TECHNOLOGY - Sept. 6, 1996

National Semiconductor Reports Loss: The loss of $207.6 million was due in part to National Semiconductor Corp.’s spinning off part of its chip business. The Santa Clara-based firm’s loss for the three months ended Aug. 26 amounted to $1.51 a share. In last year’s fiscal first quarter, National posted a profit of $73.5 million, or 53 cents a share. The latest results reflect pretax charges of $285.6 million, most relating to National Semiconductor’s putting its memory and logic chip operations into an independent company, Fairchild Semiconductor. Without the charges, National Semiconductor would have earned $6.5 million, or 5 cents a share. The company, one of Silicon Valley’s pioneering chip makers, has been hurt by rising costs and falling sales as the personal computer market has grown less quickly than expected.