World+dog will have spent $235bn on semiconductors this year, up 6.9 per cent on 2004's total, according to market watcher Gartner.

The 2005 figure marks the first time the industry has sold more chips than it did in 2000, a record-breaking year. Then, some $223m worth of semiconductor products were sold.

Gartner's forecast is somewhat higher than the $228bn the US' Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) predicted last month, but lower than fellow market researcher iSuppli's bullish $237.3bn.

Like iSuppli, Gartner has Intel, Samsung and Texas Instruments down as the world's top three chip makers, with market shares of 15.0, 7.6 and 4.4 per cent, respectively. Tenth-placed AMD - up a rung on the position it took in the 2004 chip companies' ladder - has 2.4 per cent of the market, with sales up 13.7 per cent year on year. Intel's rose 14.3 per cent, Gartner said. ®

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