Final Reminder: Ebeam Town Hall Meeting --- TODAY December 2, 2005. 2 - 4 PM CISX 338 All are invited to attend.

Wed Dec 7 11:49:08 PST 2005

    Greetings to the Ebeam and Raith User Communities:

 The Ebeam Lab Town Hall Meeting was held Friday afternoon December 2, 2005.
As in the past this meeting was lightly attended. We will post results 
of and comments made during this meeting in-lined below in BLUE.

We had an excellent presentation "Scanning Electron Microscopy in the IC 
Industry" by Bryan Tracy, Ph.D. His presentation reviewed some really 
fine Scanning Electron Microscopy work from an industrial perspective 
and pointed out some Tips'n'Tricks towards improving the quality of your 
SEM Imaging.

James Conway gave a brief presentation following the agenda and has 
attached that presentation to this email for your review.  Your feedback 
is requested.

Thank you,

James Conway

  Agenda for December's Ebeam Town Hall Meeting

 Friday December 2, 2005 from 2 - 4 PM in CISX 338

[Users comments are in-lined within the agenda below in BLUE.]

This forum is intended to allow lab members using the RAITH 150 and 
Hitachi HL-700 Ebeam exposure systems to provide feedback and inputs 
towards creating a supportive community of users working together to 
establish best practices and methods pushing the limits of Ebeam 
Lithography.
This is also an opportunity to report your EBL results, problems, and 
concerns and obtain feedback from the community-at-large.

Last year this forum successfully developed new reservation and system 
usage guidelines that improved system access and utilization for a large 
user base.  This effort was successful and guided similar equipment 
policies on other SNF tools.

1. Welcome and Introduction - James W. Conway  (5 min.)

<>2. Feature Presentation:
 "Scanning Electron Microscopy in the IC Industry" by Bryan Tracy, Ph.D..
 Member of the Technical Staff, Spansion, Sunnyvale, CA.  (40 minutes + Q&A)
This was an excellent presentation that displayed a number of excellent 
SEM micrographs and discussed what we need to improve to obtain better 
SEM imaging. Bryan Tracy also showed some examples of different types of 
cross section preparations utilizing some new ion milling equipment just 
becoming available to Users.  <>

3. Raith System Resolution and performance status report   (5 - 10 minutes)
            - Current Performance issues and results.
            - Holiday shut down plan.
Please see my presentation for content on this topic.

4. Raith Reservation and Scheduling Issues:                          
(<20 minutes)

            - Changes or Modification to the current reservation 
policies in place?
No changes were proposed to the current reservation policies.  User 
feedback indicated that most users are pleased with the existing system 
in place.

            - Cancellation Policy - 24 hour notice?
I reiterated the need to post to the email list well in advance of your 
reservation (>24 hours) to allow other users to fill your vacant 
reservation slot.  SNF would also like to know why you cancel, 
particularly if it is due to a equipment dependence or a process anomaly.

            - Should we have a penalty or charge for cancellations?
This is currently  in discussions by SNF management and staff.  It 
appears that the same people are often canceling their reservations ands 
preventing others from gaining timely access to the system.  I post a 
email to the canceled on the third cancellation within a months time, or 
within my memory; encouraging them to be more careful in reserving 
system access.
 Realize that a open unused reservation slot is a loss of access and 
opportunity to another User's EBL needs,  and a loss of  income to SNF!

Please reply regarding your opinions, "Should we charge users when they 
cancel without advanced notice on the Raith system?"

            - Should we implement a Raith Users System Standby list?
Raith Users support having a system, either formal or informal, to 
implement a Standby Listing for additional access to the system. It 
would be useful to all Users if the Coral system could post an automated 
SUBJECT Line message to the raith at snf.stanford.edu email list upon the 
event in which a User does not enable the RAITH on the Coral system at 
'minute 16' after their reservation period begins.

[Reference:  The 16 Minute Rule: If at 'Minute 16' after your 
reservation slot starts, if you have not posted to the email list and/or 
posted a note on the Raith system itself  your intention  to utilize the 
system; you loose your reservation slot and any user whom therein 
enables the system on CORAL now has that reservation for its entire 
period.  It is only upon that User's kindness should they decide to 
return the system to the previously reserved User after completing their 
task on the system.]

5. Query of User needs for Negative Tone Ebeam resist for R&D in 2006:   
(<20 min.)

            - Microchem MaN-2403 negative tone resist review.
Several Users have been characterizing this material for more than a 
year now with good results obtained in their work.
User's support making this material a standard stocked material within 
the SNF resist materials inventory.
In early February concurrent with the next Ebeam Town Hall Meeting, we 
will conduct a technical review of results obtained using this material. 
Users are requested to report on their results working with this 
material at that meeting.

Users interested in trying out  this material for evaluation purposes 
are to contact James Conway directly.

            - User interest in HSQ and Calixarenes for High Resolution 
Negative Tone resist?
There has been several request and some interest in working with HSQ 
here at SNF in 2006.
HSQ -- Hydrogen silsesquioxane is a high resolution negative tone 
inorganic resist for electron beam lithography.
A number of groups have been pursuing this material for RIE etching of 
Single Pixel Lines, etched gratings and Photonic devices.

Users with an interest in sharing the cost of a small amount of HSQ 
material for evaluation purposes are encouraged to reply.

Based in current feedback, only James Conway is interested in working 
with Calixarenes for sub-10 nm dots, Single Pixel Lines, and FET gate 
structures.

Users interested in working with other Novel resist systems here at SNF 
are encouraged to lend their opinions and feedback on this topic.

The raith at snf.stanford.edu email list continues to provide a forum for 
discussions on Ebeam Topics, as well as to provide system status and 
problem messaging. Your inputs are invited.

The meeting finished early at 3:40 PM.

Thank you for your support!
<>
James W. Conway
Stanford Nanofabrication Facility
jwc at snf.stanford.edu

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