Sales of microchips – long one of Silicon Valley s bread-and-butter businesses – enjoyed a healthy increase in 2014, according to preliminary data made public Tuesday by research firm Gartner.
It reported that worldwide chip sales totaled $339.8 billion for the year, a 7.9 percent increase from 2013. Among chip sectors, the biggest increase was for memory circuits, whose sales jumped 16.9 percent.
For the 23rd consecutive year, Santa Clara giant Intel kept its crown as the world s biggest chip maker, grabbing 15 percent of the global market in 2014, Gartner said. That s down from its peak of 16.5 percent in 2011, however. Samsung Electronics claimed second place last year, with 10.4 percent of the market.
Microchip photo courtesy of Intel
