As has been the case for the past 18 years, Intel was the top chip seller in 2009, with chip sales declining 4.5 per cent, to $33.25bn. That's a 14.6 per cent slice of the global semi pie, and a point more market share than the company had in 2008. (An economic meltdown that causes revenue declines and profit pressure is not, as you can imagine, how Intel wants to gain market share.) The number two semi maker was Samsung Electronics, which experienced cratering demand for DRAM and NAND flash early in 2008 and which cut back capacity as the meltdown was kicking in. As a result of the lower supply driving up prices, Samsung was able to squeeze out 1.7 per cent revenue growth across all of its chips, to $17.7bn. That's a little more than half the size of Intel. Toshiba ranked third in semi sales, declining 9.4 per cent to $9.6bn, followed by Texas Instruments, down 13.7 per cent to $9.1bn; STMicroelectronics, down 17.1 per cent to $8.5bn; and Qualcomm, down one per cent to $6.41bn.