[labnetwork] Parylene Coater Concerns

[Tony L Olsen]

Matt

We faced a similar question when we moved into our new facility a few years ago.  I, frankly, did not want to introduce a system as dirty as parylene into our brand new cleanroom.  So, after some discussion, we placed the coater in an external lab.  (Also, since we don't allow oil-based pumps in our new building, we switched to a dry pump at the same time.)

We have had no complaints about particle issues from our lab members.  With that said, they probably aren't looking very closely.  If it does become an issue for us, we have already placed a surplus, portable ULPA filter over the system.  It has not been powered up, yet, but we are prepared to do so at any time.  Honestly, I believe the handling practices of lab members are a bigger particle source than anything else.

Having the coater in a separate room has had a couple other advantages, too.  First, for some members it is the only tool of our facility they use.  This makes it simpler to provide access, since I can bypass training specific for the cleanroom.  It is much easier for them to enter this room at will to check on the run status than if they had to gown up each time.  Additionally, I do not include the cleanroom overhead costs in the tool rate, which reduces the rate considerably.

tonyO


Tony Olsen
Nanofab Cleanroom Supervisor/Process Engineer
University of Utah
36 S Wasatch Drive, Suite 2500
Salt Lake City, UT  84112
801-587-0651
www.nanofab.utah.edu



From: Matthew Moneck <mmoneck at andrew.cmu.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2019 13:45
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] Parylene Coater Concerns

Dear Colleagues,

Happy Holidays!  I would like to poll this community for some feedback.  We have an SCS Labcoter 2 parylene system in our old cleanroom facility.  That facility will soon shut down, and we are planning to relocate the tool.  Due to the particulate and debris this tool generates, especially during maintenance cycles, we prefer not to move it into our new class 10, class 100 cleanroom facility.  At the same time, we have faculty using the tool for applications where particulate contamination during sample loading is a concern.  They would like to have it in the cleanroom.

It is my understanding that many labs have either moved their parylene systems out of their cleanroom or they have installed the system in a lower class environment (class 10,000 for example).  Our plan to satisfy all parties is move the system to a lab not currently operated as a cleanroom (i.e we are less worried about debris generated from the tool) and to build a relatively inexpensive softwall cleanroom around the tool to mitigate the particulate concerns during sample handling/loading.  We have used these mini environments before for other equipment we could not put in our cleanroom, and they have served us well.  However, there are still concerns from the researchers using the tool.

My questions to this community are as follows:


  1.  Where to do you have your parylene system installed (e.g. class 100, 1000, or 10,000 cleanroom or in a standard lab environment)?
  2.  Do you have any comments or feedback on the benefits or pitfalls of using a softwall cleanroom for similar applications?
  3.  Do you have any other feedback or options we should consider?

As always, we appreciate the input from this group.

Best Regards,

Matt

--
Matthew T. Moneck, Ph.D
Executive Manager, Claire & John Bertucci Nanotechnology Laboratory
Electrical & Computer Engineering | Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Phone:  412-268-5430
ece.cmu.edu<http://www.ece.cmu.edu>
nanofab.ece.cmu.edu<http://www.nanofab.ece.cmu.edu>

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