SEMI reports the North American equipment manufacturer book to bill ratio for July at 1.16 (preliminary). The three-month average booking figure is $1.15bn and the billing figure is $995mn. The bookings are 50% up on July 2001 and the billings 17% down. June's book-to-bill was 1.26 (final).

"The July bookings data likely reflects renewed questions about the
robustness of the economic recovery and the prospects for the consumption of
electronic goods," ccomments Dan Tracy, PhD, director of industry research
and statistics for SEMI. "The data is consistent with recent announcements
of reduced capital spending plans by some global chipmakers and supports the
consensus of industry analysts projecting market recovery in 2003."

SEMI reports Q2 equipment market sales down 34% worldwide at $4.66bn. The
European figure was down 46.6% at $0.52bn.

Market research firm VLSI estimates a world semiconductor equipment book to
bill ratio of 0.77 in July. Billings are put at $2.39bn and bookings at
$1.85bn. The June figure was revised to 1.15 from a preliminary estimate of
1.24. The company blames soft end demand for electronics, sluggish chip
prices, a weakening US economy and a stock market crash.
"The crash has literally frozen order activity in July as companies held
back investment plans," says the VLSI release. The company sees no
improvement in August.
IC manufacturing is given a book-to-bill of 0.95 - with bookings at $9.29bn
and billings at $9.82bn. Capacity utilisation was estimated at 84.2%, down
from June's 86.5%.

Semico Research forecasts a 49% compound annual growth rate for SiGe IC
revenues for the period 2001-2006. This would make the market worth $2.7bn
in 2006.