SAN JOSE — The 90-day moving average bookings at North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers in April jumped 22.5% over last year and 10.8% over the revised March 2014 levels. Orders reached $1.44 billion for the period, said SEMI.
The book-to-bill ratio slipped three basis points to 1.03 but remained above the key 1.0 level. A ratio of 1.03 means that $103 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. A ratio above 1.0 is considered a sign of an expanding market.
The three-month average worldwide billings in April was $1.4 billion, up 28.7% year-over-year and 14.1% from March.
"Sales of semiconductor manufacturing equipment from North American producers continue to demonstrate strong sequential and year-over-year growth,” a SEMI spokesperson said. SEMI. “The data through the first quarter reflects momentum in memory, foundry, and back-end spending.”
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.
| 
 Billings  | 
 Bookings  | 
 Book-to-Bill  | 
|
| 
 November 2013  | 
 1,113.9  | 
 1,238.0  | 
 1.11  | 
| 
 December 2013  | 
 1,349.7  | 
 1,380.8  | 
 1.02  | 
| 
 January 2014  | 
 1,233.2  | 
 1,280.3  | 
 1.04  | 
| 
 February 2014  | 
 1,288.3  | 
 1,295.4  | 
 1.01  | 
| 
 March 2014 (final)  | 
 1,225.5  | 
 1,297.7  | 
 1.06  | 
| 
 April 2014 (prelim)  | 
 1,398.5  | 
 1,438.2  | 
 1.03  | 
Source: SEMI, May 2014