The North American semiconductor equipment industry's book-to-bill ratio in December was 1.06, up from the previous month .

According to the December book-to-bill ratio report released by SEMI, the international association for semiconductor equipment and materials, orders in December amounted to $1.99 billion, a 28.3% increase compared to orders in November of $1.55 billion and a 47.8% increase compared to the previous year's total orders of $1.35 billion.

Total semiconductor equipment shipments in December reached $1.87 billion, a 38.2% increase from $1.61 billion in November. Last year's December shipments reached $1.35 billion, a 38.2% increase from the previous year.



December orders for front-end equipment reached $1.73 billion, up from $1.36 billion the previous month and a 51.5% increase from December of the previous year. December shipments reached $1.7 billion, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.02. This compares to $1.45 billion in November and $1.23 billion in December of the previous year (the front-end equipment category includes wafer processing, mask/reticle manufacturing, wafer fabrication, and fab facilities).

Orders for post-processing equipment reached $250 million in December, up from $180 million reported in November. Shipments in December reached $170 million, resulting in a book-to-book ratio of 1.49. For reference, shipments of post-processing equipment in November were $160 million, while orders for shipments in December of the previous year were $120 million and $200 million, respectively (the post-processing equipment category includes assembly and packaging equipment and test equipment).

“We closed the last month of 2016 with orders approaching $2 billion,” said SEMI President Denny McGuirk. “North American semiconductor equipment suppliers saw significant growth in 2016, significantly exceeding 2015 figures and solidifying their position for 2017.”
?