The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released its figures for October but while the overall sector is pretty healthy with sales topping $20 billion, the month was bad for both Intel and AMD.

Analysing the figures, Handelsbanken SE said that Intel and AMD processor sales “plunged in October”. According to the analysts there, notebook PC chipset shortages hit Intel, while average selling prices fell from $110 to the mid $80 mark. That, said the group, “indicated that Intel had trouble delivering notebook PC processors in the month of October”.

It said that strong Chinese PC production in October had probably drawn down existing stocks of chips, but as it pointed out, “October is a heck of a time to have a chipset shortage”.

The figures show that microprocessor sales for October were $3,481,000,000 – that compares rather unfavourably to September figures of $6,301,000,000 Intel releases its mid quarter analysis next week, so we should be able to take the temperature a little better then.

Sales of DRAM chips fell in October too, that’s because the whole memory market appears to be still subject to intense pricing pressure.

Contrariwise, as Lewis Carroll might put, sales of flash memory soared, with NAND flash being particularly high. Sales of NAND rose by 95 per cent year on year, and Handelsbanken SE reckons that at some time during 2006, flash memory will surpass the DRAM market in size. NOR flash sales fell in October.