11.   Alas, some chip companies, like Intel, have banned the chip graffiti because the designs can interfere with the checking process.

12.   Brokers offer computer manufacturers an alternative to prices set by chip companies.

13.   But chip companies will also have to work more closely with systems companies to gain the expertise they need.

14.   But this year the Santa Clara chip company has created a whodunit mystery commercial whose ending will be determined by viewers casting votes on the Internet.

15.   But Torvalds, who now works for a chip design company in Silicon Valley, insists that the true strength of an operating system is reliability.

16.   By last summer chip companies were also reducing their wafer inventories.

17.   Cheng called for stronger enforcement and more disclosure of information by the secretive red chip companies.

18.   Chip companies become more like systems companies, overlapping with their customers and potentially capturing a greater share of the profits of the final product.

19.   Chip companies continued to lose on concern lower prices and burgeoning inventories will stunt their profits this year.

20.   Chip companies work together on a technology road map that gets updated every year and published every two years.