The book-to-bill ratio for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers, such as Applied Materials Inc, rose to 1.14 last month, hitting the highest level in 29 months, indicating that the semiconductor industry is on track to recovery, semiconductor industry association SEMI’s statistics showed yesterday.
The book-to-bill ratio broke the boom-or-bust level of one for the first time in seven months.
The three-month average of worldwide bookings expanded 17.2 percent to US$1.09 billion, from December last year’s US$927.4 million, according to SEMI’s data.
The figure was a 8.5 percent annual decline from US$1.19 billion.
The three-month average of worldwide billings dropped 5.4 percent to US$952.1 million last month from US$1.01 billion in December last year, and down 23.2 percent from US$1.24 billion in the same period last year, according to SEMI.
“In January 2013, the three-month average for bookings improved again for new semiconductor manufacturing equipment orders placed by worldwide customers to North American manufacturers, while billings declined slightly,” SEMI president and chief executive officer Denny McGuirk said. “The ratio is above parity for the first time since May 2012, although both orders and billings currently remain tempered by the economy and relatively conservative spending plans at the start of the year.”
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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