[labnetwork] cost recovery

Wed Mar 20 10:25:31 EDT 2013

Rick, 

We have a similar notch-cap model as SNF for the same reasons.  Here is the link: http://www.engr.washington.edu/sites/engr.washington.edu/files/facresearch/microfab/docs/MicrofabricationFacilityRates.pdf  

We differ from SNF as we do charge a nominal monthly/daily access fee to cover the cost of chemicals (including stock resists), consumables (gloves, booties, etc), and gown rental/cleaning fees, but wet processing and characterization/inspection is included at this rate, so people doing soft litho are just paying to get in and everything else is covered after hitting a very low monthly cap for the spinners. 

We also charge different rates for different classes and types of equipment.  Our mandate is to recover cost on the individual tools and it is not justifiable to our auditors to charge the same rate for running a plasma asher and a DRIE since the chemical costs and turbo/pump rebuild expenses are far higher, so we charge more for the more complex systems that have higher operating overhead and demand more staff time for maintenance.  While it is much simpler to charge flat rates, we feel it is unfair to subsidize someone who is doing DRIE or Chlorine ICP with the folks running an asher.

Currently we don't charge for training labor, but users are required to pay tool time unless we can coordinate a group training session. 

John, and the other site managers, I would like to understand how you charge/monitor use for wet chemical benches and chemical consumption.  Our consumption (resists, solvents, acid/base) is around $80-100K/year and climbing.  I built in CORAL/BADGER capable interlocks into the design of the benches, but the debate with our EH&S was in disabling the bench without impacting safety (e.g. ability to rinse a glove or sample) and with our staff and users on the nuisance of having to log multiple benches in and out when moving from station to station (e.g. going from develop to BOE bench). With so many users simultaneously moving in and out of the benches, we didn't have a good idea of how to manage this, so the chemical overhead is lumped into the daily rate.  This unfortunately fostered a "it's free" mentality.  I would catch a grad student pouring a liter of sulfuric to do piranha on one wafer (even though we maintain pre and post metal tanks for piranha).  Any feedback and insight on this topic is greatly appreciated. 

Best regards,

Dr. Michael Khbeis
Associate Director
Microfabrication Facility (MFF)
University of Washington
Fluke Hall, Box 352143
(O) 206.543.5101
(F) 206.221.1681
(C) 443.254.5192
khbeis at uw.edu
http://www.engr.washington.edu/mff/

On Mar 19, 2013, at 1:28 PM, John Shott wrote:

> 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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