SEMI Says Wafer Shipments are Down Sequentially

Electronic News, June 4, 2001 by Liz Neely

AS IF THE LATEST BOOK-TO-BILL figure wasn't enough of an indicator of tough times, global wafer shipments dipped 14 percent sequentially during the first quarter of 2001, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).

The San Jose-based industry organization said its quarterly analysis of the industry shows that silicon-wafer area shipments totaled 125 billion square inches in the first quarter, down from the 1.45 billion square inches shipped in the previous quarter and down 2 percent from the year-ago period.

The figures released last week include polished silicon wafers, virgin test wafers, epitaxial silicon wafers and nonpolished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to the end-users, SEMI said.