November 2012 Survey

Survey introduction

The November 2012 survey was the eights survey carried out using a format where individual cleanroom users were asked about their view on various parts of using DTU Danchip's facilities and in particular the cleanroom facilities.
The questionaire was send to 283 registered users (based on the logging of cleanroom use) unfortunately 8 of the e-mail adresses was obsolete and thus the mails bounced, which brought the total number of potential answers to 275 . In total 64 persons answered the questionaire which means an answer fraction of 23% regardless of whether or not the bounces should be included in the total.
This page deals with the comments given as part of the questionaire. Danchip values this feedback highly.

Comments

The comments appear here as they were written in the feedback field of the questionaire. In a few cases they have been anonymized or the worst spelling mistakes corrected.

Comment 1

All invoices for DPC are coming on my name, since I have made the agreement, and it is very difficult to understand from the invoice for what the money is taken. Please specify it correctly: name of the person, number of samples, kind of analyses.

Action: Overhaul of sponsor structure

We will make an effort in 2013 to align all LabManager groups with the project structures from the various departments.

Comment 2

The paying scheme is a bit of a mess and, since we are constantly applying for funds, not knowing how much to ask for cleanroom expenses (that are a big part of the expenses) is not the best.

Action: New price and payment structure

Hopefully this is a thing of the past since we have now a much simpler price and payment structure.

Comment 3

Our shelves are still at the characterization area. Could they be removed to the old place one day? That would be easier because one always has to go a long way to the samples when working in the "old" cleanroom. The new shelves for shoes are very good. Could you consider having a wardrobe for sweaters as well?.

Action: No action
The shelves will be moved at one point in the future, but the exact location is dependent on detailed planning of the cleanroom.
There is space in the basement right down the stairs for sweaters and overcoats, there are also a limited number of lockers in the basement. Since clothes in general are flammable, and due to the lack of space in the corridor, we cannot allow clothes down the corridor.

Comment 4

Having to wait 2 days for a request for training in some equipment, is too long in my opinion.

Action: No action

We appreciate that waiting is always undesireable. However, with the multitude of tools at Danchip and the complexity of some training requests in mind, there are times where we even find it hard to respond within two days.

Comment 5

I haven't answered very satisfied to all as there are always reasonable problems, e.g. someone else is using the equipment, hence making it unavialable, or maintainance. But these things are to be expected anyway. I'm happy with how people from Danchip are very helpful. Responses are not always as early as desired, but it is understandable.

Action: No Action
Thank you for your comments, we try our best to balance demands.

Comment 6

Special discount agreement for DTU physics have helped my project a lot.

Action: No action
We are happy about this. We hope that the new cost and price structure will be a benefit for all at DTU.

Comment 7

Satisfied overall. One issue is that some of the equipments seems lack of maintenance and always get problems (III-V ICP for example) which delays the works.

Action: Regarding the III-V ICP, we had a severe gas incident in the gas box of the tool (condesating BCl3 which due to high pressure resulted in back-streaming to the nitrogen line in the gas-box). The root-cause analysis of the problem was very complicated as well as the actual repair which a.o. implicated waiting for spare parts with a long delivery time. For this work the machine was out of service for 6 weeks of which 1 week was a yearly service from SPTS (according to service contract). Moreover, we had to find a fundamentally different solution on the heat-tracing of the BCl3 gas-line (the main problem) which is still on-going. We are of course not happy about a situation where a tool is down for 6 weeks but this particular problem contained several severe obstacles (also safety related!) which called for new solutions. Regarding the planned maintenance of the III-V ICP it is implemented on equal terms as the other ICP's and RIE machines and we would be happy to share this information with people who are interested.xxx

Comment 8

Furnace: LPCVD Nitrid has been out of use for a long time. This has slowed me in my work on my BSc project. Also the PECVD1 had missing B2H6 MFC, which also was an obstacle for me. The SSE Spinner is always booked, because everyone needs to use it - Danchip should consider to buy one more Spinner.

Action: We assume that the comment is on the LPCVD Nitride(6"). We have had severe problems with condensation of DCS in the line which a.o. destroyed the mfc and in the end resulted in a severe particle contamination of the furnace. The repair work has been delayed partly due to long delivery times on spare parts. In such a case where we must foresee a long down time we normally would try to find an alternative in-house solution or assist on finding an external source. I do not know if the user in the present case was made aware of this. Regarding the B2H6 problem on PECVD1 the issue seems to be decoposition of the gas resulting in a "sticky" layer deposited on the inside of the tube and other components on the gas line (pressure gauge/regulator, mfc). Again the problem/solution has been very complex and a.o. implied waiting times for spare parts. As part of the problem was in the gas supply it was not possible to find an in-house alternative and the only external supplier that we could find had similar problems and was not able to help. Regarding spinner capacity a double-track spinner system from SVG is being installed now.xxx

Comment 9

Recurrent booking option is needed in labmanager, and maybe an implemention of a function where users can write if they finishes early with their booking instead of having to check who has the next booking, and having to e-mail them.

Action: The booking system has shortcomings, we will improve it soon. However, recurrent bookings is not on the agenda, because of the risk of unused bookings

Comment 10

Availability of equipment answer is only "satisfied" due to sometimes a crucial machine such as EVG NIL being offline for an extended period.

Action: Closer monitoring of long tool downtimes
We are aware that some tools are heavily used by a wide range of users for a vast suite of processes. This makes downtime inevitable. However, we are beginning a closer monitoring of tool downtime, especially with focus on tools being down for a long time.

Comment 11

Again Danchip has live up to my high expectations. Whenever a problem is discoverede there are clear lines of communication to start the process of solving the problem.If there was one thing I criticize it would be the availability of training, especially for students. For various reasons Danchip was under-staffed the last time students started in the cleanroom, this significantly set back a very short project. However, I got the impression that Danchip was aware of the issue and was trying to solve the problem. That was an example of good communication in regretful situation.

Action: No action

Hopefully the issue is resolved now.

Comment 12

Det kunne være rart med et bedre mail-udbredningssystem. Lige nu ryger alle mails der har noget som helst med renrummet at gøre ud til samme mailing-liste, hvilket gør, at man ikke får læst dem (99% består af "6-inch aligner er klar til næste bruger" eller noget lignende) Hvis man i stedet havde flere lister, så man kunne sortere uvæsentlige beskeder fra, og stadig få tilsendt de vigtige (såsom "der er strømafbrudelse/brandøvelse/etc næste mandag fra 12-13") kunne det være lækkert. Evt også lave lister for de forskellige maskiner, så jeg kunne få tilsendt opdateringer vedrørende KS-aligner (den bruger jeg), men ikke DUV-stepperen (den bruger jeg ikke), så ville det være helt perfekt.

Action: Mail-systemet skal forbedres. Lige nu arbejder vi på at implementere bruger-kompetencer i LabManager, og med dem følger en bedre mulighed for at rette mails til de rigtige. Derudover skal mails kunne vælges til.

Comment 13

Sometimes people need to wait a little bit longer time for those machines which are not commonly used to be fixed. But generally the cleanroom and all the staff are very helpful.

Action: xxx
It is true that there is a tendency for tools with a lot of users to be prioritized higher than other. Tool usage is not the only factor in determining resource allocation but it does factor in. We do strive to make tools available even if the number of users is low (see also comment 10).

Comment 14

Sometimes i feel irritated when some user use the machine like RIE and does not run a cleaning recipe after that.Same is with PECVD3. when someone does the deposition and it crosses the limit of 6µm deposition; he or she should run etchback and stdpredep recipe too. It often takes 30 to 40 minutes of my time especially if i have to do 15 minutes of deposition at the end of the day.

Action: Thank you for the comment. We totally agree. When the users are trained on the tools these procedures are part of the training. Please report back to us as quick as possible if you have these experiences so that we have a chance to correct the wrong behaviour. xxx

Comment 15

Only drawback is equipment downtime

Action: We systematically measure the uptime of the equipments and on average for 2012 we had an uptime of 86%. We are quite happy with this number but since it is an average we know that we have equipments which are below this. Especially equipments which are dependent on the three gases (BCl3, DCL and B2H6) which have caused huge problems during the last months of 2012 have been severely affected. We have been / are working on long-term solutions on these problems which hopefully will improve the uptime significantly.

Comment 16

It would be nice if new equipment was presented more detailed. Sometimes this happens with a mail or so, but often there is something new standing in the cleanroom and I have to find out by myself what it can do and how it compares to the other equipment.

Action: Techforum
We agree that this would be nice. There is an overview of new tools <a href="http://labadviser.danchip.dtu.dk/index.php/LabAdviser/New_equipment_in_the_pipeline_and_Old_equipment_for_decommissioning" > here </a>. Also we have started a monthly Techforum where tools are presented and discussed, slides from these meetings are available <a href="http://labadviser.danchip.dtu.dk/index.php/Surveys_and_statistics"> here </a>.

Comment 17

Issues with the stability of the pyrolysis oven are giving us unreproducible results. Staff just left us with the comment that it is an old oven and nothing can be done, which is not a satisfying and customer-oriented answer a machine that costs 1000 DKK/hour.

Action: The main issue here is that it has been very difficult/impossible to quantify the requirements for the process to work. This means that we almost work "blindfolded". Moreover the furnace itself basically leaves no possibilities to control the oxygen-background. In 2013 we intend to pursue possiblities for investing in a system for annealing in reducing atmospheres (read: vacuum furnace with hydrogen) where the oxygen-background is under much better control.

Comment 18

Availability: SEM-Zeiss is always been booked by someone for many times in one day and more than ten times in one week. Sometimes III-V aligner, III-V ICP are down for long time.

Action: No new actions
We do have booking rules which forbid the action described in the comment. We do not systematically check this but if we suspect wrongful behavior or get an comment from a user we will investigate further and apply what sanctions are appropriate.
The III-V aligner is an old tool and has received a major overhaul so the long downtimes here should be a thing of the past. We are looking for alternatives to the III-V aligner so we can get a different tool instead.
Danchip has had a longer discussion with the supplier of the tool as to whether chuck issues were covered by the warranty or not. They are covered by the warranty.

Comment 19

Danchip should decide what format they want to work on. It is very annoying that some equipment (DUV stepper) in principle only handles 6 inch wafers whereas all etching tools are running 4 inch mode...why not put all etchers on 6 inch as default and then people must use carriers when they want to process 4 inch wafer? Or if they have delicate processes on 4 inch they can ask to get the tool set to 4 inch but they should rund 6 inch at all time as default.

Action: No action
There are only few users of 6" wafers at the facility. Using a carrier on most tools is not an option due to insufficient cooling among other thing. We do not wish to limit ourselves and our users to just one format, there are numerous applications where it is either impossible or prohibitively expensive to work on a set format.

Comment 20

You should be more aware of getting work carried out on the DUV stepper done correctly according to the customer's instructions.

Action: Developing a job request form
The DUV stepper is still a new tool at Danchip so extra care must be taken both from a Danchip and a customer perspective to make sure that both parties understands the work being asked. At the moment all job requests must be done in writing and the plan is to develop this into a dedicated job request form in the future.

Comment 21

SSE spinner has many problems so it often delays processes

Action: No separate action but the tool is important to us
The SSE spinner unfortunately came with a few inherent problems, which can be minimized but not completely fixed. It is especially sensitive on the software side where we need the assistance of technicians no longer working at the company.
With the new spin tracks operational, some load will be lifted from the SSE spinner, hopefully lessening the impact of it's problems.

Comment 22

Danchip should time maintanence of equipment better so e.g. it fits into the periods where the cleanroom is closed instead of having service on some equipment the week before the cleanroom is closed causing the down town to be 2 weeks in reality for the customer.

Action: We assume that the comment refers to the cleanroom closure in week 48. We actually did put in maintenance tasks which were possible to perform during the week. However, many of the service works were not possible to do during week 48 as the many of the tools were closed down and not accessible even for Danchip personnel. xxx

Comment 23

The model you are using with having teams that are responsible for equipment works poorly since all members of the teams can blaim each other when things are not working as they should. It was better in the old days with 1-2 dedicated persons on each tool. This way there could not be bad excuses for tools not working.

Action: No action

from the Danchip management perspective, the team approach is the right way for Danchip to operate. We highly value the strength of teams to assure a minimum level of competance on tools even in times of vacation or illness. We do not see the teams working perfectly, so we are always looking for ways to improve.

Comment 24

It could be great with more focus on particle contamination of wafers in Danchips cleanroom - expecially it could be nice to have a particle scanner so one could identify and throw out wafers after spin coating which is the worst cause of defects on wafers in your cleanroom.

Action: Acquiring a new tool
We are in the process of purchasing a KLA-Tencor Surfscan 6420, which can map 4" and 6" wafers for particles down to 200 nm (unpatterned wafers).

Comment 25

Any progress on getting the particle issues with the MVD tool solved?.

Action: New FDTS source
A new FDTS source has been installed, however, there will still be particles generated in the plasma source which means that the problem cannot be removed completely.

Comment 26

ICP metal ætseren har været meget nede, samt cluster 1 tidligere på året, som er gået ud over både projekter samt kundeopgaver... Lukning af renrummet (og andre meget vigtige informationer) skal ikke foregå via spam email, men skal også puttes på labmanager...

Action: Opmærksomme på kommunikationen
Metal ICP har været nede i kort tid i en del tilfælde på grund af tabte skiver, men vi kan ikke genkende at den skulle have været meget nede helt generelt.
Cluster 1 blev reddet efter en hård ekspertindsats, så reelt er vi glade for at værktøjet stadig eksisterer her 21 år efter den blev leveret.

Vi skriver beskeder om større nedlukninger ud på VIP-listen senest 6 uger før, hvilket også skete op mod uge 48. Informationen blev lagt på LabManager adskillige uger før. Vi er opmærksomme på at dette er et område af meget stor betydning for vores brugere, så det er bestemt et område vi er opmærksomme på.