UPDATE 1-N. American chip equipment orders rise in April
Thu May 18, 2006 7:22 PM ET
(Updates with historical data, SEMI comment, background)
SAN FRANCISCO, May 18 (Reuters) - North American suppliers
of semiconductor manufacturing equipment reported April orders
of $1.6 billion, 16 percent higher than the previous month, a
U.S. trade group said on Thursday.
The book-to-bill ratio was 1.11 in April, meaning that for
every $100 of products shipped, $111 in new orders were booked,
Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International said in a
preliminary report.
The book-to-bill ratio is watched as an indicator of the
demand pipeline for chipmaking tools, which can take months to
build and deliver.
April's ratio compared with the revised March rate of 1.03
and was the highest level in two years, since the ratio hit
1.13 in April 2004.
"This continued trend points to increasing confidence in
the market and a healthy year-over-year billings growth in
2006," Stanley Meyers, president of SEMI, said in a statement.
Major suppliers of microchip capital equipment include
Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Novellus Systems Inc. (NVLS.O: Quote, Profile, Research)
and KLA-Tencor (KLAC.O: Quote, Profile, Research).
Mike Splinter, chief executive of Applied Materials, the
biggest chip equipment supplier in the world, said earlier this
week that the industry, known for its dramatic boom-bust
cycles, was the healthiest it has been in years.
Following are details on North American chip equipment
bookings, billings and the book-to-bill ratio. Figures for
bookings and billings are three-month moving averages, and are
shown in millions of U.S. dollars.
Billings Bookings Book-to-Bill
November 1,179.7 1,093.2 0.93
December 1,223.6 1,142.7 0.93
January 1,259.4 1,225.9 0.97
February 1,283.3 1,293.2 1.01
March (final) 1,338.7 1,385.3 1.03
April (prelim) 1.448.5 1.602.4 1.11 |
