SNF Rates 2012

Dear all SNF users:

Back in February, we announced to a join faculty-industry meeting that
we would be changing our rates in 2012. Initially, we had planned on
March 1 to implement the changes, but due to our desire to generate some
post-renovation-shutdown data, I delayed the implementation. It is now
set for June 1, based on the rates in the attached pdf. They will also
shortly be posted on the SNF web site by Mary Tang.

Basic summary is that we are reducing our initial hourly rates and
increasing the cap and, proportionally, the hours to reach the cap.
This will reduce the entry level costs for new users and place a bit
higher cost burden on those users who use us a lot.

The industrial rates shift with the existing proportion to academic rates.

The SBIR-industry discount has been slightly reduced from 30% to 20% of
the industry rate, to match the offset we are receiving via the NNIN
program funded by NSF.

Three specific tools are staying at the pre-change rate ($92.20/hr):
ASML, Raith, AMAT Epi.

And finally, the rate beyond upper limit of the cap, which is unchanged
at 160 hrs, is moving from 10% of the base rate to 25% of the base rate.

We hope this will allow us to provide better services to our customers.
We recognize that cost increases are hard to deal with in today's
financial situation as we are dealing with those same issues in terms of
our costs. In addition to make SNF more attractive to new users, this
does help us offset a couple of years of no COLA increase in rates plus
allow us to add some additional benefits, one of which we have a quote
for is a service contract to support the AMAT Epi tool, which has been a
headache to a number of important SNF users.

Regards,

John

____________________
John Bumganer, PhD
Operations Director
SNF
jwb2005@stanford.edu