North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment last month reported a book-to-bill ratio above parity for the sixth straight month, indicating that the global semiconductor industry was on track to recovery, the latest report by industry association SEMI said yesterday.
The ratio — one of the leading indicators used to gauge the health of the global semiconductor industry — reached 1.03 last month after recovering and surpassing 1 in July last year, the report issued by Taiwan SEMI said yesterday.
A book-to-bill ratio of 1.03 means that US$103 worth of orders was received for every US$100 of product billed for the month.
“Semiconductor capital equipment bookings and billings continued steady growth into December 2009,” Stanley Myers, president and CEO of SEMI, said in the report, adding that “the ratio has been above parity for six consecutive months as the industry increases spending on technology and fills out capacity to produce semiconductor devices.”
The three-month average of worldwide bookings rose 9 percent month-on-month, or up 49 percent year-on-year, to US$863.3 million last month, while billing rose 13.2 percent month-on-month, or up 25.3 percent year-on-year, to US$842.2 million, SEMI said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s top contract chipmaker, said yesterday it had placed a NT$504 million order to buy a batch of new manufacturing equipment from Applied Materials South East Asia Pacific Ltd.
TSMC can now only meet about 80 percent of customer orders on its 12-inch fabs amid strong demand from its major graphic, baseband and LCD TV controller customers, Citigroup analyst Andrew Lu (陸行之) said in his report issued early this month.
Lu said TSMC was adding more equipment to meet surging demand and has accumulated more than US$4 billion in orders this year.
Separately, a report by market researcher Gartner Inc showed that Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 2 PC maker, squeezed into the world’s top 10 biggest semiconductor buyers last year, helped by growing market share.
Acer climbed two notches to ninth position last year from No. 11 in 2008, the report said.
“Consumer demand is shifting from high performance to portability and affordability, and this trend accelerated Acer’s growth in 2009,” Gartner said.
Against the downtrend, Acer and Apple Inc were the only two electronic device makers among the top 10 firms that had increased chip demand last year, it said.
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