SAN JOSE – North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment reported July orders dropped nearly 30% on a three-month average basis, according to SEMI.

Orders were down 15.7% sequentially, and fell 29.3% compared to orders in July 2010.

The book-to-bill ratio was 0.86. A book-to-bill of 0.86 means that $86 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. It was the lowest mark since January and the 10th month in a row the ratio was below the benchmark 1.0 level indicating near-term growth.

July billings fell 7.6% sequentially to $1.52 billion. Billings were up 1.4% over July 2010.

“Semiconductor equipment billings remain higher than levels a year ago,” said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI.  “However, bookings have dropped significantly consistent with the temporary softening of end-market demand signaled by slower PC sales, low foundry utilization, and investment hesitation by memory chip makers.”

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 US dollars.

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