Nearly every forecast for PC sales indicates slower growth in desktop and laptop sales, waning sales of netbooks, and rising, if not booming, sales for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. If those forecasts are borne out, chip makers for mobile devices could suck a lot of the air out of the PC microprocessor market, but could also invigorate the server market.The issue for mobile chip makers is competition. There are several companies designing and making the chips that run all those smartphones and tablets, and a clear winner has yet to be named. Our look at chip-maker stocks today includes Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD), Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN), Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM), Marvel  Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL), Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT), ARM Holdings, plc (NASDAQ: ARMH), Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), and Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM).All data comes from Yahoo! Finance and MarketWatch, and share prices were gathered shortly after noon today.

1. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC)
Intel has a median target price of $27.00 from 36 brokers. Shortly after noon today, shares are trading today at $24.56, for an implied gain of $2.44, or 10%. Intel’s forward P/E is 9.6 and the company does pays a dividend yield of 3.4%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $19.16-$24.84, and at today’s price that’s about 28% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 1% below the 52-week high. Intel posted record revenue in the third quarter, but the company still hasn’t made a significant dent in the mobile device market. Its Atom microprocessor sales were down -32% year-over-year as netbook sales continue to slide. The company is gearing up a big push for its low-profile, low-power laptops called Ultrabooks, which are aimed at a market niche now dominated by the MacBook Air from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

2. Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD)
AMD has a median target price of $6.50 from 27 brokers. Shares are trading today at $4.99, for an implied gain of $1.51, or 30%. AMD’s forward P/E is 8.81 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $4.31-$9.58, and at today’s price that’s about 16% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 48% below the 52-week high. AMD posts third-quarter earnings tomorrow, and analysts are expecting EPS of $0.10 on sales of $1.65 billion. That’s $0.05 less per share than the company earned in the year-ago quarter. For the December quarter, analysts currently expect EPS of $0.15, which would beat the year-ago quarter by a penny. The company finally hired a new CEO in August, but even he is unlikely to turn this company around any time soon.

3. Texas Instruments Inc. (NYSE: TXN)
Texan Instruments has a median target price of $32.00 from 33 brokers. Shares are trading today at $30.89, for an implied gain of $1.11, or 4%. TI’s forward P/E is 12.83 and the company pays a dividend yield of 2.1%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $24.34-$36.71, and at today’s price that’s about 27% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 16% below the 52-week high. TI recently completed its acquisition of National Semiconductor, and that could help it next quarter. It’s earnings in the third quarter were barely newsworthy, but several analysts are bullish on the stock going forward, mainly due to TI’s low cost structure. There’s barely anything in the company’s recent performance to substantiate a positive outlook on this stock, so analysts are looking into a crystal ball and seeing what they were looking for.

4. Broadcom Corp. (NASDAQ: BRCM)
Broadcom has a median target price of $45.00 from 35 brokers. Shares are trading today at $34.86, for an implied gain of $10.14, or 29%. Broadcom’s forward P/E is 11.22 and the company pays a dividend yield of 1%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $29.05-$47.39, and at today’s price that’s about 20% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 26% below the 52-week high. Broadcom reported weak earnings yesterday and guided fourth quarter earnings lower. The company makes chips for mobile devices from Apple, Samsung, and Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), and its business should be better than it is. The company needs to get bigger orders from these customers or it needs to push its way into a supply deal with a low-cost Chinese mobile phone maker.

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5. Marvel  Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ: MRVL)
Marvel has a median target price of $18.25 from 30 brokers. Shares are trading today at $13.51, for an implied gain of $4.74, or 35%. Marvel’s forward P/E is 9.01 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $11.23-$22.01, and at today’s price that’s about 20% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 39% below the 52-week high. Marvel stock has the highest implied gain of any stock we’ve looked at here. Its price has fallen recently due to flooding in Thailand, where Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) uses Marvel chips in its disk drive production and where manufacturing is not expected to be back at full capacity until the first quarter of next year.

6. Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX)
Xilinx has a median target price of $33.00 from 21 brokers. Shares are trading today at $31.62, for an implied gain of $1.38, or 4%. Xilinx’s forward P/E is 15.16 and the company pays a dividend yield of 2.4%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $25.13-$37.37, and at today’s price that’s about 26% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 15% below the 52-week high. Xilinx beat EPS estimates in the third quarter and the stock appears to be nearly fully valued. The EPS beat came against a sharply lowered target, though, and the estimates for fourth quarter EPS are also about -20% lower than they were three months ago.

7. Applied Materials Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT)
Applied Materials has a median target price of $12.50 from 17 brokers. Shares are trading today at $11.77, for an implied gain of $0.73, or 6%. AMAT’s forward P/E is 12.25 and the company pays a dividend yield of 2.7%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $9.70-$16.93, and at today’s price that’s about 21% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 30% below the 52-week high. We looked at Applied when we examined the solar stocks because a good portion of Applied’s sales are to solar PV makers. Short interest in the company tallies more than 20.7 million shares and days to cover is 1.2. It appears that few investors believe the stock will poke a hole in its current target price.

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8. ARM Holdings, plc (NASDAQ: ARMH)
Arm Holdings, plc has a median target price of $26.46 from 18 brokers. Shares are trading today at $27.90, about 5% above its average target price at MarketWatch. ARM’s forward P/E is 42.65 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $16.46-$32.18, and at today’s price that’s about 70% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 13% below the 52-week high. ARM, which is best known for its low-power chip designs for mobile devices, is apparently looking to take its power-saving technology to servers. Bloomberg is reporting an imminent deal with Hewlett Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) for a joint deal that could challenge Intel’s dominance in the server market. Because the stock is above the median target, look for analysts to get moving on raising the target, perhaps as high as $32-$35/share.

9. Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA)
Nvidia has a median target price of $16.50 from 28 brokers. Shares are trading today at $14.59, for an implied gain of $1.91, or 13%. Nvidia’s forward P/E is 12.8 and the company does not pay a dividend. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $11.47-$26.17, and at today’s price that’s about 27% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 44% below the 52-week high. Nvidia shares topped $25 earlier this year as investors saw the company’s new mobile chips chewing up and spitting out competitors. That didn’t happen and shares fell back to earth, but the company is still getting design wins and if it can deliver its Tegra chips on time, the stock could bust through the current target easily.

10. Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM)
Qualcomm has a median target price of $65.00 from 36 brokers. Shares are trading today at $51.25, for an implied gain of $13.75, or 27%. Qualcomm’s forward P/E is 14.71 and the company pays a dividend yield of 1.6%. The stock’s 52-week trading range is $43.21-$59.84, and at today’s price that’s about 19% above its 52-week low, posted earlier this morning, and 14% below the 52-week high. Qualcomm provides chips for Apple, Nokia, Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM), Samsung, and Sony Corp. (NYSE: SNE). With that stable of customers, one might expect a bit more enthusiasm for the stock. Analysts appear to like it, given the spread between the 52-week high and the target price. Institutional investors own about 82% of the outstanding shares, and they appear to be happy with the dividend yield. The stock turns over just 17 million shares a day out of 1.7 billion outstanding.

Paul Ausick