Ebeam Hitachi HL-700F Status Update: near perfect stitching and excellent resolution on tool during exposures this week

Greetings All Users and PI's involved with the Hitachi HL-700-F Writer we call 'EBEAM':

Ted Berg and I, along with the support and effective interaction with the Hitachi Instrument Field service organization, have put in an immense and persistent effort working on EBEAM to bring the tools performance back to its systems performance specifications for resolution and write field-to-write field stitching. Over the course of the last three months I have completed thousands of EBL pattern exposures with no problems encountered, including long time and large area writes of Gratings, waveguides and other planar optical devices, and slit filters for Solar Cells on Silicon, Quartz substrates, or small pieces.

During this time we have also completed several User projects on the tool with high quality EBL results.  We are now ready to bring your projects onto the tool for initial set up and testing working either with me individually, or in small groups, to aid in your successful completion of your EBL patterning needs.

I am holding regular 'Open Labs for New Users on Ebeam' on most Mondays and by appointment. Following is my coral EBEAM schedule on the tool for June, July and part of August:

Monday June 28th, 2010 from 2 to 6 PM.
Monday June 12th 2010 from 2 to 6 PM.
Monday June 26th 2010 from 2 to 6 PM.
Monday August 9th 2010 from 2 to 6 PM.
Monday August 23rd 2010 from 2 to 6 PM.

Other User sessions can be scheduled during my daily office hours from 9 - 10 AM on Tuesdays to Fridays.  (There are still a few time slots open for early to mid July on my schedule and most of August remains open at this time.)

This system is available to all lab members in good standing working in the SNF clean room, including Industrial and outside academic Users with no restrictions.  Lots of session time is also currently available to schedule your work on the tool.

To whet your appetite to give the system another try I will give you credit for five hours of FREE EBEAM session time on my dime to assist you in getting started towards your success on the tool. 

The system has a 100 MHz writing speed writing in 2 mm square write fields at 30kV and with 2 - 3 nA of beam current. The system will write features down to 50 nm and mean + three sigma stitching specification is less than 150 nm, typically better than 80 nm on Silicon with 100nm PMMA thin films. Pixel spacing, dose and dose arraying, and laser focus are User addressable making this system a relatively straight forward system to run by any User. GDSII Calma format is preferred file format for conversion to the HL-700F format using CAPROX software package.

Please see or call me during my office hours to get on board and get your projects started here at SNF.

Thank you for your interest in Ebeam Technologies here at the SNF,

James Conway
001-650-725-7075






-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Comment ebeam SNF 2010-06-23 17:41:42: perfect stitching and resolution on tool during exposures this week
Date:	Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:41:42 -0700
From:	jwc@snf.stanford.edu
To:	ebeam-pcs@snf.stanford.edu

Users: System is in an optimal setting state and ready for your jobs... perfect stitching and resolution on tool during exposures this week! :-) James