SAN JOSE – March orders at North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers rose 21.6% over last year to $1.62 billion, SEMI said.

Bookings rose 1.5% over the revised February figure.

The 90-day moving average sales were up 54.4% year-over-year to $1.7 billion. Billings were down 7.6% from the revised February level.

The book-to-bill ratio was 0.95, below the 1.0 mark that indicates future revenue growth. A book-to-bill of 0.95 means that $95 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. Still, it was up 80 basis points for the month to its highest point since November.

"The book-to-bill ratio improved in March based on slightly higher orders and lower billings,” said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI.  “Orders are over 20 percent higher than one year ago and we see industry investments remaining steady.”

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 U.S. dollars.

Source: SEMI April 2011