Hills Warns Silicon Valley of Complaints : Computers: The U.S. trade representative says U.S. chip makers run a risk of alienating their Japanese customers.

U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills irked Silicon Valley chip makers by saying they should stop complaining that their Japanese counterparts haven’t lived up to a trade agreement signed last summer.

Hills, the nation’s top trade negotiator, warned that complaints have become “too strident” and could end up angering the Japanese, America’s second-largest export customer.

“I don’t think the negative rhetoric helps very much to cause your customer to want to buy from you,” she said during a brief visit Friday to the Bay Area.

The trade agreement, signed in 1986 and renewed last year, is intended to make the Japanese market more open to foreign semiconductors.

One of the pact’s goals is for foreign chip makers to increase their share of sales in Japan to 20% by the end of 1992. Foreign chip makers now have an estimated 14% of the market.

U.S. chip industry officials have complained that the American share has barely risen above 12% since the agreement was reached. American chips make up 90% of the foreign chips shipped to Japan.

Hills, however, said the Japanese are increasing the number of American-made chips. She said more sales would take place as U.S. firms design chips for products the Japanese are designing.

A spokesman for the Semiconductor Industry Assn. criticized Hill’s remarks.

“Rather than making excuses for why Japan is not meeting its commitments under the agreement, the U.S. trade representative should be pounding table getting Japan to open up its market,” a spokesman for the San Jose-based trade group said.