(May 23, 2008) San Jose, CA&#151 The conservative mood of the industry and impending fab projects that were put on hold unitl early 2009 resulted in a book-to-bill ratio of .81 for April 2008, according to Stan Myers, CEO of SEMI. This reflects an 8% drop in bookings and 2% drop in billings since March for North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment. A book-to-bill of 0.81 means that $81 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in April 2008 was $1.07 billion. The bookings figure is about eight percent less than the final March 2008 level of $1.17 billion, and almost 32 percent less than the $1.57 billion in orders posted in April 2007.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in April 2008 was $1.32 billion. The billings figure is about two percent less than the final March 2008 level of $1.34 billion, and about 17 percent less than the April 2007 billings level of $1.59 billion.

“Relatively flat bookings and billings for North American semiconductor equipment reflect the continued conservative mood of the industry,” said Myers, “A number of fab projects have been put on-hold or delayed until 2009, and the current 2008 equipment data reflect this trend.”

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.