By Benjamin Pimentel

The tech sector edged higher Thursday, led by Texas Instruments and Palm Inc., pushing the Nasdaq Composite Index back above the 2,000 mark.

After a shaky start, the Nasdaq (RIXF) gained 0.4% to 2,007, aided by gains from Palm Inc. (PALM) which were up more than 4%.

Texas Instruments (TXN) also traded up more than 2% after the chip giant was upgraded by Baird to neutral from underperform.

"Texas Instruments should continue to benefit from strong sell-in analog trends in the third quarter, and inventory replenishment dynamics at distributors in the second-half as lead times continue to expand," analyst Tristan Gerra said in a note.

TI's gains helped boost the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) which advanced 1.1%, as shares of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and Intel Corp. (INTC) also rose.

Apple (AAPL) was up 1.6%, while Dell Inc. (DELL) rose 2.5%.

Shares of Tellabs Inc. (TLAB) were up more than 7% after the communications equipment company was upgraded to outperform from market perform by Morgan Keegan.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com (AMZN) struggled in negative territory, its shares down more than 2%.

Also in the red were shares of SanDisk Corp. (SNDK) and eBay Inc. (EBAY).