The American regulator FTC wants to prevent a billion-dollar deal in which the British chip designer Arm would be taken over by the American company Nvidia.
According to the FTC, the deal could curtail innovation in the sector.
In September 2020, Nvidia announced its intention to buy Arm, owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, for 40 billion dollars. It would be the largest acquisition in the semiconductor sector, but several regulators scrutinized the deal.
According to the FTC, the acquisition would allow Nvidia to disadvantage competitors unfairly. In addition, the acquisition would also give Nvidia access to confidential information of some of its competitors.
Arm provides the basic architecture of the chips used in almost all smartphones and most tablet computers. Based on the Arm design, companies such as Apple and Samsung develop the processors for their smartphones.
The chip company Qualcomm, whose processors are in many Android phones, also base itself on those basic chips from Arm. However, the British company also faces a breakthrough in the PC market, as Apple switches to Arm technology for its Mac computers. The first model is expected this year.
