SNF Senior Staff Meeting 2/16/01
Attendees:
Dick Crane
John Shott
Jim McVittie
Mike Deal
Mary Tang
Labmember Surveys:
We discussed the results of the surveys. Two general issues came up.
First, was Theresa Kramer's email, which was written in response to Fabian's question as
to why only 3 people indicated they required sub-micron feature definition. Theresa's
email consisted of a list of 25, primarily ebeam users, who definitely require submicron
capability. This is not surprising, as only 30 labmembers submitted surveys out of some
400+ labmembers who have logged in at some time during the last year (and some >600
people on the labmembers@snf email list). Thus, it is pretty clear -- and we should keep
in mind -- that the survey results probably do not accurately reflect all the real needs of
labmembers.
The second issue: how do we make these results public as promised? The problem is
that the meat of the survey is in the comments, yet many of them are inappropriate and
would do a disservice to the facility if they were made public. One contingent suggests
publishing the statistics, and editing the comments, for posting on the web. Another
contingent feels that any editing would bias the results, so that only the statistics, but not
the comments, should be posted.
The SNF senior staff feels that a good compromise would be to present the results at the
Labmembers' meeting (see below). This would limit the dissemination of the results only
to those who care enough to attend, and would be an excellent opportunity to introduce
solutions to the main issues brought up in the survey. The main issues, which we
discussed in at this Staff meeting were: 1. Equipment Training; 2. Communication; 3.
Labmember courtesy/community.
Equipment Training:
We need to address labmembers' need for timely response to requests for training. To do
so, we'll need to reduce demand on Process Staff for training; however, we absolutely
cannot sacrifice safety and quality.
Jim McVittie has been spearheading a successful program to videotape trainers and
knowledgeable super-users demonstrating operating procedures on key high-demand
tools, such as the svgcoat, svgdev, ultratech, amtetcher, lampoly, etc. Individual
responses to videotraining in the labmember survey varied, but as a whole were
supportive of the videotape training program, provided that individual one-on-one, handson training was not neglected (this was emphatically noted by several labmembers).
The SNF Staff agreed that in order to streamline the equipment training process and make
it more readily available to labmembers, we should expand and refine the videotape
training, and even enlist more experienced labmembers to help in training on specific
tools. In order to do this, we will do the following:
1. Standardize qualification criteria. Process Staff will devise detailed checklists of
tasks and knowledge which the labmember must demonstrate in order to be qualified
on a particular piece of equipment. These checklists will be detailed and, as they are
standardized, can be used by an experienced qualified user to train a non-qualified
user.
2. Standardize operating instructions. Operating procedures for equipment vary
considerably in format and content, depending on who wrote them and when they
were written. Operating procedures should have a standard format (ie, Safety in
section 2.0; Shutdown Procedures in section 5.0, etc.) and they should be written with
the qualification criteria (as determined above) clearly in mind.
3. Expand and refine videotape training. Only after the qualification criteria/checklist
has been determined and the operating instructions have rewritten accordingly,
videotape demonstration of the operation of a particular tool should then be done.
Actions to be taken -1. Jim and Mary will devise qualification criteria, rewrite the operating instructions, and
videotape the operation of the MRC. This will be used as a test model for expanding
this program to other tools (2 weeks?)
2. Dick, John and Mary need to establish a general organizational structure for operating
instructions (1 week?)
3. One the system is defined, Dick will hold regular meetings with Process Staff to
expand to other tools. John suggests hiring the Stanford media people to come in on
a weekly basis, as an incentive to get one training video out per week. (3 weeks?)
Another common complaint in the labmember surveys was the concern that some very
inexperienced labmembers were taking up an inordinate amount of training time for very
fundamental tasks and that they were often caught unknowingly violating basic safety
practices. We should look into acquiring (or developing??) remedial educational tools
for the newbies (Dick and Mary -- check into commercial sources used by industry.)
Communication
Labmember and Staff communication needs improvement, particularly with regard to
equipment status. Labmembers need to know equipment status in order to plan their
experiments. Maintenance Staff needs to know more detail about how equipment is
behaving or misbehaving. Communication problems seem to affect us at a very broad
level as well -- labmembers have certain perceptions about the facility, from financial
status, to equipment usage (industry versus academic) and uptime, which do are not
borne out by the actual numbers. Worst of all, some labmembers appear misunderstand
the charter of this facility and thus have somewhat unrealistic expectations of our
function. The broad community issues will be hopefully addressed by regular
Labmember Meetings (see below.)
The local equipment communications issues should be addressed as follows:
1. Reaffirm with the maintenance techs to post descriptive emails on the equipment user
list. This is because many qualified users are not on the "problems, comments, and
shutdowns" (pcs) list that the maintenance techs generally use. (Dick.) [Now the
secretary is probably getting out of line here, but may I suggest that an email be sent to
the maintenance techs and copied to the general labmembers@snf email list as well? Or
perhaps addressed to everyone to exhort them to DOCUMENT PROBLEMS! Yes, John
has done this a couple of times in recent months, but it can't hurt to remind everyone
again.]
2. Meld the qualified user email list with the (pcs) email list. This is actually not a
simple task in Coral and will take some time to implement. Moreover, if everyone posts
to the qualified user list, this is probably not a priority Coral task. (John)
"Community Service":
Some of the common complaints in the labmember surveys were: 1. lack of
consideration on the part of some labmembers (reservations which were not cancelled,
violation of clean room policies, wet benches left dirty or contaminated, etc); 2. lack of
structure for sharing information (ie, characterization data like etch rates, deposition
rates, tips & tricks, etc.); 3. no disincentive to discourage bad behavior.
Several labmembers have suggested implementing community service -- this idea is
roundly supported by the SNF senior staff. Jim suggested that community service be
required of everyone who logs into the lab, but be scaled by usage, so as to not
overburden the occasional, light users. Perhaps users could accumulate community
service debit points, linked to lab use time, which would need to be discharged on a
regular basis. (This might encourage labmembers to be more rigorous in enabling and
disabling equipment, a problem for those who cap regularly.) Additional debit points
might be accrued for bad behaviors (like persistently failing to cancel reservations,
leaving a dirty workspace). We agreed that we could come up with lists of tasks (endless
lists of tasks!), with point assignments to each task commiserate with the amount of effort
it would take to perform that task. The tasks may involve routine chores, characterization
experiments, help with training -- anything that can be construed as being beneficial to
the lab at large. John says this can be readily tracked on Coral.
We hope that a community service program like this might foster a sense of ownership
and responsibility for the well-being of the lab.
Characterization/Baseline Data: Undergrad Assistants
This gets back to the characterization and baseline data sharing complaint in the
labmember surveys... Quite simply, SNF has not had the staffing resources to perform
characterization experiments, nor even to establish simple baselines on any processes.
The senior staff agrees that we should try to establish a program for hiring undergraduate
assistants. These undergrads could perform some of the following tasks:
1. Routine maintenance or process tasks, such as stocking and cleaning dummy wafers,
checking resist & developer levels, checking leak back rates on equipment, etc.
2. Help establish and track baseline processes, such as etch rates, deposition rates, and
[dare we hope?] CV monitors.
3. Help perform characterization experiments.
Recruiting for undergrad assistants should not be just from EE, but ME, Chemistry, and
ChemE. Undergrads who show interest could be recruited for more extensive research
projects in the summer.
The undergrad assistants should be overseen by an experienced process staff member.
The logistics of who would do this and the structure of the program still need to be
worked out.
There is also a lot of characterization data out there already, but not in an accessible form.
Much of it is historical data, which is not in electronic format. Much characterization
work has been done by labmembers, themselves, for their own uses. We should:
1. Sift through historical data, and scan in the information that is still relevant and
useful. Need to talk with process techs. (Mary)
2. Ask labmembers to send characterization info to share. Perhaps this can be counted
as points for community service, if/when that program is put in place. (Mary)
[No, we didn't discuss either of these last two points in this meeting, but because I'm
acting Secretary I figure I can take the liberty of assigning myself tasks...]
Labmember Meeting:
We are way overdue for a Labmembers meeting. The last was held October 27 and it was
hoped that it would be a regular occurrence (needless to say, it has not.) The meeting
will be on a Thursday in two to three week's time. (Dick will schedule.) The agenda will
be an update on the state-of-the-lab, the Labmember Survey results, and programs/action
items in response to the surveys. The Labmembers' meeting would be a good opportunity
to tie in the rather negative survey results with positive, proactive actions (as discussed
above) to address labmembers' concerns. It would seem appropriate that a representative
from the SNF Advisory Committee present the survey results (Greg?) but if not, John has
kindly volunteered.
Staffing Issues:
One of the process techs has submitted a tentative resignation. The problem is salary.
The understanding is that there is room, and some justification based on experience, for
promotion. Dick is working with the tech on this.
Survey Issues still to be addressed:
Safety/Safety Officer/BERT Team. (We currently do not have full safety coverage.
Moreover, as several labmembers pointed out in the surveys, we are in violation of
University and OSHA policies in that we do not have an annual safety recertification
program.)
How to train very naive labmembers
Lab cleanliness/Lab storage