[labnetwork] Tools for a new lab

[Mac Hathaway]

Hi Willyan,

Sounds like a fun project you've got there!

So, to steer the discussion a bit, perhaps you could share some details:

How much clean space do you have (inside cleanroom, under HEPA coverage, 
as opposed to "gray area" or "chase", where pumps go)?

How much chase area do you have?  At Harvard, we have found that roughly 
equal is good, and possibly a bit more than 50% chase area would be 
nice, too, if you get handy with bulk-head mounting of equipment (i.e. 
mounting systems through a hole in the cleanroom wall, so the back-end 
of tool is in chase).

What class room is it?  (Class 10, 100, 1000, etc).

What is your own level of semiconductor experience?  Just academic 
cleanrooms, worked for Intel/IBM, worked for capital equipment vendor 
(Lam/Ulvac/Applied Materials)?  This will help folks know what level of 
details to go into in their answers.

What do your professors want to work on?  This is usually the first 
question we ask when considering new purchases.

What do you expect the balance to be between academic users and 
commercial users (startup companies will often use shared-use facilities 
to demonstrate "proof-of-concept", before they get major funding for 
their own facilities.)

 From my own experience, I would say:

Never mind a track system, as they are more aimed at cassette-loads and 
full wafers, i.e. industrial users. Ditto wafer bonder.  Ours gets very 
little use.

Our maskless aligners seem to be getting very popular.

Atomic Layer Deposition should be on your list, unless you know everyone 
will only be making large devices with micron-scale films (as opposed to 
nano-scale films less than 200nm).  They are cheap, easy to maintain, 
and, at CNS, easily the 3rd or 4th busiest tools (after evaporators, 
sputters, and E-Beam lithography, which probably is not on your list).  
Very handy, easy to use, just the ticket!

Last but not least!:  What is your budget?  That is usually the most 
determining factor, for all of us!

Do you think you will get continuing/any support from your institution, 
or do you have to make your first infusion of money go a really long way?...

With a few experienced, saavy engineers, you can make a few $100K go a 
long way with used equipment, carefully selected. (Well, maybe not a 
/long/ way...)

And, since our characterization guru just walked in, have you given 
thought to characterization equipment, and at least a few metrology 
tools?  Profilometer, ellipsometer, and a few high quality microscopes, 
I should think...

Let us know about the above parameters, and the ideas will start 
flowing, no doubt.

One approach, if these questions are keeping you up at night, is to go 
various academic cleanroom websites (Harvard CNS, Cornell, Stanford, 
Berkeley, all the old NNIN and the new NNCI locations) and look at their 
tool sets.  This will give you some good ideas for a starting place 
(similar to the items on your list, but with vendor/model information).


Mac

Mac Hathaway

Senior Process and Systems Engineer

Harvard Center for Nanoscale Systems

11 Oxford St.

Cambridge, MA02138

617-495-9012


On 12/14/2017 1:30 PM, A. William (Bill) FLOUNDERS wrote:
> Willyan,
> Congratulations on completion of your cleanroom!
> I recall your initial inquiries in 2012.
> I expect you will receive many labnet responses to your inquiry.
> When communicating within/through the network, we avoid
> identifying, recommending, or discouraging specific vendors.
> However, personal recommendations or advisements are often
> offered via separate email directly to the poster.
>
> Network recommendations are more generic and I note Noah Clay from UPenn
> has already set an excellent tone by encouraging you to consider a 
> firm for layout
> and install support.
>
> Similarly, I offer two thoughts:
> 1. Noah is being too modest - UPenn will host the next UGIM conference
> https://ugim.nano.upenn.edu/ 
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ugim.nano.upenn.edu_&d=DwMFaQ&c=WO-RGvefibhHBZq3fL85hQ&r=TEMLD8-VsxCGtcVzmvpT5GFNSczskEKHzW6aYlttmIY&m=QW8JuPwkDjWhjEdOOMT6kEPb94UUkhzYNkGlGwR1RJM&s=bpIOhMIH5iyynRE0yU9fCjHvTdbtu5pC31OpwXbo3KA&e=>
> This is an excellent forum for you to hear personal stories and receive in
> person vendor and equipment reviews (good and bad) from many of us.
>
> 2. I compliment your initial focus on wet benches and general purpose 
> lithography
> equipment. This is the necessary and best place to start.
>
> I hope to see you in Philadelphia in June 2018.
> Bill Flounders
> UC Berkeley
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 12:54 PM, Willyan Hasenkamp Carreira 
> <HASENKAMP at unisinos.br <mailto:HASENKAMP at unisinos.br>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Everybody,
>
>     I´ve recently registered to this mailing (thanks to Mary Tang from
>     Stanford) and it´s great.
>
>     We have recently finished our small cleanroom, down south in
>     Brazil, and just yesterday we got the grant for purchasing a few
>     microfabrication tools.
>
>     Literaly we have nothing, lab is empty... but we would like to
>     start doing some microsystems.
>
>     It would be very nice to have your opinion and references on
>     equipment we could purchase.
>
>     Please consider equipment flexibility, versatility, maintainance
>     cost and difficulties. Also, students will be allowed to use
>     them... which can be a burden.
>
>     I do not know if we are going in a good direction but we have
>     selected some equipment to start with:
>
>     - Laserwriter (which way to go? Maskless aligner or direct laser
>     write. Any suggestion? Brand? We know of Heidelberg, but what
>     about Microwriter ML3 or Picomaster 2000, anyother? Does anybody
>     have some comments?)
>
>     - Mask aligner... we will need it if the choice is to go with
>     direct laser write... (Here we have suss and evg. Which one would
>     you prefer?)
>
>     - Plasma etch -- RIE (Any equipment suggestion? We found Oxford
>     equipment... any other that could fit?)
>
>     - Sputtering/PECVD (Does a dual system for metal and dielectrics
>     make sense? Which fabricant do you have a good user and
>     maintainance experience?)
>
>     - Wetbench... (its hard to find such things here in Brazil. Do you
>     have any configuration suggestion that has being working?)
>
>     - Resist coating and development (Any suggestion? Suss has some
>     things but are there other suggestions? I think Brewer also have
>     some things...)
>
>     - Other suggestions? Wafer bonding, RTP, spin track for coat and
>     dev, oven...
>
>     It is really basic things, we just once dreamed to build such
>     small facility 5 years ago and things are fortunately moving.
>
>     Also some disclaimer... We have never done it, all the people here
>     probably have used your facilities but it is another level to
>     build and run one... therefore your honest opion is again
>     extremelly important. Thank you all for your attention and I will
>     keep you posted how things move on.
>
>     Kind regards,
>
>     Willyan
>
>     --
>
>     *Willyan Hasenkamp*
>
>     Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos - Unisinos
>
>     Instituto Tecnológico de Semicondutores - itt Chip
>
>     Escola Politécnica
>
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>
>     Av. Unisinos 950, 93022-750, São Leopoldo, RS
>
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>
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