Four major electronics makers may ask the government to impose punitive duties on what they call unfairly cheap semiconductor imports from South Korea, industry sources said Wednesday.

NEC Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. believe South Korean manufacturers are exporting dynamic random access memory chips at unfair prices to expand their market share here, the sources said. The chips are key components of personal computers and mobile phones.

Should domestic chip makers formally file a dumping charge against their South Korean rivals, the government will handle the case in accordance with World Trade Organization rules, an official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Wednesday.

The issue of whether South Korean manufacturers sell products at cheaper prices in Japan than they do at home, and whether this strategy actually hurts domestic producers, will be key in pursuing the case, the official said.

The four firms are currently investigating the prices and market trend for South Korean DRAM and could take concrete action as early as this year.

The accusations represent the first time Japanese chip makers have sought dumping charges against a foreign chip maker and also reflect a major decline in status from their heyday in the 1980s.

At that time, Japanese chip makers had an overwhelming share of the global DRAM market and were often accused by U.S. rivals of dumping, which became a major cause of U.S. trade friction.

In the 1990s, however, their market share gradually yielded to South Korean makers.

Should the four firms actually file suit, the government will have to examine the evidence presented and decide in two months whether to launch its own investigation.

If the government probe, which would last as long as a year, substantiates the charges and determines domestic industry is being hurt, it could impose punitive duties for as long as five years.

South Korean chip makers, including Samsung Electronics Co. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world's No. 1 and No. 3 DRAM makers, respectively, have recently increased their presence in the Japanese market by taking advantage of cheaper prices. In the past two years, competitors from neighboring Asian economies have roughly doubled their shares of the Japanese DRAM market, they said.

Japanese makers are attempting to reduce prices, but one industry source said the current business climate is "destructive."

Massive imports from South Korea and Taiwan are coming as Japanese makers are suffering from plunging chip prices amid a global slump in demand for computers and other electronics equipment.

Many Japanese chip makers have followed their global DRAM competitors into the red and are scrambling to restructure.

NEC and Hitachi announced a full integration of their DRAM operations in November 2000, while Toshiba is considering signing a similar accord with a German manufacturer.

The three are also cutting jobs on a scale unseen in postwar Japan to fight the slump and shift their businesses to growing areas of the industry.

Although some believe Japan should refrain from imposing punitive duties in an effort to allay the use of antidumping duties in global trade, the government will make a decision based strictly on actual market conditions, the official said.