SAN JOSE — Orders at North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers crept up in June as the market continued to show signs of improvement. The 90-day moving average orders rose 70 basis points sequentially, but was down 9.6% year-over-year, the SEMI trade group said.

Reporting companies posted $1.33 billion in orders worldwide in June, closing out the second-quarter up 20% sequentially.

The 90-day average worldwide billings of was $1.21 billion in June were down 1.4% from the revised May figures and 21.4% lower than in June 2012.

The book-to-bill ratio was up 20 basis points from last month to 1.10. A ratio 1.10 means that $110 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month. The book-to-bill ratio has been above parity for six consecutive months.

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.

Source: SEMI, July 2013