The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seeks information on commercial vendors that are capable of providing an Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) Etching System to support nanofabrication in the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) user facility. The system will be sited and used as a shared resource accessible to researchers from industry, academia, NIST, and other government agencies in the CNST NanoFab. The ICP System is a pattern transfer tool that uses chlorine and other chemicals to fabricate three-dimensional structures in various substrate materials. Applications include fabricating nano-semiconductor and nano-photonic devices. The NanoFab currently operates several ICP Systems that are heavily used to fabricate a wide variety of devices with different chemical etching gases and substrate materials. However, the current tools cannot meet the requirements of a growing number of NanoFab users. More and more materials, such as metals, silicon, II-V compounds and diamond, are being etched in one shared ICP system. The mixing of the different etching processes in one system causes chemical cross-contamination. To minimize the cross-contamination, improve the process control and increase the NanoFab's capacity to serve users, the NanoFab has a need for a new ICP System with Chlorine and other gas etching capability. 1. General Description The ICP etching system is a pattern transfer tool that uses an inductively coupled plasma to fabricate three-dimensional structures in metal, Si and other materials. It uses primarily chlorine gas and is capable to produce high aspect ratio vertical sidewalls. This new ICP system will be used in a user facility dedicated to chlorine etch thus minimizing cross-contamination and improve process repeatability. 2. Tool Configuration: The system must be equipped with following components: 1) A load-lock that transfers the samples in and out of the process chamber. 2) A process chamber that is compatible with corrosive reactive chemicals such as Chlorine. 3) A process chamber that is capable to handle 8 different gases. 4) An ICP source that operates from 0 to 3000 W. 5) A RIE electrode that operates from 0 to 500 W. 6) A pumping system that is compatible with chlorine based chemistries and maintains a base pressure of 5x10-7 Torr. 7) A laser interferometer. 8) An optical emission spectroscopy endpoint detector. 9) Software that supports both manual and automatic operations. 10) Safety interlocks to keep users safe. 3. Wafer compatibility and wafer heating 1) The system shall be able to process substrates with various sizes including 75 mm, 100 mm, 150 mm and 200 mm substrate. 2) The system shall be able to process silicon, III-V materials including GaAs and InP. 3) The system shall be able to process substrates from -125 °C to +300 °C. NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large, foreign, and small businesses. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 333242, as those domestic sources having 1,500 employees or less. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice. Companies that manufacture ICP etching system are requested to email a detailed report describing their abilities to
[email protected] no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. The report should include achievable specifications and any other information relevant to your product or capabilities. Also, the following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice: 1. Name of the company that manufactures the system components for which specifications are provided. 2. Name of company(s) that are authorized to sell the system components, their addresses, and a point of contact for the company (name, phone number, fax number and email address). 3. Indication of number of days, after receipt of order that is typical for delivery of such systems. 4. Indication of whether each instrument for which specifications are sent to
[email protected] are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule contracts and, if so, the GSA FSS contract number(s). 5. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in developing its minimum specifications and finalizing its market research.