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美国联邦贸易委员会周四表示，该委员会正在起诉NVIDIA，以阻止其计划的400亿美元交易，并声称它将妨碍云数据中心和自动驾驶汽车等地区的创新。
The FTC said it opposes the deal because it would give a single company control over the technology that many of the world’s top chip designers, including NVIDIA rivals, rely on to develop competing products. The deal would also give NVIDIA the ability to cut off access to Arm’s designs to rivals, and could hamper future innovation at the heart of huge cloud data centers and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) in cars.
“ FTC正在起诉阻止历史上最大的半导体芯片合并，以防止芯片企业集团扼杀下一代技术的创新管道，”领导FTC竞争局的Holly Vedova说。in a statement。
"This proposed deal would distort Arm’s incentives in chip markets and allow the combined firm to unfairly undermine NVIDIA's rivals," she said. If the FTC wins in court, Nvidia will be blocked from taking over Arm.
该诉讼“应该发出强烈的信号，表明我们将积极采取行动保护我们的关键基础设施市场免受对未来创新具有深远和有害影响的非法垂直合并的侵害。”
NVIDIA announced it had agreed to buy Arm more than a year ago at this point. But industry analysts have warned that the deal will likely fall apart amid the backlash from regulators, rivals, and big Arm customers.
NVIDIA had previously said the deal was set to be completed in early 2022. But the lawsuit will likely add months of delays while the regulatory process drags on.
半导体的“瑞士”
ARM建立了中央处理单元（CPU）和其他公司将大多数全球智能手机生态系统供电的芯片组装的其他知识产权。该公司将其CPU内核的核心蓝图和基础指令套装架构（ISA）许可给苹果，高通，三星电子等芯片制造商。ARM约有6,000名员工，于2016年被出售给软银。
ARM CPU内核还在使用服务器处理器和网络芯片的数据中心中发挥了更深的作用。
NVIDIA is the dominant player in graphics processing units (GPUs) widely used to run deep learning in data centers and create virtual game worlds on PCs. But many of its chips also depend on Arm-designed cores.
Arm is often dubbed the “Switzerland” of the semiconductor sector because it licenses its blueprints to hundreds of companies while competing with none of them directly, remaining a neutral player. Virtually every major semiconductor firm in the world use Arm, includingQualcomm乃至英特尔和AMD，与NVIDIA争夺市场份额。
尽管美国芯片巨头Broadcom已经支持这笔交易，但其他人则反对。高通对此交易质疑，因为担心Nvidia会偷看ARM的知识产权。批评者还担心Nvidia可能会扼杀ARM技术的供应，以竞争或提高其依赖设计的价格。
FTC警告说，如果拟议的交易结束，它可能会使NVIDIA失去访问ARM的技术，从而通过使其比关键竞争对手具有不公平的优势来损害竞争。FTC在其诉讼中称，这最终将降低产品质量，创新和选择，而AMM客户群的价格上涨。
“信任的严重丧失”
Since most semiconductor firms use Arm's CPU cores to develop chips, they also count on Arm to regularly upgrade the cores and add features for future generations of products. Arm also offers related support and services. As a result, its customers routinely share proprietary and potentially "sensitive" information with Arm to aid in developing, testing, debugging, and troubleshooting new chip designs, according to the FTC.
The deal would theoretically give NVIDIA access to information that it could use to harm rivals, the agency said, such as de-emphasizing or even halting development of features important to its competitors.
The FTC said this would hurt competition in three markets where NVIDIA competes with Arm-based chips: autonomous driving systems in cars, data processing units (DPUs), and Arm CPUs for cloud data centers. The agency said this was likely to lessen Arm's incentives to pursue innovations that may conflict with NVIDIA's business.
该机构在诉讼中指出：“ ARM被许可人与ARM分享他们的竞争性敏感信息，因为ARM是中立的合作伙伴，而不是竞争对手的芯片制造商。”
"The acquisition is likely to result in a critical loss of trust in Arm and its ecosystem,” the complaint said.
Regulatory Issues Ahead
NVIDIA, the largest U.S. semiconductor company by market value, has said that the fears are unfounded.
The Santa Clara, California-based company has said that it plans to invest further in Arm’s research and development, and it wants to keep Arm independent and preserve its open licensing model, which makes sure its designs are available to any company willing to pay for them, now and into the future. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has also pledged to protect the confidentiality of any information it collects from companies.
但是该交易在世界范围内遇到了越来越多的监管抵抗。欧盟的行政部门欧洲委员会表示，十月它已经发起了自己的in-depth investigation进入交易。这笔400亿美元的交易还需要从中国获得绿灯。
上个月,英国政府宣布它佤邦nts a full six-month investigation into Nvidia's takeover of Arm over issues surrounding competition and national security. Arm is headquartered in Cambridge.
FTC表示，它与欧盟，英国，日本和韩国的竞争机构的工作人员密切合作。该机构包括两名共和党人和两名民主党人，他说，它一致投票通过启动该诉讼。
FTC称，行政审判计划于2022年8月开始。
