UPDATE Friday August 20, 2004 1730 hrs: System remains DOWN for repairs...

[James Conway]

Hello Raith Users:

It is with frustration and sadness that I must report that we have been 
unable to return the RAITH 150 to a usable state this week. I do not 
expect we will be able to resolve this situation promptly and expect we 
will remain DOWN through much of  next week.

There are a number of issues that have surfaced and we have been unable 
to effect repairs completely by days end Friday.  While we had very 
capable people come to Stanford this week from both RAITH USA Inc. and 
Zeiss SMT Inc. to troubleshoot the system; we are dealing with multiple 
issues that must be resolved fully before we can perform quality E-beam 
writing and move back within normal specifications in order to qualify 
the system for user access.

Overnight we baked out the column and vacuum levels were superb but upon 
bringing up the beam the problems we were having became even more 
acute.  This indicated that the column and particularly the Field 
Emission Gun section (FE-Gun) section has become contaminated.  We are 
repeating the bakeout in an attempt to improve beam conditions in the 
Gun area.

 It was expected that Zeiss would perform a full column PM today and 
bake out over the weekend, replacing the apertures and holder assembly 
in an effort that would being us back up for more testing on Monday. but 
we have been unable to complete this task today. We plan  to continue 
knocking off the issues that have presented themselves in the coming 
days resuming our work on Monday.
 
I am sorry and I sincerely apologize to everyone for the negative impact 
upon your work,  for the many delays, and particularly the frustration 
that this situation has caused to you and to the people whom are 
depending on your work to be completed in a timely manner.

Persons with acute project deadlines should see me during my office hour 
Monday and Tuesday, so we can consider either shifting the queue to 
accommodate your needs, or transfer your project onto other systems 
within NNIN.  I do not expect we will be able to resolve this situation 
Monday or Tuesday and expect we will remain DOWN through the later part 
of next week at the very best.

Thank you for your support!

James Conway
Ebeam Technology Group
Stanford Nanofabrication Facility
650-725-7075