WEEKLY REPORT
Name: Mary Tang
Date: 10/14/02
Weekly Report for: October 11, 2002
1. Accomplishments:
2. Problems:
The projected budget shortfall for next year is making us reevaluate how we do things.
So, we should always try to keep these priorities for the process staff in mind: 1. find
ways to cut costs (ways that make sense and don't present a significant resource burden);
2. support more research groups and user projects (both on-site and remote); 3. find ways
to help increase our user base.
3. Projects:
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Rate increase: Yes, it was decided in a special staff meeting called by Yoshio this
week to implement a rate increase as soon as possible. However, as the rate increase
is substantial, we also need to implement a tangible plan for improvement, most
especially in the equipment uptime area. At the same time, the process staff will be
looking at how we can optimize our training charges -- we clearly do not charge for
all the time (both staff and equipment) that is used for training. If we decide to make
any changes, these should be coordinated with the lab fee increase. Nancy and Uli
have spent time looking at data the John has provided, and come up with some very
interesting observations (which we will discuss in our process staff meeting...)
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Streamlining training. By making our training process more efficient, it is hoped that
we can devote more effort to generating income, through projects or PR. First goal:
hire students to help write and debug operating procedures. Second goal: Start
planning on taping some basic procedures. Uli is already checking out the digital
video camera. Third goal: Jim will define the hardware and software for editing
training videos (something simple and straightforward enough for any of us to do.)
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Promoting remote users and research projects. Work with Janine and Jane to make
webpages more inviting to prospective users. Work on the Affiliates program.
4. Plans:
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Wafersaw: Still rewriting the operating procedures. The last of the new parts for the
saw blade/blade hub configuration arrived last week (whew!) so I'll need to include
this both in the training and the new operating procedures.
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Chemicals: Working with Jim McV to track current and new chemical approvals.
Frank Teng is helping out by cross-referencing MSDS forms. Hopefully, we can
devise a system that will allow us to keep an updated and accessible history on all
chemicals in the lab. Also have been in contact with Craig Barney and Marty
LaPorte, both of whom are responsible for chemical waste at Stanford. Just want to
make sure everything we do in the lab is consistent with Stanford policy.
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Safety Manual: Last touches are being made to the safety manual. Janine will
reformat for easier reading and she is also verifying that the fire safety/evacuation
map is accurate.
5. Equipment Issues:
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NNUN Supplement: The critical point dryer is due to arrive in a couple of weeks.
We need to make sure we're ready for it. We should also get working on defining the
electrostatic-free workbench and the cassette-compatible general etch station, since
we still have the funds for them.
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Furnace: Lilliputian Systems wants to donate (temporarily) a non-clean furnace that
is capable of doing thermal silicon bonding. Their original furnace, a second-hand
system, arrived last week, but was so badly damaged in shipping and apparently
contaminated inside that they decided to purchase a new one instead. When this
arrives, it will be installed across from the wafersaw. Lilliputian has agreed that
when they are not using it, anyone else in the lab can (following training.)
6. Other:
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IDT Donation: IDT shutdown a lab facility and donated much needed goods to us,
including: hundreds of 6" poly cassettes and nice cassette holders; wafer storage
boxes; hundreds of beautiful, electrostatic-free bunnysuits; 6" quartz and carbide
boats; teflon wafer transfer jigs and flat finders. In fact, we can't store or even use
them all, and so will be sharing the bounty with the UCB Microlab. Many grateful
thanks to Josie for putting us in touch with IDT!!
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Surplus equipment: Despite voicemails and emails, there is no response from Onix
regarding their equipment auction. They were, however, going to close their auction
process at the time we heard about it. Olav Solgaard and LightConnect have
submitted a bid for their STS DRIE etcher. If they get it, it will be installed at SNF.
They also have a KOH etch station which we are quite interested in, but they do not
seem to be answering out inquiries about it... John and Jim visited Filtronics
Thursday to check out their ebeam evaporation and sputter systems. They want to
compare our lab needs with the equipment available, but it looks like there is at least
one, if not two, systems that we should be able to put to good use. We just need to
figure out the bid process.
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Storage Bins: Janine started last week and is doing a great job of picking up on
things! We went through the lab together and tallied up all the personal storage bins.
She will be taking on the responsibility of making sure they are turned around when
not in use.
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Meetings: Intro & Safety Training (we need to update the videos!), visitors from
Mitsui (they were interested in Nanotechnology at U.S. Universities), Oxford
Instruments (who are interested in selling us a DRIE Bosch process system at any rate
that STS is willing to sell us one -- the market must be down!), various students,
trained three people on the wafersaw.
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Jobs: We are getting a trickle of resumes and several requests from companies for
resumes. I think it's probably time that we do the "job clearinghouse" thing again, if
only so we can keep our best labmembers!