SAN JOSE — North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers reported February bookings exceeded billings for the first time since September 2010, although the numbers were considerably behind those of a year ago.

The 90-day average orders in February reached $1.33 billion, up 12.2% over the revised January figures and 16.5% below the $1.6 billion in orders posted in February 2011. The three-month average worldwide billings was $1.32 billion, up 6.4% from January but down 28.3% from a year ago.

The book-to-bill ratio was 1.01, SEMI said. A book-to-bill of 1.01 means that $101 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. The ratio last topped 1.0 in September 2010, when it was 1.03. A ratio above 1.0 is considered a sign of a pending recovery.

The SEMI 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 US dollars.

Source: SEMI March 2012