Because the sales cycle for our products is long, we can incur significant design and development expenditures in circumstances where we do not ultimately recognize any revenue. We do not have any long-term purchase commitments with any of our customers, all of whom purchase our products on a purchase order basis. Once one of our products is incorporated into a customer’s design, however, we believe that our product is likely to remain a component of the customer’s product for its life cycle because of the time and expense associated with redesigning the product or substituting an alternative chip. Product life cycles in our target markets will vary by application. For example, in the digital set top box market a design-in can have a product life cycle of 18 to 24 months. In the automotive sector, the product life cycle of a design-in can range from 36 to 60 months. In the mobile television sector, the product life cycle can range from 12 to 36 months.

In March 2010, we completed the initial public offering, or IPO, of our Class A common stock in which we sold and issued 5,919,528 shares of Class A common stock, including 771,469 shares related to the exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment, at an issue price of $14.00 per share. We raised a total of $82.9 million in gross proceeds in the IPO, or approximately $72.9 million in net proceeds after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions of $5.8 million and other offering costs of $4.2 million. Immediately prior to the closing of the IPO, all shares of our then-outstanding convertible preferred stock outstanding automatically converted into 14,526,083 shares of our Class B common stock.

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Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates

Management’s discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations are based upon our consolidated financial statements which are prepared in accordance with accounting principles that are generally accepted in the United States. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the financial statements, and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. We continually evaluate our estimates and judgments, the most critical of which are those related to revenue recognition, allowance for doubtful accounts, inventory valuation, income taxes and stock-based compensation. We base our estimates and judgments on historical experience and other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Materially different results can occur as circumstances change and additional information becomes known.

We believe that the following accounting policies involve a greater degree of judgment and complexity than our other accounting policies. Accordingly, these are the policies we believe are the most critical to understanding and evaluating our consolidated financial condition and results of operations.

Revenue Recognition

Revenue is generated from sales of our integrated circuits. We recognize revenue when all of the following criteria are met: 1) there is persuasive evidence that an arrangement exists, 2) delivery of goods has occurred, 3) the sales price is fixed or determinable and 4) collectibility is reasonably assured. Title to product transfers to customers either when it is shipped to or received by the customer, based on the terms of the specific agreement with the customer.

We record revenue based on the facts at the time of sale. Amounts that are not probable of collection once the product has shipped and title has transferred to the customer are deferred until the amount that is probable of collection can be determined. Items that are considered when determining the amounts that will be ultimately collected are: a customer’s overall creditworthiness and payment history, customer rights to return unsold product, customer rights to price protection, customer payment terms conditioned on sale or use of product by the customer, or extended payment terms granted to a customer.

For distributor transactions, revenue is not recognized until product is shipped to the end customer and the amount that will ultimately be collected is determinable. Upon shipment of product to these distributors, title to the inventory transfers to the distributor and the distributor is invoiced, generally with 30 day terms. On shipments where revenue is not recognized, we record a trade receivable for the selling price as there is a legally enforceable right to payment, relieving the inventory for the carrying value of goods shipped since legal title has passed to the distributor, and record the corresponding gross profit in our consolidated balance sheet as a component of deferred revenue and deferred profit, representing the difference between the receivable recorded and the cost of inventory shipped.

In 2009, we began providing rebates to end customers based on volume purchases. We estimate that all of the rebates will be achieved, reduce the average selling price of the product sold under the rebate program and defer revenue for the difference between the amount billed to the customer and the adjusted average selling price. Once the targeted level is achieved, the deferred revenue is recognized as revenue as rebated products are shipped to the end customer. Deferred revenue associated with rebate programs is included in deferred revenue and deferred profit in the consolidated balance sheet.

Allowance for Doubtful Accounts

We perform ongoing credit evaluations of our customers and adjust credit limits based on each customers’ credit worthiness, as determined by our review of current credit information. We continuously monitor collections and payments from our customers and maintain an allowance for doubtful accounts based upon our

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historical experience, our anticipation of uncollectible accounts receivable and any specific customer collection issues that we have identified. While our credit losses have historically been insignificant, we may experience higher credit loss rates in the future than we have in the past. Our receivables are concentrated in relatively few customers. Therefore, a significant change in the liquidity or financial position of any one significant customer could make collection of our accounts receivable more difficult, require us to increase our allowance for doubtful accounts and negatively affect our working capital.

Inventory Valuation

We continually assess the recoverability of our inventory based on assumptions about demand and market conditions. Forecasted demand is determined based on historical sales and expected future sales. We value our inventory at the lower of standard cost (which approximates actual cost on a first-in, first-out basis) or its current estimated market value. We reduce our inventory to the estimated lower of cost or market value on a part-by-part basis to account for its obsolescence or lack of marketability. Reductions are calculated as the difference between the cost of inventory and the estimated market value based upon assumptions about future demand and market conditions. If actual market conditions are less favorable than those projected by management, additional inventory write-downs may be required that may adversely affect our operating results. If actual market conditions are more favorable, we may have higher gross profits when products are sold.

Intangible Assets

Technologies acquired or licensed from other companies are capitalized and amortized over the greater of the terms of the agreement, or estimated useful life, not to exceed three years.

Income Taxes

We provide for income taxes utilizing the asset and liability approach of accounting for income taxes. Under this approach, deferred taxes represent the future tax consequences expected to occur when the reported amounts of assets and liabilities are recovered or paid. The provision for income taxes generally represents income taxes paid or payable for the current year plus the change in deferred taxes during the year. Deferred taxes result from the differences between the financial and tax bases of our assets and liabilities and are adjusted for changes in tax rates and tax laws when changes are enacted. Valuation allowances are recorded to reduce deferred tax assets when a judgment is made that is considered more likely than not that a tax benefit will not be realized. A decision to record a valuation allowance results in an increase in income tax expense or a decrease in income tax benefit. If the valuation allowance is released in a future period, income tax expense will be reduced accordingly.

The calculation of tax liabilities involves dealing with uncertainties in the application of complex global tax regulations. The impact of an uncertain income tax position is recognized at the largest amount that is “more likely than not” to be sustained upon audit by the relevant taxing authority. An uncertain income tax position will not be recognized if it has less than a 50% likelihood of being sustained. If the estimate of tax liabilities proves to be less than the ultimate assessment, a further charge to expense would result.

In assessing the realizability of deferred tax assets, management considers whether it is more likely than not that some portion or all of the deferred tax assets will be realized. The ultimate realization of deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which those temporary differences become deductible. During the fourth quarter of 2010, we concluded that it was more likely than not that we would be able to realize the benefit of a significant portion of our deferred tax assets in the future. We based this conclusion on historical and projected operating performance, as well as our expectation that our operations will generate sufficient taxable income in future periods to realize the tax benefit associated with the deferred tax assets. As a result, we released $6.7 million of the valuation allowance on our net federal deferred tax assets. We believe it is more likely than not that the benefit from certain state net operating loss and R&D credit carryforwards will not be realized. In recognition of this risk, we will continue to provide a full valuation

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allowance on the deferred tax assets relating to these items. We will continue to assess the need for a valuation allowance on the deferred tax asset by evaluating both positive and negative evidence that may exist. Any adjustment to the net deferred tax asset valuation allowance would be recorded in the income statement for the period that the adjustment is determined to be required.

Stock-Based Compensation

We measure the cost of employee services received in exchange for equity incentive awards, including stock options, based on the grant date fair value of the award. The fair value is estimated using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. The resulting cost is recognized over the period during which the employee is required to provide services in exchange for the award, which is usually the vesting period. We recognize compensation expense over the vesting period using the straight-line method and classify these amounts in the statements of operations based on the department to which the related employee reports.

We account for stock options issued to non-employees in accordance with authoritative guidance for equity based payments to non-employees. Stock options issued to non-employees are accounted for at their estimated fair value determined using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. The fair value of options granted to non-employees is re-measured as they vest, and the resulting increase in value, if any, is recognized as expense during the period the related services are rendered.

Results of Operations

The following describes the line items set forth in our consolidated statements of operations.

Net Revenue. Net revenue is generated from sales of our RF receivers and RF receiver SoCs. Substantially all of our end customers purchase products indirectly from us through distributors. Although we actually sell the products to, and are paid by, the distributors, we refer to these end customers as our customers.

Cost of Net Revenue. Cost of net revenue includes the cost of finished silicon wafers processed by third-party foundries, primarily by UMC, an affiliate of one of our stockholders; costs associated with our outsourced packaging and assembly, test and shipping; costs of personnel and equipment associated with manufacturing support, logistics and quality assurance; amortization of production mask costs; cost of production load boards and sockets; and an allocated portion of our occupancy costs.

Research and Development. Research and development expense includes personnel-related expenses, including stock-based compensation, new product engineering mask costs, prototype integrated circuit packaging and test costs, computer-aided design software license costs, intellectual property license costs, reference design development costs, development testing and evaluation costs, depreciation expense and allocated occupancy costs. Research and development activities include the design of new products, refinement of existing products and design of test methodologies to ensure compliance with required specifications. All research and development costs are expensed as incurred.

Selling, General and Administrative. Selling, general and administrative expense includes personnel-related expenses, including stock-based compensation, distributor and other third-party sales commissions, field application engineering support, travel costs, professional and consulting fees, legal fees, depreciation expense and allocated occupancy costs.

Interest Income. Interest income consists of interest earned on our cash, cash equivalents and investment balances.

Interest Expense. Interest expense consists primarily of imputed interest on capital leases generally related to purchases of property and equipment.

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Other Income (expense). Other income (expense) generally consists of income (expense) generated from minor non-operating transactions.

Provision for Income Taxes. The income tax benefit of approximately $6.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2010 includes the reversal of our valuation allowance previously offsetting our federal deferred tax assets. Income tax expense relates to current federal alternative minimum tax and California income taxes. Due to net operating loss limitations, the Company’s net operating losses will not fully offset the federal alternative minimum taxes and California income taxes.

The following table sets forth our consolidated statement of operations data as a percentage of net revenue for the periods indicated.

Comparison of the Fiscal Years Ended December 31, 2010, 2009 and 2008

Net Revenue

Net revenue for the year ended December 31, 2010 increased by $17.4 million from 2009 primarily due to an increase in shipments of our RF receiver products used in digital televisions, automotive displays, PCs and set top box devices for digital terrestrial television, digital cable and IPTV applications. These gains were offset by a decrease in shipments and revenue from our mobile digital television RF receiver products for the Japanese handset market. In particular, the largest portions of the increases were attributable to shipments and related revenue for digital televisions, the Japanese PCTV and automotive markets, and digital terrestrial TV set top boxes.

We expect sales of our RF receiver products used for digital televisions and digital cable, and our RF receiver SoC’s for digital cable and digital terrestrial television to account for a substantial portion of our revenue growth, if any. Demand for our products will depend on several factors including the rate of the worldwide transition from analog to digital television broadcast and the growth in demand, if any, for high speed broadband

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connectivity and multimedia contents and services. Late in the year ended December 31, 2010, customers either reduced the amount of purchase orders within lead time or requested rescheduling of shipments, which adversely affected our revenues for the quarter. We believe these reductions or reschedulings resulted from macroeconomic uncertainties associated with end user markets for products deploying our integrated circuits as well as inventory management initiatives by our customers. We currently expect this uncertainty to continue in the first quarter of 2011.

Net revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009 increased by $20.0 million from 2008 primarily due to an increase in shipments of our worldwide digital terrestrial television RF receiver products. A substantial portion of the increase in our digital terrestrial television RF receiver products is attributable to shipments of digital-to-analog converter set top boxes for European end markets and to a lesser extent to an increase in shipments to the automotive digital television and PCTV markets in Japan. The increase in shipments of digital terrestrial RF receiver products was offset by an $8.7 million decrease in shipments and revenue from our mobile digital television RF receiver products for the Japanese handset market, which reflected a phase-out of consumer handset subsidies by Japanese service providers beginning in the middle of 2008.

Cost of Net Revenue and Gross Profit

Cost of net revenue and gross profit increased by $4.5 million and $12.8 million, respectively, from 2009 to 2010. Cost of net revenue and gross profit increased by $4.4 million and $15.7 million, respectively, from 2008 to 2009. These increases in cost of net revenue were principally due to increased sales of our second-generation global digital television RF receiver product. Cost of net revenue increased at a lesser rate than the increase in net revenue, however, principally as a result of improved unit costs associated with lower silicon die expenses and lower package and assembly costs due to the choice of a smaller package. Reduced test costs due to higher wafer yields and improved test times were also significant contributors to the decrease in cost of net revenue as a percentage of net revenue. The rise in shipments and, to a lesser extent, the reduction in per unit manufacturing cost of the second-generation global digital television RF receiver products resulted in the increases in both the absolute gross profit and the gross profit percentage of net revenue in 2010 and 2009. We currently expect that gross profit percentage will fluctuate from quarter to quarter in the future based on changes in product mix, average selling prices, or manufacturing costs.

Research and Development

Research and development expense for 2010 was $27.7 million, an increase of $7.9 million, or 40%, from 2009. This increase was primarily attributable to an increase in the overall number of new product development and existing product enhancement initiatives. These projects and initiatives related primarily to our RF receiver SoC products. Salary and benefits accounted for the largest portion of the increase at $6.7 million for 2010 (including $2.0 million of stock-based compensation expense), reflecting growth in our average full-time-equivalent headcount compared to the prior year. Also contributing to the increases were additional expenses for

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supplies, travel and other costs of $1.8 million, offset by decreases in acquired intellectual property of $0.5 million and facility-related costs of $0.1 million compared to the prior year. We expect our research and development expenses to increase in absolute dollars as we continue to focus on expanding our product portfolio and enhancing existing products.

Research and development expense for 2009 was $19.8 million, an increase of $5.5 million, or 38%, from 2008. The increase was primarily attributable to an increase in the number of new product development and existing product enhancement initiatives undertaken during 2009, relating primarily to our RF receiver SoC products. Incremental personnel-related costs of $3.1 million (including $0.3 million of stock-based compensation expense) contributed the largest portion of the increase, reflecting growth in our average full-time-equivalent headcount in 2009 compared to the prior year, as well as 2009 bonus accruals of $0.7 million that did not apply in 2008, when no bonuses were accrued or paid on a company-wide basis. Also contributing to the increase were $1.1 million of acquired intellectual property, $0.8 million of computer-aided design and related software license costs associated with the increase in the scope and number of our research and development projects, $0.4 million of facility-related costs associated with the need for larger scale operations and $0.4 million related to supplies, travel and other costs. These increases were offset by a decrease of $0.3 million related to the timing of various engineering test activities in 2009.

Selling, General and Administrative

Selling, general and administrative expense for 2010 was $15.9 million, an increase of $6.0 million, or 60%, from 2009. This increase was primarily attributable to costs associated with the need for larger scale operations as a result of increased demand for our products and increased expenses as we prepared to become a public reporting company. Specifically, the increase was attributable in part to an additional $3.2 million of incremental salary and benefit expenses in 2010 (including $1.2 million in stock-based compensation). Also contributing to the increase were incremental legal, accounting and other professional expenses associated with becoming a public company of $0.6 million, distributor and representative sales commissions driven by increasing revenue of $0.7 million, consulting expenses of $0.5 million and additional supplies, travel and facility-related costs of $1.0 million. We expect selling, general and administrative expenses to increase in absolute dollars in the future as we expand our sales and marketing organization to enable expansion into existing and new markets and as we continue to build our international administrative infrastructure.

Selling, general and administrative expense for 2009 was $9.9 million, or 19% of net revenue, an increase of $3.6 million, or 56%, from 2008. The year-to-year increase was primarily attributable to costs associated with the need for larger scale operations as a result of increased demand for our products and increased expenses as we prepared to become a public reporting company. Specifically, the increase was attributable to an additional $2.0 million of personnel-related costs, including $0.7 million of incremental sales commissions, 2009 bonus accruals of $0.5 million and $0.3 million of incremental stock-based compensation expense; an additional $0.7 million of increased legal and accounting expenses, $0.5 million of incremental consulting expenses and $0.4 million of additional supplies, travel and facility-related costs.

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Interest and Other Income (Expense)

Interest income increased in 2010 compared to 2009 due to higher cash and investment balances, principally due to the investment of the proceeds from our March 2010 IPO. Interest income in 2009 decreased from 2008 due to earning lower yields on cash and investments in 2009.

Interest expense decreased in 2010 compared to 2009 and in 2009 compared to 2008 due to lower outstanding debt balances.

Other expense, net in 2010 consisted primarily of losses on foreign currency transactions and investment management fees. Other expense, net in 2009 consisted primarily of the write-off of the carrying value of leasehold improvements in connection with vacating certain leased facilities.

Liquidity and Capital Resources

In March 2010, we received net proceeds from our IPO of approximately $72.9 million (after underwriters’ discounts of $5.8 million and additional offering related costs of approximately $4.2 million). Prior to the IPO, our primary sources of cash were, historically, proceeds from issuances of convertible preferred stock and cash collections from customers. As of December 31, 2010, we had cash and cash equivalents of $21.6 million, investments of $72.9 million, and net accounts receivable of $3.0 million.

Our primary uses of cash are to fund operating expenses, purchases of inventory and the acquisition of property and equipment. Cash used to fund operating expenses excludes the impact of non-cash items such as depreciation and stock-based compensation and is impacted by the timing of when we pay these expenses as reflected in the change in our outstanding accounts payable and accrued expenses.

Our primary sources of cash are cash receipts on accounts receivable from our shipment of products to distributors and direct customers. Aside from the growth in amounts billed to our customers, net cash collections of accounts receivable are impacted by the efficiency of our cash collections process, which can vary from period to period depending on the payment cycles of our major distributor customers.

Following is a summary of our working capital and cash and cash equivalents for the periods indicated:

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Following is a summary of our cash flows provided by (used in) operating activities, investing activities and financing activities for the periods indicated:

Cash Flows from Operating Activities

Net cash provided by operating activities in 2010 primarily reflected our net income of $10.1 million, growth in amortization and depreciation, amortization of investment premiums, net, stock-based compensation, and increases in inventory, prepaid and other assets, deferred income taxes, accrued compensation and deferred rent of $1.9 million, $1.3 million, $4.2 million, $4.6 million, $1.4 million, $6.7 million, $0.4 million and $0.2 million, respectively, offset by decreases in accounts receivable, accounts payable and accrued expenses (including amounts due to related party) and deferred revenue and profit of $6.7 million, $2.7 million and $4.5 million, respectively. Our deferred income taxes increased in 2010 as a result of the release of our valuation allowance. Our increase in inventory and decreases in accounts receivable and deferred revenue and profit were due to a reduction in shipments to distributors in the second half of 2010 as customers either reduced the amount of purchase orders within lead time or requested rescheduling of shipments.

Net cash provided by operating activities in 2009 primarily reflected our net income of $4.3 million, growth in amortization and depreciation, stock-based compensation, reduction in inventory, and increases in accounts payable and accrued expenses (including amounts due to related party), accrued compensation, deferred revenue and deferred profit and other of $0.8 million, $1.0 million, $0.8 million, $5.1 million, $1.2 million, $6.6 million and $0.1 million, respectively, offset by decreases in accounts receivable and prepaid and other assets of $8.4 million and $1.7 million, respectively. Our accounts receivable increased as a result of significantly higher distributor shipments in 2009 and our inventory decreased as a result of sales and production being more closely matched in 2009. Our accounts payable and accrued expenses increased in 2009 in support of our increased production volumes and overall operational growth. Deferred revenue and deferred profit increased as our revenue grew and our distributors carried higher inventory balances.

Net cash used in operating activities in 2008 primarily reflected the net loss of $1.9 million, growth in inventory, prepaid and other assets, accrued compensation and amortization of investment premiums, net, of $1.7 million, $0.1 million, $0.2 million and $0.1 million, respectively, offset by decreases in accounts receivable of $0.9 million and growth in accounts payable and other accrued expenses, deferred revenue, amortization and depreciation and stock-based compensation of $0.5 million, $3.3 million, $0.6 million and $0.4 million, respectively. Our inventory grew due to our increased purchasing activity in support of our increasing sales forecasts. Our accounts receivable decreased in 2008 as a result of lower distributor purchases in December 2008 as a result of the global economic slowdown. The economic slowdown also resulted in our distributors carrying more inventory at the end of 2008 prior to adjusting their buying in response to market conditions, which resulted in growth in our deferred revenue.

Cash Flows from Investing Activities

Net cash used in investing activities during the year ended December 31, 2010 consisted of $111.8 million in purchases of securities, $3.0 million in purchases of property and equipment and $1.3 million in purchases of

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intangibles, offset by $37.7 million in maturities of securities. Net cash provided by investing activities during the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008 consisted of sales of investment securities, net of purchases, of $1.8 million and $1.1 million, respectively. Purchases of property and equipment accounted for $1.4 million in 2009 and $0.9 million in 2008.

Cash Flows from Financing Activities

Net cash provided by financing activities during the year ended December 31, 2010 was primarily due to the net cash provided from our IPO of $75.6 million.

Net cash used in financing activities during the year ended December 31, 2009 consisted of $0.1 million for the repayment of equipment financing and $0.8 million for costs paid in connection with our initial public offering, offset by $0.6 million of net proceeds from the exercise of stock options.

Net cash used in financing activities during the year ended December 31, 2008 consisted of $89,000 for the repayment of equipment financing, offset by $48,000 of net proceeds from the exercise of stock options.

Contractual Obligations, Commitments and Contingencies

The following table summarizes our outstanding contractual obligations as of December 31, 2010:

Warranties and Indemnifications

In connection with the sale of products in the ordinary course of business, we often make representations affirming, among other things, that our products do not infringe on the intellectual property rights of others, and agree to indemnify customers against third-party claims for such infringement. Further, our by-laws require us to indemnify our officers and directors against any action that may arise out of their services in that capacity, and we have also entered into indemnification agreements with respect to all of our directors. We have not been subject to any material liabilities under such provisions and therefore believe that our exposure for these indemnification obligations is minimal. Accordingly, we have no liabilities recorded for these indemnity agreements as of December 31, 2010.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements

As part of our ongoing business, we do not participate in transactions that generate relationships with unconsolidated entities or financial partnerships, such as entities often referred to as structured finance or special purpose entities, or SPEs, which would have been established for the purpose of facilitating off-balance sheet arrangements or other contractually narrow or limited purposes. As of December 31, 2010, we were not involved in any unconsolidated SPE transactions.

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Recent Accounting Pronouncements

For additional information regarding recently adopted and issued accounting pronouncements, see Note 1 of the notes to consolidated financial statements contained within this Form 10-K.

Foreign Currency Risk

To date, our international customer and vendor agreements have been denominated almost exclusively in United States dollars. Accordingly, we have limited exposure to foreign currency exchange rates and do not enter into foreign currency hedging transactions. The functional currency of MaxLinear Limited and MaxLinear Asia Limited is the United States dollar. The functional currency of MaxLinear Shanghai Limited is the local currency. Accordingly, the effects of exchange rate fluctuations on the net assets of MaxLinear Shanghai Limited’s operations are accounted for as translation gains or losses in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) within stockholders’ equity (deficit). We do not believe that a change of 10% in such foreign currency exchange rates would have a material impact on our financial position or results of operations.

Interest Rate Sensitivity

We had cash of $21.6 million at December 31, 2010, which was held for working capital purposes. We do not enter into investments for trading or speculative purposes. We do not believe that we have any material exposure to changes in the fair value of these investments as a result of changes in interest rates due to their short-term nature. Declines in interest rates, however, will reduce future investment income.

Investments Risk

Our investments, consisting of U.S. Treasury and agency obligations and corporate notes and bonds, are stated at cost, adjusted for amortization of premiums and discounts to maturity. In the event that there are differences between fair value and cost in any of our available-for-sale securities, unrealized gains and losses on these investments are reported as a separate component of accumulated other comprehensive income (loss).

Investments in fixed rate interest earning instruments carry a degree of interest rate risk. Fixed rate securities may have their market value adversely impacted due to rising interest rates. Due in part to these factors, our future investment income may fall short of expectations due to changes in interest rates.

The financial statements and supplementary data required by this item are included in Part IV, Item 15 of this Report.

None.

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Evaluation of Disclosure and Procedures

We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our periodic reports filed with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the rules and forms of the SEC and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate, to allow for timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and no evaluation of controls and procedures can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within a company have been detected. Management is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.

As required by Rule 13a-15(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, prior to filing this Form 10-K, we carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) of the Exchange Act) as of the end of the period covered by this Form 10-K. Based on their evaluation, our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of the end of the period covered by this Form 10-K.

As a newly public company and under the applicable rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission we are not required to include Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting or an attestation report of an Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm in our Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

An evaluation was performed under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer, to determine whether any change in our internal control over financial reporting occurred during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2010 that materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting. We did not identify any change in our internal control over financial reporting that occurred during the fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2010 that materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Our board of directors has set the date of our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be May 6, 2011. The date of our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders is advanced more than 30 days before the date of the anniversary of our 2010 Annual Meeting of Stockholders that was held on October 29, 2010. As a result, for a stockholder proposal to be considered for inclusion in our Definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in conjunction with our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, or the 2011 Proxy Statement, our corporate secretary must receive the written proposal at our principal executive offices no later than March 10, 2011. In addition, our bylaws also establish an advance notice procedure for stockholders who wish to present a proposal before an annual meeting of stockholders, but do not intend for the proposal to be included in our proxy statement. Because we are holding our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders more than 30 days before the date of the anniversary of our 2010 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, our bylaws provide that notice of a stockholder proposal that is not intended to be included in our 2011 Proxy Statement must be received not later than the close of business on February 19, 2011.

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PART III

The information required by Item 10 with respect to our directors and executive officers is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the captions “Proposal Number 1 — Election of Class II Directors” and “Executive Officers” in our Definitive Proxy Statement to be filed in connection with our 2011 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, or the 2011 Proxy Statement, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission no later than 120 days after December 31, 2010.

Item 405 of Regulation S-K calls for disclosure of any known late filing or failure by an insider to file a report required by Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act. This information is contained under the caption “Related Person Transactions and Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance” in the 2011 Proxy Statement and is incorporated herein by reference.

Code of Conduct

We have adopted a code of ethics and employee conduct that applies to our board of directors and all of our employees, including our chief executive officer, principal financial officer, and principal accounting officer.

Our code of conduct is available at our website by visiting www.maxlinear.com and clicking through “Investors,” “Corporate Governance,” and “Code of Conduct.” When required by the rules of the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, or the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, we will disclose any future amendment to, or waiver of, any provision of the code of conduct for our chief executive officer, principal financial officer, or principal accounting officer or any member or members of our board of directors on our website within four business days following the date of such amendment or waiver.

The information required by Item 10 with respect to our audit committee is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the caption “Corporate Governance and Board of Directors — Board Committees” in the 2011 Proxy Statement.

The information required by Item 11 is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the captions “Compensation of Non-Employee Directors” and “Executive Compensation,” in our 2011 Proxy Statement.

The information required by Item 12 is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the captions “Executive Compensation — Equity Compensation Plan Information” and “Security Ownership,” in our 2011 Proxy Statement.

The information required by Item 13 is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the captions “Corporate Governance and Board of Directors — Director Independence” and “Related Person Transactions and Section 16(a) Beneficial Ownership Reporting Compliance,” in our 2011 Proxy Statement.

The information required by Item 14 is incorporated by reference from the information set forth under the caption “Proposal Number II — Ratification of Selection of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm,” in our 2011 Proxy Statement.

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Table of Contents

PART IV

a) Documents filed as part of the report

1. Financial Statements

Our consolidated financial statements are attached hereto and listed on the Index to Consolidated Financial Statements set forth on page F-1 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

2. Financial Statement Schedules

Schedule II. Valuation and Qualifying Accounts—Years ended December 31, 2010, 2009 and 2008

All other schedules are omitted as the required information is inapplicable, or the information is presented in the financial statements or related notes.

SCHEDULE II – VALUATION AND QUALIFYING ACCOUNTS (in thousands):

3. Exhibits