Ruling a Setback for Some Chip Makers

The U.S. Department of Commerce dealt a blow to some foreign chip makers and to one U.S. firm in an anti-dumping case. Alliance Semiconductor Corp., a San Jose-based chip maker, said that in a preliminary ruling, the Commerce Department said Alliance should pay a duty of 59.06% on imports from Taiwan of static random access memory (SRAMs). SRAMs are widely used memory chips which do not require power to hold content, unlike dynamic random access memory chips (DRAMs). The Commerce Department also announced that anti-dumping duties of various rates of up to 113.85% should be imposed on companies that manufacture SRAM chips in Taiwan or Korea and import these products into the United States. The preliminary decision was issued in response to a petition filed in February by Micron Technology Inc., claiming that a number of companies, including Alliance, sold SRAMs below “fair value” in the United States in 1996. Alliance said it will contest the decision.