By Benjamin Pimentel

The tech sector moved slightly higher early Tuesday on gains in shares of Amazon.com and Applied Materials.

Internet giant Amazon (AMZN) and chip capital equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT) each added more than 3% in the opening minutes of trading.

Those gains propelled the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) to early gains. The tech-heavy index was up 0.3% at 2,144.

Meanwhile, the Morgan Stanley High Tech 35 Index (MSH) gained 0.5% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) gained 1%.

Gains also came from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Google Inc.(GOOG).

A European Union court advisor sided with Google on letting rival advertisers buy keywords on the trademarks of well-known companies.

On the other hand, other tech players were in the red, including Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Dell Inc. (DELL).

Dell on Monday reached a $3.9 billion deal to buy Perot Systems (PER).

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) was ahead 18 points.