Dedicated Instruments for Fabrication
Semiconductor Engineering Group Inc (SEGI) sputtering system, capable of sputtering simultaneously on 8 six-inch wafers. It has fully computerized controls, and has load lock with robotic movement of wafers from load lock to the sputtering chamber. The instrument has 3 targets, one operated in DC mode, one operated in RF mode and the third configurable in either DC or RF mode. The instrument is used to do thin film depositions of aSi, Al and W for the CDMS detectors. Various parameters of sputtering, such as the pre-etch time, the chamber gas (Ar) pressure, the gas flow rate, sputtering power, etc can be tuned to obtain the desired performance.
Bluefors LD400 closed-cycle cryogenic system that allows us to carry out detailed characterization of our detectors at a base temperature of 7 mK. The system allows us to cool down sample within 24 hours to base temperature (sometimes longer depending on the size of the detector).
Versatile deposition system by AJA.
Optical Associates Inc (OAI) 206 full mask contact aligner is used to transfer circuit patterns on to the thin films deposited on semiconductor wafers. The OAI aligner is capable of doing photolithograhic patterns on wafers up to 6" in diameter, with an accuracy of 1 micron. This model is capable of handling thick wafers, as needed for the ton-scale GEODM project.
Solitec spin coater 5110c is used to spin coat the wafers with photoresist, before they are exposed under the OAI contact aligner. The spin coater is fully programmable and dispenses the photresist according to recipes loaded in to its memory.
The wet processing steps (such as etching) is performed in the wet bench, which has dedicated compartments for acid, water, base solutions. The wet bench has a dedicated exhaust. It also has a heated compartment, which can be used to etch material in a heated acidic environment.
The wafers are spin dried in the spin dryer, after wet processing.
The wafers are baked in these Blue M ovens, after photoresist deposition.
Minnetonka Precision Microscope for inspection of wafers and circuits.
Strasbaugh 2-spindle polisher to polish thick Ge wafers.
Interferometer, used to check the flatness of the polished wafers.
Transition Edge Sensors (TES) developed at TAMU.