Intel’s Troubles Greeted in Japan With Quiet Glee : Computers: Widely reported flaw in the U.S. company’s Pentium chip may create opportunities for competitors.

The disclosure of a flaw in Intel Corp.’s top-of-the-line Pentium computer chip may have caused some headaches for Japan’s technology community, but mostly it has created opportunities. And some here can barely contain their glee at mighty Intel’s stumble.

“Japan would probably love to see Intel fall into a crack,” said Chuck Goto, an electronics industry analyst with Smith Barney International Inc. in Tokyo.

Observers here feel the troubles with the Pentium--widely reported across Japan--may undercut Intel’s dominance of the microprocessor market as the computer industry makes the transition to the next generation of chips--creating market openings for Japan’s premier semiconductor makers.

Occurring at a time when the U.S.-Japanese technology rivalry has been tilting in Uncle Sam’s favor, the Pentium flap has made for open season on Intel.

“We don’t want to say we’re pleased at someone else’s misfortune, but this does present opportunities,” said an executive at a Japanese electronics firm who requested anonymity. “There has been a sense that Intel has had a very powerful position that is not necessarily deserved. They have excellent technology, but have also been very good at using the law and the courts to make sure other companies can’t advance in the microprocessor market. . . . The general feeling is it’s a case of hubris on Intel’s part, and they really need to be taken down a peg or two.”

NEC Corp., Fujitsu Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. have all announced that they will replace flawed Pentium microprocessors in their personal computers without charge. It remains unclear who will pay for it, Intel or these Japanese corporate customers.

“In the future, when they (Intel) announce a new next-generation microprocessor, the next generation after Pentium, they’re going to have to work very hard to convince customers this is not going to cause problems for us,” said the Japanese executive.

Intel claims that the defect in its Pentium chip should show up only once in 9 billion computer operations. But IBM alleged Monday that it appears far more frequently, and announced a suspension of shipments of IBM personal computers containing the Pentium microprocessor. IBM promised to replace, free of charge, the flawed chip in the nearly 100,000 Pentium PCs it has shipped so far.

In both the United States and Japan, however, some have questioned IBM’s motives, because its PowerPC chip, developed together with Apple Computer Inc., will compete with the Pentium. Japanese firms have generally remained skeptical of IBM’s claim of how frequently the Intel chip produces an error.

“IBM claims (the error frequency) is something like once in 100 million, and Intel claims one in 9 billion,” said Chris Shimizu, a spokesman for NEC. “We are using some kind of spreadsheet and did our own testing and came out with the figure one in 5 billion. We believe it is something between that and 9 billion.”

Meanwhile, says analyst Goto, “a lot of people are kind of grinning. Techno-nationalism between Japan and the U.S. has been going on for some time, and both sides have bones of contention.”

NEC, which controls about half the Japanese personal computer market, has shipped 75,000 personal computers containing the Pentium chip, while the firm’s total PC shipments this year will exceed 1.7 million, Shimizu said. Fujitsu has shipped 11,000 desktop computers with the Pentium and Toshiba has sold fewer than 2,000, they said.

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Times researcher Chiaki Kitada in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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* ERROR RATE

A new study of Pentium’s flaw disputes claims of both IBM and Intel. D2