Inventories are, in fact, just about where they were before the onset of the last chip downturn.
Market researcher IHS iSuppli warned that inventories will become a big concern if chip sales growth slows down.
"If growth is lower, the high inventories could cause oversupply in the market, causing chip prices to decline faster than normal," Sharon Stiefel, chip analyst at IHS iSuppli, noted in the report.
"This could amplify the size and duration of a downturn or slowdown in the semiconductor market," she said.
HS iSuppli said in a report that chip suppliers held 83.6 days of inventory at the end of last year - the highest level since the second quarter of 2008.
Meanwhile, the US investment bank JP Morgan recently released a research report which focuses on the semiconductor industry.
In the report, the bank upgraded Analog Devices to Overweight from Neutral and raised Analog Devices' price target.
Elsewhere, the investment bank downgraded Linear Technology from Overweight to Neutral and maintained Linear Technology's price target.
