Evidence of the need for companies in the global semiconductor industry to achieve scale to effectively compete arrives almost daily. For example, in November 2019, AMD acquired Xilinx in a $35 billion deal. Moreover, the three-largest mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals of 2020 (involving U.S. companies) were also in semiconductors, including NVIDIA's $40 billion proposed acquisition of Arm Holdings (a British chip design firm that had been backed by Japan's SoftBank) and Analog Devices' $20 billion deal to acquire Maxim Integrated Products. [39]