EU antitrust regulators to investigate $38 bln Qualcomm, NXP deal

EU antitrust specialists opened an examination on Friday into Qualcomm's $38-billion offered for NXP Semiconductors, tightening up weight on the US cell phone chipmaker to offer concessions to address their worries. Qualcomm, which supplies chips to Android cell phone producers and Apple, is set to end up noticeably the main provider to the quickly developing car chip advertise taking after the arrangement, the biggest ever in the semiconductor business. 

The European Commission recorded a heap of worries about the consolidated organization's capacity and motivating forces to crush out adversaries and lift costs. It said the organization may package its items, barring rivals in baseband chipsets and close field correspondence (NFC) chips. 

The consolidated element would likewise have the capacity and the motivating force to change NXP's protected innovation permitting hones, specifically the NFC innovation, by binds this to Qualcomm's patent portfolio, the EU guard dog said. It additionally voiced worries about decreased rivalry in semiconductors utilized as a part of autos. The Commission will settle on the arrangement by Oct. 17. 

Qualcomm said it was certain of mollifying the EU's stresses and that regardless it hopes to make it all work out before the year's over. US antitrust masters gave the green light for the arrangement in April without requesting concessions. Reuters given an account of June 2 that Qualcomm may confront an extensive EU examination after it declined to offer concessions to address the alliance's worries in a preparatory survey.