Despite healthy growth in processor shipments during the third quarter, there is an under-demand for chips, with customers cutting orders from foundries that manufacture the chips, said Shane Rau, research director at IDC.

This dovetails what chip makers like Intel have said during recent earnings calls, hinting at a slowdown in chip demand, he said.

Shipments of PC processors grew 15.8 percent year-over-year during the third quarter of 2008, according to a study released by IDC on Monday. PC processor shipments during the quarter were in the "middle-to-high 80 millions," Rau said, with shipments of mobile processors exceeding desktop PC processors for the first time.

Mobile processors totaled around 50 percent of all shipments, compared to 46 percent for desktop processors. Intel-based x86 server processors -- like Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron -- formed around 4 percent of the shipments.

Intel was the world's leading chip supplier in the third quarter, holding 80.8 percent market share, a 1.1 percent year-over-year increase, followed by AMD, which dropped 1.2 percent to 18.5 percent.