The Semiconductor Industry Association’s book-to-bill ratio for August was just 1.02, compared with 1.09 in July – a fall rather worse that observers had expected. The average monthly orders for the three months to August fell 4.1% to $1,208m, still 25.4% above the year-ago figure. US deliveries totalled $1,180m in August, a 6.1% increase on […]
The Semiconductor Industry Association’s book-to-bill ratio for August was just 1.02, compared with 1.09 in July – a fall rather worse that observers had expected. The average monthly orders for the three months to August fell 4.1% to $1,208m, still 25.4% above the year-ago figure. US deliveries totalled $1,180m in August, a 6.1% increase on the July figure and 34.9% up on July a year ago. Shipments are a lot higher because of that tremendous backlog of orders we have from the early part of the summer when orders were strong, analyst Adam Cuhney of Kidder Peabody told Reuters.
The persistent shortage of memory chips seems to be lifting a bit, he said, which allows the chip manufacturers to ship other products needed by end users who first needed the memory chips for assembling their products. As the memory chips become more available, other products will be shipped more aggressively, Cuhney added. With NatSemi turning in a loss for its first quarter and Intel saying that third quarter growth will be only 5% to 10%, there are nevertheless definite signs that the semiconductor rmarket is coming off the boil.
