In September 1995, Paul Maritz, the executive in charge of Microsoft's operating-system business, met with executives of the Intel Corporation, the leading microchip maker.

The encounter was the third in their world championship quarterfinal match, organized by the Professional Chess Association and sponsored by Intel, the microchip maker.

The antitrust inquiry, which Intel confirmed Wednesday evening, is the second time the trade commission has examined the big microchip maker in the 1990's.

That's longer than microchip makers spend on a new generation of semiconductors or Detroit takes to come up with a new automobile.

So far, I.B.M. is the only microchip maker mass-producing such chips, though Motorola and some others are striving to catch up.

Japan's largest semiconductor manufacturer said today that it would form a joint venture with the largest microchip maker in South Korea to develop advanced computer chips.

The trend, he says, is toward economic development like the deal to attract Sematech, the microchip maker, to Albany, in which universities will have a large role.

Intel and Applied Materials, both microchip makers, fell the most.

Thomson S.A., the state-owned French conglomerate, said today that it was talking with Europe's other leading computer microchip makers to pool their chip businesses.

A Foreign Ministry official today rejected as groundless arguments made by senior American officials who are trying to block the sale of an American microchip maker to a Japanese company.