North American chip fab tool makers report 4th month of orders growth in January

February 24, 2012 — North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.18 billion in orders, $1.24 billion in billings, and a book-to-bill of 0.95 in January 2012, according to the January Book-to-Bill Report by SEMI. This is the 4th consecutive month of growth in wafer fab tool orders.

North American semiconductor manufacturing tool providers booked $1.18 billion in orders for January (three-month average), 7% more than in December and 22.1% less than January 2011.

Tool makers recorded $1.24 billion in billings (three-month average), 4.7% below December’s $1.30 billion, and 30.7% less than January 2011.

"While year-over-year bookings and billings are lower than in 2011, the current outlook for equipment spending in 2012 has improved over the past couple of months," acknowledged Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars. A book-to-bill of 0.95 means that $95 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

Month Billings (3-mo. avg, $M) Bookings (3-mo. avg, $M) Book-to-Bill
Aug 2011  1,457.7 1,162.4 0.80
Sept 2011  1,313.5 926.5 0.71
Oct 2011 1,258.3 926.8 0.74
Nov 2011 1,176.7 977.2 0.83
Dec 2011 (final) 1,300.0 1,102.9 0.85
Jan 2012 (prelim) 1,238.5 1,179.7 0.95
Source: SEMI February 2012.

The data contained in this release were compiled by David Powell, Inc., an independent financial services firm, without audit, from data submitted directly by the participants. SEMI and David Powell, Inc. assume no responsibility for the accuracy of the underlying data.

The data are contained in a monthly Book-to-Bill Report published by SEMI. The report tracks billings and bookings worldwide of North American-headquartered manufacturers of equipment used to manufacture semiconductor devices, not billings and bookings of the chips themselves. The Book-to-Bill report is one of three reports included with the Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS).

SEMI is a global industry association serving the nano- and micro-electronic manufacturing supply chains. For more information, visit www.semi.org.

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