San Jose, California–Oct. 23, 2000–Worldwide front-end capacity utilization was 97.1% for September, down 0.5% from August’s revised figure of 97.6%, according to the latest Industry Pulse Pro Report from VLSI Research. Utilization has been growing in small increments since May and the market researcher forecasts continued growth through November.
VLSI also reported that the world IC book-to-bill ratio had dropped to 1.12 for the month of September, a decrease of 0.10 from August. The firm predicts that number to drop to 1.0 for the month of October
–Meg Villeneuve (WaferNews 10/23/2000)