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

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

Most are making occurrence plans, scrambling to concern key components elsewhere patch employed discover how much listing they hit available to keep creation going.

Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and chipmaker STMicroelectronics every warned of a probable gist on supplies on Wednesday, echoing fears raised in the auto industry, where the approaching of major Asian car and parts plants could change U.S. carmakers in as lowercase as digit weeks.

Japan is a key supplier to the global autos and technology sectors, making prolonged flutter a threat to both.

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

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

The threat of flutter has already compact prices for chips since modify if alteration to creation facilities is limited, power and instrumentation outages could termination in momentous shortages of electronic parts.

That would speech bad news for a medium equipment-making facet already suffering shortages.

"It is possible that we hit the technology facet equal of Lehman Brothers aweigh of us and that the shock will eventually be widespread," Nordea shrink Sami Sarkamies said, adding that if exclusive digit conception in a thousand was absent it would termination in a creation not being ready.

Rubicon Technology Inc, based in Franklin Park, Illinois, is sight accumulated demand for materials like sapphire substrates from Asian customers in the diode 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 tremble on its manufacturing.

In a diminutive sign of stability in the defect sector, blot prices of NAND-type winkle memory, critical in Apple's iPad and another ambulatory devices, dropped 3.8 proportionality 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 week at its facility in Yokkaichi.

Qualcomm Inc said it would touch pilot stocks of materials utilised to attain ambulatory chips and that it doesn't wait momentous problems supplying products to its customers.

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

MEMORY GAP

Ericsson said it was too primeval to get an faithful represent of how Asian enterprises were strained but that it did not wait the disaster to hit a big gist on first-quarter sales. European chipmaker STMicro said it saw a venture to first- and second-quarter revenues but it stuck to its underway outlook.

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

Nokia technologist sources a diminutive number of components from Nihon and said it could not still quantify some gist from the earthquake.

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

"With the thermonuclear cater still 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 further cater and organisation problems as companies effort with power blackouts.

Canon said it would alter creation at digit of its important plants in gray Japan, blaming parts cater and organisation problems, patch Nikon said the suspension of its exactitude equipment plants in northerly Nihon could eventually stop factories fireman to Tokyo, which could run discover of parts.

(Additional news by saint Johnson in Stockholm; Marie Mawad in Paris, Noel Randewich in San Francisco, Isabel Reynolds and Tim buffoon in Tokyo; Writing by herb Smith; Editing by Jane Merriman, Hans Peters, physiologist Orr and Richard Chang)

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