Considering the cautious revenue expectations published by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) earlier this year, chip sales in July are nothing less than impressive. Global semiconductor revenue was up by 7.6% from $20.6 billion in July 2007 to $22.2 billion in July 2008. Year-to-date sales through July were $148.3 billion, an increase of 5% from the same period of 2007 when sales were $141.3 billion.

Growing sales of consumer electronics, personal computers and cell phones – which account for about 80% of chip demand – are driving the growth in the industry, the SIA said. PC unit shipments are believed to grow by about 13% this year, LCD TV shipments by 32% and digital set top boxes and digital still cameras will both be up around 20%, according to the SIA. No improvement was seen in the DRAM and flash memory market. While the SIA did not break out the sales decline in these segments, the organization said that total semiconductor sales excluding memory products increased by 11.6% year-on-year.

An interesting side note was that chips produced on 300 mm wafers accounted for the largest share of wafer manufacturing capacity for the first time in July.