U.S. says Nvidia-Arm deal harms market for networking, self-driving car chips

FILE PHOTO: A NVIDIA logo is shown at SIGGRAPH 2017 in Los Angeles, California, U.S. July 31, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

(Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday argued that competition in the nascent markets for chips in self-driving cars and a new category of networking chips could be hurt if Nvidia Corp carries out its $80 billion purchase of Arm Ltd.

Last week, the regulator said it was suing to stop the deal in which Nvidia, the world's most valuable publicly traded chip firm, is vying to buy U.K.-based Arm from current owner Softbank Group Corp. Arm licenses out its computing architecture to semiconductor firms, which use it to design chips for devices like mobile phones.