The Solvent Strip hood is used to remove polymers like photo-resist, PMMA, SU-8 etc completely from the wafer. It employs a variety of chemicals like acetone, IPA, DMSO and photo-resist strippers.
Wafer - a wide range of materials with dimensions between 1 and 8 inches.

The exposed photo-resist is dissolved by the developer and essentially the pattern on the mask is transferred to the wafer. The base develop hood is equipped with the standard developers like AZ, AZ400K and AZ726MIF.
Wafer - a wide range of wafers with dimensions between 1 and 8 inches.

UV cure is a flood exposure system to instantly cure or dry inks, coatings or adhesives using high-intensity ultraviolet light. It generates a photo-chemical reaction that generates a cross-linked network of polymers. It is equipped with 365 nm wavelength UV lamp with a 20 mW/cm2 power density.
Wafer - any materials with photoresist.

The solvent hood with ultrasonic is primarily used for thin-film lift-off with ultrasonic waves. Acetone is the most commonly used solvent. Further, it can also be used to clean small parts in acetone or IPA (for example ink-jet nozzles) where ultrasonic wave sound pressure might be needed.
Wafer - a wide range of materials with dimensions between 1 and 8 inches.

The contact aligner is used for exposure of wafers. Shining a UV light through a chrome mask to a photo-resist coated wafer exposes the photo-resist not covered by the chrome in the mask. The exposed photo-resist is dissolved by the developer and essentially the pattern on the mask is transferred to the wafer. Contact aligners can also align previously patterned marks on the substrate to a different mask during further exposure steps. Support for both front-side and back-side alignment are present in the EVG 6200 and it is capable of 1 micron feature resolution. It can accommodate substrates up to 8-inches in diameter and mask sizes 5, 7 and 9-inches.
Sample - silicon, glass, compound semiconductors with wafer dimensions between 10x10 mm and 8 inches.
#Lithography

The Heidelberg µPG 101 is an economical, easy to use laser pattern generator with a 405nm laser source. It can be used to expose photo-resist for patterning chrome on glass photomasks and maskless direct substrate writing on silicon wafers, at feature sizes, as small as 3 micron. The laser writer can process substrates up to 100 mm in diameter. The maximum mask size is 5 inches. The allowed data formats are GDS II, CIF and DXF formats.
Sample - silicon wafer and chrome on glass photomasks.
#lithography
#maskless
#grayscale

Vacuum ovens are generally used in product drying, outgassing, bake-out and moisture removal. The YES-450PB is used for curing of polymers and BCB bake. It is highly efficient in the removal of airborne oxygen and water vapor from the chamber gas. It can be operated up to temperatures of 450 deg-C under vacuum.
Sample - annealing various materials and not applicable for any liquids.

In wafer fabrication, silane deposition is needed to promote the chemical adhesion of photo-resist to wafer. The silane acts as a Velcro with properties that will bond to both the photoresist and wafer surface. Typically, hexamethyldisilizane (HMDS) is used for this purpose. The prime process dehydrates the wafer surface to remove any chemically bound water molecules and then performs a vapor deposition of the HMDS. The vapor deposition has found to be more uniform and stable as compared to traditional spinning of HMDS.
Wafer - any glass and silicon and not applicable for polymers.

Spray coating is a technique in which exposed wafers are placed on a spin chuck, set in rotation and sprayed with developer using air pressure. This procedure provides a more intense development procedure than immersion development since fresh developer is added again and again. Spray development therefore requires (approximately 2-3 times) less time than immersion development. Immediately after development, DI-water is sprayed onto the wafer, followed by spin-drying of the wafer.
Wafer - Capable of processing 4, 6 and 8 inch wafers
#spin

After a pattern has been written on a photo-mask, it is developed to remove the photo-resist exposed by the laser. The open chrome i.e. that was under the exposed resist is etched to transfer the pattern on the mask. This can be done in the mask making hood. It is equipped with standard photo-resist developers like AZ 400K and AZ 726 MIF and industrially available chrome etchant.

The spin-bake bench is used for photo-resist coating and baking process. The maximum speed allowed is 5000RPM and temperatures up to 250 deg-C can be achieved. Multiple step recipes can be programmed for smooth resist spin. There are standard recipes set-up for cleanroom provided solvents such as ECI3027, AZ9026, AZ5214E and AZ1512.
Wafer - a wide range of materials with dimensions between 1 and 8 inches.

Spin coating is the process of evenly coating a spinning substrate with a solution. The solution, for instance a photosensitive resist, is dispensed at the center of the wafer. Subsequent acceleration as well as the rotation speed and the time allotted to the individual steps ensure that a homogeneous layer thickness remains after excess resist is spun off. The Delta80-RC is a semi-automatic high precision tool for photo-resist coating and baking. It can be programmed with multiple-step recipes. The resist can be spun to a maximum speed of 3000RPM and baked to a temperature up to 250 deg-C.
Wafer - a wide range of wafers with dimensions of 4, 6 or 8 inches.
#spin coat

The contact aligner is used for exposure of wafers. Shining a UV light through a chrome mask to a photo-resist coated wafer exposes the photo-resist not covered by the chrome in the mask. The exposed photo-resist is dissolved by the developer and essentially the pattern on the mask is transferred to the wafer. Contact aligners can also align previously patterned marks on the substrate to a different mask during further exposure steps. Support for both front-side and back-side alignment are present in the EVG 6200 and it is capable of 1 micron feature resolution. It can accommodate substrates up to 8-inches in diameter and mask sizes 5, 7 and 9-inches. It also has additional nano-imprint capability and filters for i-line and SU-8.
Sample - silicon, glass, compound semiconductors with wafer dimensions between 10x10 mm and 8 inches.
#Lithography

E-beam lithography is a direct writing technique that uses an accelerated beam of electrons to pattern features down to sub-10 nm on substrates. The substrates are coated with an electron beam sensitive resist. Exposure to the electron beam changes the solubility of the resist, enabling selective removal of either the exposed or non-exposed regions of the resist by immersing it in a developer. The Crestec CABL 9000C is a highly sophisticated electron beam lithography system with a beam diameter of 2nm and line stitching accuracy of 20nm. It has an accelerating voltage of 50kV and a minimum line width of 10nm. It operates on Windows OS with conversion software for GDSII, DXF and CAD files.
Wafer Small piece (10mm) to a full 8-inch wafer.

PECVD is a process by which thin films of various materials from a gas state (vapor) to a solid state can be deposited on substrates at lower temperature than that of standard CVD. In PECVD processes, deposition is achieved by introducing reactant gases between parallel electrodes and the capacitive coupling between the electrodes excites the reactant gases into a plasma, which induces a chemical reaction and results in the reaction product being deposited on the substrate. The substrate, which is placed on the grounded electrode, is typically heated to 250 deg-C to 350 deg-C, depending on the specific film requirements.
Sample - silicon dioxide (SiO2), silicon nitride (SiNx) film can be deposited on to any material. Do not put liquids or powders.

E-beam evaporator is a physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique, where an intense electron beam is emitted from a filament to strike a source material and vaporize it within a vacuum environment. The vaporized atoms condense on the substrate to form a thin film. The e-beam evaporator has the capability to deposit up to four different materials (metal and oxide) without opening the chamber. Whilst the lab provides standard materials, any specific or expensive materials such as gold and platinum need to be provided by the users themselves.
Sample - a wide range of solid materials, not applicable for polymers, powders, organics and toxic materials. Maximum sample diameter is 200 mm, maximum substrate temperature is 400 deg-C

PECVD is a process by which thin films of various materials from a gas state (vapor) to a solid state can be deposited on substrates at lower temperature than that of standard CVD. In PECVD processes, deposition is achieved by introducing reactant gases between parallel electrodes and the capacitive coupling between the electrodes excites the reactant gases into a plasma, which induces a chemical reaction and results in the reaction product being deposited on the substrate. The substrate, which is placed on the grounded electrode, is typically heated to 250 deg-C to 350 deg-C, depending on the specific film requirements.
Sample - deposition of amorphous Silicon (a-Si), poly silicon and doped (PH3, B2H6 and H2) silicon.

Electroplating is the process of coating with metal by passing an electric current between two electrodes immersed in an electrolyte solution. The SEMCON series is Technics latest design of dependable and wafer-scale metallization tool for research and industry applications. In the Nanofabrication Core Lab, SEMCONTM 1500 is presently employed to electroplate Cu, Ni and Au metals on standard and nonstandard substrates, including Si, GaAs, InP and glass with the sizes covering from a small piece to 8-inch wafer. The operating temperatures for plating Cu, Ni and Au are 24, 55 and 50 deg-C, respectively.
Sample - any samples but not applicable for that chemically reacting with electrolyte.
#electroplating
#deposition

Atomic Layer Deposition - ALD - is a thin film deposition method to fabricate ultrathin, highly uniform and conformal material layers for several applications. ALD uses sequential, self-limiting and surface controlled gas phase chemical reactions to achieve control of film growth in the nanometer/sub-nanometer thickness regime. ALD deposition can be realized by two techniques (plasma and water-based). A wide range of reactant gases (O2, N2, H2, NH3 and Ar) are available for thin films including Al2O3, HfO2, TiO2, TiN, Ta2O5, TaN, and ZnO.

Sputtering is a physical vapor deposition process in which positively charged ions generated in plasma are accelerated by an electrical field to strike the negative target with sufficient energy to dislodge and eject atoms from the target. The ejected atoms condense on substrate to form a thin film. Sputter machine is capable of depositing thin metallic and insulation layers less than 300 nm. The film quality including density, stress, composition and phase can be improved with ion assisted deposition. DC power:400 W; RF power:250W. Available targets at present: Cu, AI, SiO2.
Sample - a wide range of solid material including silicon, metal, insulator with maximum diameter of 8 inch and maximum thickness of 1 cm. Not applicable for powders, polymers, organics, carbon and toxic materials.
#sputter
#deposition