Intel now expects revenues for its third quarter to be between $9.4 billion (€6.8 billion) and €9.8 billion as opposed to its previous guidance of $9 billion to $9.6 billion.

The microprocessor giant cited "stronger than expected worldwide demand for its computing products" as the reason for its upbeat forecast.

It is further good news for the technology sector, which has proven to be something of a safe haven for investors during the current market crisis.

Intel also said that its gross margin percentage for the quarter is now expected to be in "the upper half of the previous range of 52 per cent plus or minus a couple of points".

"A portion of this certainly is market share gains momentum continuing to move over to Intel, and, secondarily, I think this has some positive things to say about the state of the PC market in the important back-to-school season," said Princeton Tech Research analyst Paul Leming.

The California-headquartered company had originally given guidance for the third quarter at its second-quarter results announcement in mid-July.

Intel employs over 5,000 people, directly and indirectly, at its European manufacturing and technology centre in Leixlip, Co Kildare.

The timing of the Intel announcement was telling - it came the same day that its smaller rival AMD announced its new chip, codenamed Barcelona.

AMD's new version of the Opteron chip is its first foray into quad-core technology, chips which contain four processors. Intel has been shipping quad-core Xeon processors since last November.

Although AMD had been first to market with a number of technologies since 2003, Intel has been regaining ground in the last year. Intel's stock has risen about 25 per cent this year, whereas AMD's has fallen more than 35 per cent.

Intel said it expects to announce its third-quarter financial results, which cover the period July-September, on October 16th. - (Additional reporting: Reuters)