<gkwhc> Hi, anyone here use "electric" to design ICs?
<azonenberg> gkwhc: Last time somebody asked, no
<azonenberg> most of us here are in the process deevelopment stage
<azonenberg> not ready to do full vlsi
<gkwhc> azonenberg: oh i see. would you happen to know of a channel related to this area?
<azonenberg> gkwhc: This is pretty much the microfab/vlsi/mems channel on freenode
<azonenberg> swkhan (not here atm) works in a real lab at nasa
<azonenberg> most of the rest are hobbyists
<gkwhc> azonenberg: great!
<azonenberg> personally, i'm working toward a MEMS comb drive
<azonenberg> and then 4000 series logic
<azonenberg> in my living room
<gkwhc> a home-fab?
<azonenberg> gkwhc: look at the channel title lol
<gkwhc> that's really neat
<azonenberg> It's still under active development and we do not yet have anything working that well
<gkwhc> i can't imagine the equipment costs, etc
<azonenberg> I actually havent spent that much on it
<azonenberg> i mean, my whole lab is maybe a few tens of K but most of that is the GPU cluster that isnt used for this at all
<azonenberg> it was funded by some sponsored research a few years ago
<gkwhc> ah i see
<azonenberg> the nice microscope was $1k and that is the biggest single item i actually use for semiconductor stuff
<azonenberg> probably 5-10 total? I mean, it might be a little much for the average hobbyist who isnt being backed by sponsored work
<azonenberg> But for a hackerspace?
<azonenberg> entirely feasible
<gkwhc> yea
<azonenberg> This is 20 micron half-pitch wires in copper on silicon
<azonenberg> the background mottling is the incompletely etched chromium adhesion layer
<azonenberg> I did the metal deposition in an evaporator on campus but will be buying a bell jar and vacuum pump soon so i can do metal evaporation at home
<azonenberg> its a very simple process if you can get down to decently high vacuum
<gkwhc> hm what do you use for etching? laser?
<azonenberg> That's the exposure process
<gkwhc> thanks!
<azonenberg> i use the camera port method
<azonenberg> then the metal etch is HCl : H2O2
<azonenberg> nice simple wet etch
<azonenberg> which i actually have to update after my last (failed) experiment in Ta2O5 + Cr + Cu film patterning
<gkwhc> i am surprised that you can manually etch  20micron wires!
<azonenberg> 20 is actually doable with very good yield
<azonenberg> a little edge roughness but 20um wires at 20um half-pitch all resolved beautifully
<gkwhc> oh yes definitely
<azonenberg> these were both imaged in a JEOL JSM-840 scanning electron microscope on campus
<azonenberg> i use the SEMs for my nice PR shots or for debugging when i need really high resolution
<azonenberg> i can only use them when the lab manager (who i have a good working relationship with) is around and nobody else needs the tool
<azonenberg> lol\
<azonenberg> So for all of my in-process imaging i use the AmScope metallurgical light microscope
<azonenberg> at home
<azonenberg> not nearly as sharp but the images are in color
<azonenberg> and quick turnaround
<gkwhc> interesting!
<azonenberg> this is around 5 microns of SP24 photoresist over a tantalum oxide thin film
<gkwhc> oh wow - 5 microns!
<azonenberg> the Ta2O5 is transparent (yellow collor from diffraction), the reddish spots are pinholes in the film
<azonenberg> thats thickness
<azonenberg> the feature size is around 25
<gkwhc> i'll need to read more about the subject area
<azonenberg> thats a nicer shot with the amscope
<azonenberg> i actually have two cameras, one of them is calibrated but a pain to set up (i need to haul my laptop out to the bench to connect to it)
<azonenberg> the other is a point and shoot that i hold up to the eyepiece, good for quick in-process imaging if i dont care about exact dimensions
<gkwhc> the resolution of that is impressive!
<gkwhc> what camera do you use?
<azonenberg> The calibrated camera is an amscope MD1900
<azonenberg> cheap optics, a nikon/zeiss/mitutoyo would be way better
<azonenberg> but for $1200 camera + scope it was a great price
<azonenberg> a mitutoyo FS-60 (my dream scope) would run over ten grand
<gkwhc> thats really expensive, but what you have currently looks great already!
<azonenberg> Yeah
<azonenberg> The other camera is a $50 samsung point and shoot
<azonenberg> thats the one i took the nyan cat shot with
<azonenberg> Puns about "nyanotechnology" were too good to pass up lol
<gkwhc> haha true!
<azonenberg> so when i got bored of my other mask art i made this one
<azonenberg> And he is truly a nanoscale cat
<azonenberg> around 600 microns x 300, which is big
<azonenberg> but only 200nm deep
<azonenberg> from top of copper to the surface of the silicon
<azonenberg> (approximately, that was the intended thickness when i ran the deposition but I havent actually done profilometry on it)
<azonenberg> In the next day or two i am going to be doing Cr evaporation on a wafer
<gkwhc> exciting!
<azonenberg> lift-off patterning of 800-1000nm Cr over a photoresist pattern
<azonenberg> to be followed by a KOH wet etch
<azonenberg> if successful i can do a through wafer pattern
<gkwhc> about how long would the whole process take?
<azonenberg> well, i am going to be doing several dies by lift-off as well as a half-wafer to test etching of the Cr
<azonenberg> The evaporator on campus is in the mat sci department, it takes an hour or so for the vacuum pump to warm up
<azonenberg> then maybe 20 minutes to pump down the chamber, two or three for the actual deposition
<azonenberg> spin coating photoresist on a batch of dies is maybe 5 mins
<azonenberg> lithography is 5-10 minutes per die
<azonenberg> metal etch is fast
<azonenberg> then the through-wafer etch is a good couple of hours
<azonenberg> but i can remove the die after 10 mins or so to see if its working
<gkwhc> i see
<gkwhc> thats pretty fast
<azonenberg> The evaporation is something i do a big batch (usually half or a whole 2-inch) every few weeks since i just need films to pattern and they last me a while
<azonenberg> i'm not doing any multilevel metalization yet
<kristianpaul> I'll buy a scope as soon i see this work can be asilly reproducesable and sourcable :)
<azonenberg> kristianpaul: We're working on that
<kristianpaul> last pic looks nice, where came froma ctually?
<azonenberg> i'm still hoping to have a comb drive by end of year, i have most of the essentials donated
<azonenberg> nyan cat?
<kristianpaul> ahhh !
<azonenberg> donated? what am i saying
<azonenberg> designed
<kristianpaul> from fab004  i tought was another thing :)
<azonenberg> and the last pic is one of my earliest tests when i was experimenting with litho techniques
<azonenberg> lol
<kristianpaul> indeed nice camera resolution
<kristianpaul> also bundle price i guess :)
<azonenberg> yep