May 1--TOKYO -- Crippled by an unprecedented economic crisis, ailing Japanese semiconductor and electronics makers are desperate for a helping hand from the government to stem their losses.

And that much-needed aid is now on its way as the government rolls out a new capital-boosting scheme that will allow struggling companies outside the financial sector to receive de-facto public funds to prop up their deteriorating financial base.

Loss-making Elpida Memory Inc. and Pioneer Corp. are already preparing to apply for the program in May while Hitachi Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. are believed to be studying the option. Other electronics makers like Fujitsu Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. have also been ravaged by losses in their chipmaking affiliates.

Government officials have hinted at their willingness to essentially bail out Elpida, the world's third-largest and the country's sole maker of dynamic random access memory chips mainly used for personal computers, in the name of saving Japan Inc.

"Chipmakers in each country are all facing extremely tough business conditions on the back of a severe global slump in the semiconductor industry," Vice Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Harufumi Mochizuki recently said.

"I believe that for Elpida to stand firm would hold an extremely important meaning in terms of our industrial polices," he said.

Elpida, which anticipates a group net loss of 180 billion yen for just-ended fiscal 2008, has already inked a technology partnership with Taiwan Memory Co., a new company set up by the Taiwanese government to support its embattled chipmakers.

But calls for government aid have been strong amid fears Elpida would face the same fate as other global industry giants like Spansion Inc. of the United States and Qimonda AG of Germany, which were swept under by a severe slump caused by an erosion of chip prices, chronic supply glut and plummeting demand.

"We can't let the chipmaking industry disappear from Japan. We hope the government will also help us out," a senior official at a major semiconductor firm said.

Under the new program recently outlined by the industry ministry, companies like Elpida will be able to receive capital investments from the state-backed Development Bank of Japan on condition that the government would cover 50 to 80 percent of possible losses on their failure.