Worldwide highlights

12/01/1997

Worldwide highlights

Equipment and chip book-to-bills healthy. Orders for both capital equipment and chips show month-to-month improvement. Orders for semiconductor equipment at North American companies rose again in September to $1.747 billion, with shipments also climbing to $1.633 billion, according to preliminary figures released by SEMI. The resulting book-to-bill ratio for the month was 1.07, dipping from August`s revised ratio of 1.09. This is the seventh consecutive monthly increase in equipment bookings since March, when bookings were $1.265 billion. The September bookings figure is a 4% increase over August levels, and 125% above year-ago numbers. Equipment shipments in September were also above August levels, rising 6% from $1.537 billion to September`s $1.633 billion.

Growth for tool sales seen in 1998. The SEMI trade association expects semiconductor equipment sales to dip only slightly to just over $25 billion in 1997 from about $26 billion in 1996, substantially better than predicted at the beginning of the year. Analysts see 1998 shaping up for solid improvement, with 1999 also forecast to bring good growth. Senior analyst Beth Schumann noted, "In our June consensus forecast, we estimated growth of 12% for 1998 and 20% for 1999. The 1998 number may be a little understated, and 1999 may be too low. Based on the expectations for 300 mm - there are 19 fabs either announced or pre-announced - there will be a lot kicking in in 1999."

Future of known good die uncertain. Semiconductor manufacturers disagree on the future of known good die (KGD) in the semiconductor market, according to results from the Semi Dice Inc. Bare Die Survey, Los Alamitos, CA. Forty percent said that the topic of KGD is over-rated and will not be a factor in five years, while 50% said KGD is under-utilized and will be a critical requirement of future applications. Ten percent said other. Semi Dice president Mitch Myers said that the survey shows that manufacturers have yet to decide on the future importance of known good die.