Cracking Down on Shoddy Work

When electrical problems delayed the launching of the space shuttle Discovery last June, NASA blamed a faulty microchip supplied by Texas Instruments. Now the Pentagon is trying to determine whether defective microcircuits from T.I. are also embedded in the computer systems of many of its high-tech weapons. Defense officials last week embargoed deliveries of military equipment containing the suspect chips and disclosed the "possibility of a criminal investigation" into how T.I.'s chips were tested.

Pentagon officials believe improper testing at T.I. may have allowed substandard circuits to be shipped to as many as 80 defense contractors. One of them, IBM, estimates it has taken delivery of 15 million "potentially suspect" chips from T.I. over the past eight years.

T.I. rejects the notion that U.S. weapons have been compromised by their chips. "There is no evidence of any systems performance or reliability problem," insists one company official. "It's simply a question of testing procedures." Sample testing by the Defense Department so far has revealed no defective microcircuits.