With projected sales this year to total $33.1 billion, the market for semiconductor equipment would be the envy of most manufacturing sectors. But the sales projections just released by research firm Gartner represent an 11.9 percent drop over last year's $37.58 billion in spending.

This year started out well. Gartner says the first quarter of 2005 marked a high point in spending to meet strong demand for computer chips across many industries.

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