US antitrust officials sued to block chipmaker Nvidia Corp’s proposed US$40 billion takeover of Arm Ltd, saying the deal would hobble innovation in semiconductors and undermine Nvidia’s rivals. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a release on Thursday that the acquisition would deliver Nvidia vast sway over the market by giving the company control over chip designs used by the world’s biggest technology companies, including makers of smartphones, factory equipment and cars. “The FTC is suing to block the largest semiconductor chip merger in history to prevent a chip conglomerate from stifling the innovation pipeline for next-generation technologies,”…