clean room haiku
|
Waiting
for vacuum,
writing haiku to kill time; nothing else to do. Hooded, suited forms, shapeless bodies gingerly handle
their samples.
First, the acetone; next, dunk in methanol bath, then
the DI rinse.
Blue tape and black wax: the stuff of fabrication. Fear the TCE. Wafting through the bay - inhale the dizzy vapors: spinning red resist. Contact aligner: elevate my small sample; press against the mask. UV exposure: set the timer, then push ‘start.’ Don’t look in the lamp. Whiff of acetone - a puddle of stray solvents under the fume hood. Breathlessly waiting as thirty seconds tick by: developer dish. Load-lock wafer tray, calibrated flow control; chamber pumping down. Run the etch process then purge with nitrogen and vent to atmosphere. Alarm; hold; abort: sequencer is disabled. Why will it not etch? Bearer of bad news speaking loathsome, dreaded words: broken
turbo pump.
Status is unchanged: RIE still not working. Try again next week. Whirring fans and pumps lull me to sleep in my seat next to the machine. Behind the white mask a tired smile appears: etching is complete. Behind the face shield, rubber glove concentration: pouring the HF. PECVD deposit thin-film layers; process nearly done. Instrument error: cannot attain compliance. Chamber cooling down. Here we go again. Retrieve the precious sample. Call the clean room staff. After many weeks my patience is rewarded: samples done at last. Grainy images entering into focus on the SEM. Tiny wondrous things: microscopic devices. Most will never work. |