[labnetwork] RES: cost recovery

Wed Mar 20 10:12:06 EDT 2013

Hello,

I suggest looking at the data gathered in the paper presented at UGIM2010 by
Aamer Mahmood and Ron Reger, from Purdue. They look at data from several
microfab labs in the US, NNIN and non-NNIN:

Aamer Mahmood and Ron Reger , “Microfabrication Process Cost Calculator,”

Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

It is in the CD with proceedings, and I am sure the authors would get you a
copy.

Their emails are: amahmood at purdue.edu, rreger at purdue.edu

Cheers,

Roberto Panepucci

----

Roberto R. Panepucci, PhD
Division Head - DCSH
Centro de Tecnologia da Informação Renato Archer - CTI
Rodovia Dom Pedro I, km 143,6 Bairro:Amarais
Campinas - São Paulo - Brasil
CEP 13069-901
Telefone: +55 19 3746-6072
Fax: +55 19 3746-6028
www.cti.gov.br

De: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu]
Em nome de John Shott
Enviada em: terça-feira, 19 de março de 2013 17:28
Para: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Assunto: Re: [labnetwork] cost recovery

Rick:

It will be interesting to see the responses to this question ... in my
experience there is a greater lab-to-lab variation in how people charge for
lab usage than anything else.

Here is what we do at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility.  Details are at
http://snf.stanford.edu/join/fees.htm, but I'll provide more of a prose
discussion of what we do and why.

First, we don't charge a monthly access fee and we don't charge for being in
the clean room.

We charge one of three hourly rates for equipment usage: most equipment is
charged at $75 per hour for academic users.  Wet benches, manual spinners,
and a number of basic characterization tools are charged at $50 per hour
(2/3 of the base rate).  Three tools (Raith 150 ebeam, ASML i-line stepper,
and AMAT Centura epi) are charged at $92 per hour.  Industrial rates are
double that of academic rates for all tools.

We then have what we call the "notched" cap.  If your equipment use charges
reach $3000 in a month (the equivalent of 40-hours of base-rate equipment
usage), your equipment charges don't go up ... unless you exceed 160 hours
of equipment use in a month.  If that happens, you begin to get charged
again at 25% of the original rate for each tool.  The industrial equipment
cap kicks in at $6000, so both the "flat" portion and the non-zero slope
kick in at the same point in terms of hours of usage.  The purpose of the
slope after 160 hours of equipment usage is both to prevent equipment
hogging and to discourage people from working around the clock for extended
periods of time.

I view the cap as a volume-discount in the hourly equipment rate for our
biggest users.  We have survived many audits ... although I believe that
auditors are genetically predisposed to dislike anything other than a flat
hourly rate.

Oh, one minor wrinkle: we also charge for precious metals (Au, At, Pt, and
Pd, and Ir, I think) based on the net weight used for each of those
materials (labmembers weight the target/crucible before and after their
deposition) and those precious metal charges are not subject to capping.

Staff usage for processing wafers and training are charged on an uncapped
basis of about $60 and $90 per hour, respectively.  That rate is applied
equally to academic and non-academic users.

People like the cap because it is predictable in terms of budgeting and
proposal writing.  It also doesn't penalize folks for taking longer to get
something done (in a given month) than they might have first envisioned.
The users who only use a lab a few hours a month probably don't like it
because their hourly rate has to be higher than the "true" cost of that
usage (otherwise the cap can't work ...) but they still get access to a lot
of equipment, technology, and infrastructure for a pretty reasonable hourly
rate.

Let me know if you have any questions,

John

On 3/19/2013 11:32 AM, Morrison, Richard H., Jr. wrote: 

Hi All,

Draper is investigating cost recovery for our new Microfabrication Center.
Right now we charge a flat fee of $117 per hour to recover cost. I was
wondering what others did in this regard. I have the presentation from UGIM
on the Berkeley Marvell center but I was wondering if others could share
their detail with me.

Thanks
Rick

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