SAN FRANCISCO—The three-month average book-to-bill ratio for North American semiconductor equipment manufacturers improved to 0.95 in January, the fourth consecutive month of improvement after six consecutive months of declines, according to the fab tool vendor trade group SEMI.
A book-to-bill of 0.95 means that $95 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
SEMI (San Jose, Calif.) said North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.18 billion in orders in January, on a three-month average basis, up 7 percent from December and down 22.1 percent from January 2011.
The three-month average of worldwide billings for North American fab tool vendors was $1.24 billion in January, down 5 percent from December and down 31 percent from 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," said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI, in a statement.
SEMI's 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.
