1.   Mr Kobrick said semiconductor stocks are especially risky because chip production requires heavy capital investment.

2.   Applied Materials supplies the equipment to make chips, which it sells far in advance of the chip production and is therefore less influenced by short-term cycles.

3.   But the costs of expanding chip production will not pay off with higher sales until the second half of the year, the company said.

4.   Circuits are smaller now, engineers are overworked and more chip production is automated, so chip graffiti is starting to fade.

5.   During the past seven years, the company has shifted most of its memory chip production to joint ventures.

6.   Geerts said there are no plans to suspend chip production.

7.   Hitachi would not disclose estimates for chip production, describing that information as a corporate secret.

8.   In June, NEC Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. joined Hitachi in announcing cutbacks in memory chip production to deal with the slump.

9.   It cut chip production in the final three months of last year as selling prices slipped below production costs.

10.   Logic chip production at Mie will continue, a spokeswoman said.