Date: 21/01/2009

Declining semiconductor sales is reflected in dropping semi equipment sales

SEMI, the semiconductor equipment association body has published December-2008 Book-to-Bill Report. As per the report, the America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $668.7 million in orders in December 2008 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.93. A book-to-bill of 0.93 means that $93 worth of orders received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in December 2008 was $668.7 million. The bookings figure is about 15 percent less than the final November 2008 level of $783.8 million, and about 42 percent less than the $1.16 billion in orders posted in December 2007.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in December 2008 was $722.6 million. The billings figure is about 10 percent less than the final November 2008 level of $806.8 million, and about 47 percent less than the December 2007 billings level of $1.36 billion.

"Bookings continue to reflect the uncertainty in the economic environment, and are approaching levels last seen in early 2002," said Dan Tracy, senior director of Industry Research and Statistics at SEMI. "We expect bookings to remain at low levels until end market demand for semiconductors picks up."

The leading semiconductor equipment buyers US, Japan, Europe, South Korea and Taiwan will not be prioritizing any fab expansion plans until they see any growth prospects in semiconductor industry. The emerging economies such as India and China might also shelve their plans in Semiconductor fab investment. China already has quite a good number of fabs which may not be fully utilized with current economic trends. Solar is the only area where the markets are positive. Year 2009 can be predicted as a significant dip in semiconductor industry revenue chart. Deeper the revenue loss, better will be the revenue in 2010 and onwards.