UPDATE 1-Japan chip gear orders tumble in June

(Recasts, adds details, background)

TOKYO, July 23 (Reuters) - Japanese manufacturers of
equipment used to make semiconductors reported a 38 percent
decline in orders in June from the same month last year amid an
industry-wide slump, calculations based on industry data showed
on Wednesday.

It is the 16th straight month of year-on-year order declines.

The book-to-bill ratio was 0.99 in June, meaning that new
orders worth 99 yen were received for every 100 yen of products
delivered, the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan said.

The ratio, which was 0.79 in May, is watched as an indicator
of demand and capital spending in an industry now dealing with a
supply glut of memory chips.

Calculating monthly order values from the preliminary report,
orders in June came to 94.0 billion yen ($876.8 million), up 5.7
percent from May.

June billings were about 101.4 billion yen, up 22.5 percent
from the previous month and down 43.5 percent from a year
earlier.

"Until orders improve in absolute terms, we can't say a
recovery is in sight," said SEAJ spokesman Masamichi Kobayashi.
"We had forecast a recovery in chip equipment demand by the
year-end, but that may be pushed back."

Earlier this week, Toshiba Corp (6502.T) production partner
SanDisk Corp (SNDK.O) posted a sharp quarterly loss and said it
was delaying a decision to expand production capacity of NAND
flash memory chips [ID:nN21449192].

Japan is home to semiconductor gear makers such as Tokyo
Electron Ltd (8035.T), Advantest Corp (6857.T), Disco Corp
(6146.T), Yokogawa Electric Corp (6841.T) and Nikon Corp
(7731.T).

Following are details of Japanese chip equipment orders,
sales and the book-to-bill ratio (orders and sales figures are
three-month moving averages, in billion yen):

Orders Sales Book-to-bill
June 87.551 88.283 0.99
May 99.346 125.045 0.79
April 104.748 137.316 0.76
March 113.471 154.842 0.73
February 112.493 132.322 0.85
January 126.424 138.219 0.91
($1=107.20 Yen)
(Reporting by Mayumi Negishi; Editing by Michael Watson)