WASHINGTON, Oct. 3, 2011 — (PRNewswire) — The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors were $25.03 billion for the month of August, a slight increase of 0.7 percent from the prior month when sales were $24.9 billion. On a year-to-date basis sales grew 2.2 percent year-over-year. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average.

"Sales in August were in large part driven by strong demand in tablets and PCs," said Brian Toohey, president, Semiconductor Industry Association. "Growth in these areas is encouraging, however lower consumer and industrial demand across a wide range of products and markets is keeping overall sales lower than expected at this point."

A strong month-to-month increase in sales from Japan due to recovery efforts and output from fabrication facilities after the natural disaster earlier this year helped to increase semiconductor sales throughout August. Additionally, due to the compounding effect of increased semiconductor content in cars, automotive application specific semiconductors have experienced double digit growth year-to-date. In the midst of a slow and soft global economic picture, growth in the semiconductor industry is promising.

Visit www.sia-online.org for additional August 2011 graph.