Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Sales and bookings for new microchip-making equipment fell in October from September as chip producers were hesitant to expand capacity during peak months ahead of Christmas, a global survey showed.
Bookings of new equipment, an indicator of future sales, slipped 5.5 percent from September to $4.36 billion. The resulting book-to-bill ratio in October was 1.08, versus a downward revised 1.00 in September, 1.07 in August and 1.01 in July.
Chip production in the run-up to Christmas, when demand for electronics goods is biggest, increased faster than manufacturing plant expansions. This has led to high capacity usage of well over 95 percent, which is seen as a "buy point" and usually triggers a surge in demand for chip production machines.
The capacity utilization of the "front end" of the chip production lines, which is the core process where the electronic circuits are etched onto silicon wafers ahead of packaging and testing, was 96.6 percent.
"Utilization remained overheated in October," VLSI said.
"(But) this is largely the result of the build-up for Christmas and chip makers were not committed to add capacity to meet surging demand," it added in a statement.
By: DocMemory
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