SAN JOSE, Calif. -- A rebound in chip sales for the second quarter has caused a major change in the overall IC rankings in the period, according to IC Insights Inc. (See rankings table).

In terms of sales in the second quarter, the ''climbers'' in the IC rankings included Hynix, MediaTek and TSMC. The ''descenders'' in the rankings included AMD, Freescale and Fujitsu, according to IC Insights.

Intel remained in first place in the rankings, followed in order by Samsung, Toshiba and TI, according to the firm. Thanks to a strong quarter, TSMC jumped from 10th to fifth place in the rankings.

ST was in sixth place, followed by Qualcomm, Renesas, and Sony. Hynix jumped from 13th to 10th place. Another ''climber'' in the rankings, MediaTek, joined the top 20 ranking by jumping six positions in 1Q09.

Among the ''descenders'' was AMD. The company fell out of the top 10 rankings. ''The second-largest MPU supplier in the world has continued to find that it is no fun to be in competition with the giant Intel,'' according to the firm.

Freescale dropped from being ranked 16th in 2008 to 18th in 1Q09 to 20th in 2Q09. ''The company is in the midst of a major re-organization (eliminating its cellular phone business) and its fortunes are increasingly influenced by the health of the automotive industry,'' according to the firm.

Fujitsu dropped from being ranked 17th in 1Q09 to 22nd in 2Q09. ''The company stated that its flash memory and automotive device sales suffered the most in 2Q09. However, Fujitsu believes that its customers' excess device inventories have now been depleted and that consumer demand is picking up,'' accoridng to the firm.

The top-20 chip makers, in total, registered a sales increase of 21 percent in the second quarter, compared to the first quarter, according to the firm. This was a 37-point swing compared to Q1 2009 over Q4 2008. percent.