Japan’s Ministry of International Trade & Industry may make its requests to local firms with the utmost politeness and deference, but its requests as often as not have the force of orders, and it has asked Japan’s chipmakers during the April to June quarter to to cut output of 256K memory chips by 32% to 111.8m units, 64Ks by 29%, 128Ks by 28%, and of EPROMs by 21%, compared with January to March output.