WEEKLY REPORT
Name: Mary Tang
Date: 4/29/02
Weekly Report for: 3/26/02 (I admit, it's more a monthly report.)
1. Accomplishments:
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Lab and Administrative Services Manager: Jane Edwards has accepted and will be
starting on May 1, half-time, as the Dean's office finds a way to get by without her.
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Annual reviews: These are all done now and submitted to the department. However,
it turns out that there are no official position summaries for any of the process staff.
We will be taking care of this in coming weeks: we'll design a prototypical "process
staff" position summary, and then customize for each staff member.
2. Problems:
3. Projects:
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Mike McGehee/Joe Klein's reverse MOS chips - No progress...
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EE17Q. Helping out with this class. I'm running the website and have assigned a
couple of homework assignments which have the desired effect of student grumbling.
4. Plans:
1. Review time: It's that time of year!!! Sent out forms to all process folk, to write
down accomplishments over this past year. Will meet (in conjunction with Mahnaz,
where appropriate) with everyone individually to go over this document before
writing up the formal review.
2. Cross-Training: We (the process staff) should discuss how we might be able to
support each other and adjoining areas through backup training. We didn't manage to
get to this in our last process meeting.
3. Process staff meeting -- schedule one this week... How's Wednesday?
5. Equipment Issues:
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Karl Suss Donations: Thanks to a lead from Dinh Ton, it looks like Applied will be
donating to us a Karl Suss MA6/BA6 aligner and also a bonder. Jim McV, Mahnaz,
and Mike M went to Applied to check these out, and they do, indeed, look in good
shape, although appear to have been slightly cannibablized for parts (camera,
microscope objectives, fixtures/tools). These systems will come in handy, since the
aligner is the same as ours and should provide adequate backup, and there has been a
growing demand in the lab for a MOS-clean bonder.
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EV Group Embosser: Need to follow up with this. The EV Group was willing to
give us a deeply discounted system in exchange for research data -- need to find out if
there are any takers.
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MEMS wet bench: Uli, Nancy, and Maurice are working on this. A note went out to
labmembers soliciting inputs. Lots of interest so far!
6. Other:
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High School lab tour: The honors chemistry class from Stuart Hall Catholic Boys'
School will be visiting here on 4/30.
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Lab Cleanup: Last few details to address. Earthquake tall shelves. Find a new
arrangement for the area behind the dektaks (the Harris group stuff needs to be
rearranged!) Dan Grupp suggested a good idea for preventing bin drawers from
coming out (two screws mounted through th top front). Bins still need to be tyrap'ed
so they don't slide. Cubbyholes in the nowhere room need to be emptied and
removed from the lab.
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Wafersaw: Continuing to train people on this. I'm also in the process of rewriting the
operating procedures. Don Arnold has found that K&S now has a line of products
designed for cutting of hard materials, and has kindly shared his list of resources for
blades. I plan on ordering these things and having a limited supply on hand for
people wishing to cut quartz or glass.
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Phones: There have been complaints about the poor quality of phones in the lab. Uli
is testing out a cordless wall-mount. If this looks good, we'll get more. (AT&T
model, with volume control in the handset, pager, and only $25.)
Chemicals: We should look at how we bring in new chemicals and how we track
them. There have been complaints about disparities in criteria and procedures for
new chemicals. There have been reports of labmembers completely bypassing staff,
because they feel their needs aren't being addressed.
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Microscopes: We need to follow up with Aaron, Kelvin, and Jim McV on the plan
for microscopes. Ideally, we'd like an IR scope and a nice camera for capturing
images. If we can get interference contrast and fluorescence capability in there as
well, then that would be great.
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CIS New User Grants: This program faded away, but plans are to bring it back.
Need to prepare a presentation for the CIS meeting next week, to build a persuasive
argument for reviving this program.
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Safety Manual: Yes, the perpetual battle with writer's block continues...