Worldwide chip sales slightly up

May chip sales were up 2.4% year-over-year and 1.2% from April, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said today. Revenues totaled $20.3 billion in May, up from $19.8 billion reported for May of 2006.

"Worldwide sales of semiconductors rebounded slightly in May, after a sequential decline in April," said SIA president George Scalise. "Sales of microprocessors and NAND flash memory saw the largest sales increases, indicating continued strength in end markets for personal computers and cell phones. Average selling prices (ASPs) for DRAMs continued to be under competitive pressure, declining by nearly 14% sequentially. Total DRAM sales fell 8% even as unit shipments increased by 7%," he said.

SIA expects overall DRAM demand to grow this year. The organization quoted Micron, which recently said that the average DRAM capacity of a PC will increase from 772 MB last year to 1180 MB this year, which translates into an increase of 53%. The NAND flash segment is likely to see a period of dramatic growth, driven primarily by cellphones : the SIA believes that the NAND flash capacity of the typical mobile phone will grow at a average annual rate of more than 200% through 2010.