P.M. BRIEFING : Estimated Demand for Chips Falls

Global demand for computer chips in 1989 will increase 9% over last year, a smaller gain than expected earlier, an international semiconductor trade organization said today.

A Japanese official of the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization said the organization has revised downward its projection for global chip demand by 5 percentage points to $49 billion. The downward revision was caused mainly by a slump in demand for dynamic random access memory chips, the official said.