Slip in Chips Less Severe: Gartner

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After tumbling off a cliff earlier this year, the chip sector has managed to regain some footing thanks to a modest boost in consumer spending, Gartner says in report Thursday.

The tech research shop now predicts semiconductor industry sales will be down 11.4% below 2008 levels. And while that is a significant drop, it is only half as bad as the 24% decline Gartner originally forecast for 2009.

The revised forecast follows a report last month from Gartner that called for a major reversal of fortune for PC sales this year, swinging from a historical collapse to a slight gain.

"The PC segment was the first to spring back, followed later in the year by other segments reflecting consumer sentiment, like cell phones and automobiles," Gartner said in the report Thursday.

But don't expect a sudden recovery in business technology spending, says Gartner.

"Enterprise spending was most deeply impacted by the recession and remains slow to recover," Gartner said in a press release.

The news comes a day after federal regulators charged Intel with anticompetitive practices as it exerted pressure on PC makers like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Dell (DELL) to shun rival chip suppliers like AMD (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA).

Part of the Federal Trade Commission's case against Intel centers on the company's effort to block Nvidia's graphic processors from the booming netbook segment.

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