Intel Corp., the world’s biggest semiconductor maker, Tuesday showed off a new chip that has direct access to memory in computers, invading one of the last market niches dominated by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Intel for the first time is combining the memory and processing functions into a single chip, instead of using two. The result is a processor that helps pull up data and perform calculations faster. Other features boost the ability to handle video and sound files and share work among computers.

While AMD has had a memory-controlling chip on the market since 2003, new processors using the design were delayed and didn’t catch on with customers, analyst David Wu said. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel will have a performance lead until 2010, he said.

“We don’t need to go to the Olympics to know who’s won the gold medal,” said Wu, who follows chip stocks for Global Crown Capital in San Francisco. He has a “neutral” rating on Intel and doesn’t own the shares. “They’ve got the best microprocessor right now and will have through the end of 2009.”

The chip, named Core i7, may help Intel increase sales of more-profitable processors for the servers that run corporate databases and Web sites. Intel’s most expensive server chips sell for $3,157 each, compared with $1,499 for the most costly desktop part.

Senior vice president Patrick Gelsinger demonstrated the new chips Tuesday at the annual Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. A computer equipped with the new product was able to render animated images twice as quickly as one with older chips. More than 5,000 computer and software engineers are attending the show, which runs through Thursday.

AMD’s server chips outperform their existing Intel rivals and will be improved by the use of a new manufacturing technique before the end of the year, said John Fruehe, who heads business development for the company’s Opteron server line.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company’s latest version of the chip, called Barcelona, went on sale at the end of the first quarter of this year, about a year later than planned. The latest release included a fix of a problem that occurred when the chip was first sold last year.

“Once Barcelona came out below specification, slow and late, Intel went to being ahead,” Cody Acree, a Dallas-based analyst for Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Microprocessors run software in computers and use memory chips to store data while they make calculations. By building the memory-controller function into the processor, AMD’s chips have been able to run databases and Web sites faster.

“It mimics a lot of AMD’s prior advantages,” Acree said of the new Intel chip. “Right now it’s Intel’s game to lose and AMD has to do something.”

If the chip performs well, it could increase Intel’s market share, boost profitability and help Intel’s share price move back toward $30, Acree said.

The shares have jumped 14 percent since July 15, when Intel forecast third-quarter sales that exceeded some analysts’ predictions. Intel fell 42 cents Tuesday to $23.59 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. AMD shares dropped 33 cents, or 5.6 percent, to $5.58 in New York Stock Exchange trading.

The Core i7, which will go on sale this year, is based on a chip design that Intel code-named Nehalem. The design will become the basis of all of its processors starting next year, the company says.