Samsung Electronics, Korea's top tech giant, suffered "zero" growth in its chip sales in the first quarter of the year, while its U.S. rival Intel posted an 8.7-percent jump, a report showed Tuesday.

The divergence has enabled Intel to extend its lead over Samsung in the global semiconductor industry, according to IC Insights.

The market research firm released an updated list of the world's top 20 semiconductor suppliers. The 20 companies' combined sales decreased 6 percent on-year in the first three months of 2016.

Intel remained firmly in control of the No. 1 spot, with its revenue soaring 8.7 percent to $13.1 billion from the same period last year.

But Samsung saw little change in its chip sales at $9.34 billion in the January-March period, almost no change from $9.33 billion recorded a year earlier.

IC Insights attributed Intel's accomplishment partly to the effect of its purchase of chip designer Altera.

Industry watchers, however, say Samsung may be facing a limit in its ability to catch up with Intel.

Samsung managed to narrow the gap in global market share with Intel to 3.2 percentage points in 2015 from 3.4 percentage points in 2014, 4.2 percentage points in 2013 and 5.3 percentage points in 2012.

Meanwhile, another Korean semiconductor producer, SK hynix, ranked 6th in the list, down one notch from the first quarter of 2015. (Yonhap)