"More intense competition led to a sequential decline of 6.1 percent in sales of microprocessors, offsetting modest growth in the rest of the microchip market," said George Scalise, SIA president, in a statement.

Sales of microprocessors, which make up 14 percent of the overall chip market, were up nominally year-to-year, Scalise said. April DRAM sales were up 3.7 percent sequentially and 7.7 percent year to year, he said. "The PC market remains strong, with unit sales of personal computers running 13 to 15 percent ahead of last year's levels," Scalise said.

Overall chip sales were down sequentially in all regions expect Asia Pacific, which grew 1.1 percent to top $9 billion, SIA said. Sales in the Americas region slipped 3.7 percent sequentially to settle at $3.59 billion, SIA said, while sales in Europe and Japan slid 0.2 and 1.1 percent, respectively.

Year-to-year, sales in April were up in all regions except Europe, which was down 2.7 percent from April 2005, SIA said. April sales were up year-to-year 11.4 percent in the Americas region, 1.4 percent in Japan and 14.4 percent in Asia Pacific, SIA said.

Sales of wireless handsets containing analog products, digital signal processors (DSPs), NOR flash and optoelectronic devices continued to show healthy growth in April, Scalise said. Total analog sales were up by 23 percent year-to-year, while DSPs grew by 16.1 percent from 2005 levels, he said. NAND flash devices declined by 11.7 percent from March, but were up by nearly 25 percent year-to-year, Scalise said.

"The overall market growth rate continues to run slightly ahead of the SIA forecast issued last November, which projected growth of 7.9 percent," Scalise said, adding that SIA plans to issue an updated forecast June 7.