Coal and cigarettes, move over. There's a new leader among Virginia exports.

It's the computer chip.

Virginia chipmakers shipped $1.5 billion of the tiny, high-tech devices overseas last year, topping longtime heavyweights coal and cigarettes, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership.

Chip exports were almost twice those of coal, at $882.9 million, and triple those of cigarettes, at $510.8 million, reported the state authority charged with increasing the commonwealth's economy.

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It's the second time semiconductors topped the state's exports. The first was in 2002, but back then the chips, made by one of Virginia's newest industries, weren't so far ahead.

"We're rewriting Virginia history, byte by byte," said Pat Otte, director of Micron Technology Inc.'s Manassas chip fabrication plant, one of two in Virginia producing memory chips for products including iPods, cell phones and computers.

Virginia's other chipmaker is Qimonda AG's plant in Sandston, near Richmond.

Otte attributed last year's surge in the value of chip exports, up from $645.6 million in 2005, to strong global demand for semiconductors, especially in the emerging consumer markets of China and India. The $250 billion worldwide semiconductor market is growing by about 15 percent annually, he said.

That boost has been "very, very healthy for both us and Qimonda," Otte said.

To meet that demand, Micron, based in Boise, Idaho, invested $1.5 billion to upgrade the Manassas plant, more than doubling production last year. That plant hired about 1,000 people in 2006 - about 200 came from the military, mostly from Hampton Roads, Otte said.

Qimond a also ramped up production last year thanks to a significant expansion several years ago, said Donna Wilson, a spokeswoman for the German company.

Both plants opened in the late 1990s, under different owners, after an effort by former Gov. George Allen to attract integrated circuit manufacturers to the state. Because of the state's success in landing the coveted plants, Allen took to calling Virginia the "Silicon Dominion."

The rise of the computer chip is not unlike other economic transformations that have taken place in the state, said Hugh Keogh, president and chief executive of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. He cited the shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy in the 1960s and '70s, as well as the rise of the information technology economy in the late 1980s.

"Times change and clearly the Virginia economy is now technology driven," Keogh said. "We can feel very good about the sophisticated level of our manufacturing."

One downside to a changing economy is that some regions benefit more than others, Keogh said. While growth has occurred in Hampton Roads, Richmond and Northern Virginia, the south-central and southwest sections of the state have suffered as textile and tobacco jobs disappeared.

The state's coal-mining region in the far southwest has suffered as well, but Virginia's coal exports last year reached their highest value in at least eight years. It wasn't enough to keep coal in the top position, where it had been in 2004 and 2005, according to the state partnership. The value of export coal rose in recent years because strong world demand forced prices higher, said David F. Host, president of the Norfolk ship agency T. Parker Host Inc., which works many coal ships. However, coal shipments have been flat the last few years, he said.

Coal shipping from Virginia originates in the Appalachian Mountains and travels to the port of Hampton Roads via train, where it is taken by ship to fuel steel mills in such places as Europe and Brazil.

Cigarette exports remained at a historically low level last year, far below the $2.2 billion worth of shipments in 1998.

The decrease mirrors a national decline in cigarette exports, as major manufacturers moved production overseas to lower costs, said Tom Capehart, an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Among the companies moving work abroad is Richmond-based tobacco giant Philip Morris USA Inc., company spokeswoman Peggy Roberts said.

Foreign demand isn't a factor in the decline, Capehart said. Cigarette consumption remains high in Japan, one of the biggest export markets for American cigarettes, as well as elsewhere in Asia and Africa, he said.

Rounding out the state's top five exports last year were aircraft parts, such as from Saab Aerotech of America LLC in Sterling, and tractor-trailer trucks, made by companies including Volvo Trucks North America Inc.'s plant in Dublin.

Micron's Otte said he respects the tobacco and coal industries for producing the state's top exports for many years. But, based on the expanding market for semiconductors, he said computer chips could claim the lead for some time.

"Once you're in the industry, you either grow or you should leave," he said. "Our plan is always to grow. The last thing we'd want to be is some sort of one-year wonder."