Chip equipment: down in Q2 2003

Worldwide semiconductor equipment sales, excluding test equipment, fell to $4.1 billion in the Q2, down 9% from the same period a year ago. And compared with the previous quarter, equipment sales fell a whopping 20%, according to Gartner. "The second quarter was far worse than we, or anyone else, thought it would be. We were expecting a 6% sequential decline, not 20% ," said Klaus-Dieter Rinnen, managing vice president of Gartner's semiconductor manufacturing and design research group.