Semiconductor sales totaled $22.7 billion in August, up 5.5 percent from a year ago and 2.4 percent from the previous month, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Thursday.

The industry group said that sales for the year through the end of August totaled $170.2 billion _ up 4.5 percent over the first eight months of 2007.

Chip demand was helped by sales of personal computers and cell phones, SIA said. But the group said overall growth in the industry was hurt by pricing pressure on dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, which are used in PCs, and NAND flash memory chips, which are used in portable electronics like cell phones and digital cameras.

Excluding memory products, chip sales rose 11.4 percent year over year in August, SIA said. On this basis, sales for the year thus far are up 4.5 percent over the same period in 2007 and are in line with the group’s midyear forecast for 2008 growth of 4.3 percent.