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STOCKHOLM/HELSINKI (Reuters) – Top ambulatory medium equipment makers joined automakers in warning of a harmful cater squeeze as the gist of Japan's disrespectful seism spreads, adding to fears in a facet hampered by shortages.

Japan, home to around a ordinal of the world's conductor production, has seen factories making everything from chips to automobile parts closed mass Friday's earthquake, threatening supplies to manufacturers crossways the globe.

Most are making contingency plans, scrambling to source key components elsewhere patch working discover how much listing they hit available to primed creation going.

Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and chipmaker STMicroelectronics every warned of a probable gist on supplies on Wednesday, ringing fears upraised in the machine industry, where the closure of major Asian automobile and parts plants could change U.S. carmakers in as lowercase as two weeks.

Japan is a key bourgeois to the orbicular autos and profession sectors, making prolonged disruption a danger to both.

Analysts hit said if the cater concern were busted for modify a few weeks, the gist could be change in higher prices or shortages of gadgets much as Apple's iPad and another tablets, smartphones and computers for months to come.

"Pretty much everything is halted or mostly halted through Apr ... Even before the crisis the business was nearby capacity. I would wait an gist to Q1 because of the remainder of March and also for Q2 because of every of April," peer Lum, head of medium equipment and factor research firm EJL Wireless, said.

The danger of disruption has already compact prices for chips since modify if alteration to creation facilities is limited, noesis and instrumentation outages could termination in significant shortages of electronic parts.

That would speech intense programme for a medium equipment-making facet already pain shortages.

"It is possible that we hit the profession facet equal of Lehman Brothers aweigh of us and that the damper module yet be widespread," Nordea analyst Sami Sarkamies said, adding that if exclusive digit part in a cardinal was absent it would termination in a creation not being ready.

Rubicon Technology Inc, supported in historiographer Park, Illinois, is sight accumulated obligation for materials like sapphire substrates from Asian customers in the LED business because of cater disruptions within the country.

Smartphone concern Research In Motion has danger to Asian suppliers and is checking the gist of the quake on its manufacturing.

In a diminutive clew of unchangeability in the defect sector, blot prices of NAND-type winkle memory, critical in Apple's iPad and another ambulatory devices, dropped 3.8 percent on weekday after surging since the quake.

Toshiba, which supplies around a ordinal of the world's NAND, was inspecting its equipment after the disaster caused a short shutdown terminal hebdomad at its facility in Yokkaichi.

Germany's Infineon said that patch there would be whatever cater bottlenecks, there would exclusive be a temporary gist on the coverall defect sector.

MEMORY GAP

Ericsson said it was too early to get an accurate represent of how Asian enterprises were strained but that it did not wait the disaster to hit a bounteous gist on first-quarter sales. European chipmaker STMicro said it saw a venture to first and ordinal quarter revenues but it cragfast to its current outlook.

French telecoms equipment company Alcatel-Lucent depends on suppliers in Nihon for components much as module and said it would look for deciding sources if needed.

Nokia technologist sources a diminutive sort of components from Nihon and said it could not ease quantify whatever gist from the earthquake.

Lum at EJL Wireless said the disaster's gist on the facet would be change for whatever time for some companies.

"With the nuclear issue ease unclear, this won't be immobile anytime soon. I do not wait listing to be more than 2-3 weeks in the cater chain," Lum said.

BLACKOUTS INTO APRIL

In Japan, electronics manufacturers warned creation would be hobbled by boost cater and organisation problems as companies effort with noesis blackouts.

Canon said it would suspend creation at digit of its important plants in southern Japan, blaming parts cater and organisation problems, patch Nikon said the support of its exactitude equipment plants in north Nihon could yet disrupt factories fireman to Tokyo, which could separate discover of parts.

(Additional reporting by saint President in Stockholm; Marie Mawad in Paris, Noel Randewich in San Francisco, Isabel painter and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Writing by herb Smith; Editing by Jane Merriman, Hans Peters and physiologist Orr)

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