By George Carson, Ph.D., and Michael Todd, Ph.D., the electronics group of Henkel
(May 17, 2006) San Jose, CA — Worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached $9.58 billion in Q1 2006, reports SEMI. The billings figure is 22% higher than Q4 2005, and about 3% above the same quarter last year. SEMI cooperates with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) to gather the data — more than 150 global equipment companies provide such data on a monthly basis.