#homecmos IRC log for Sunday, 2011-09-11

B0101hi azonenberg02:33
azonenberghi02:33
B0101I tried going to the wafer supplier...02:33
azonenbergand?02:33
B0101i found nothing with the name of Latech... untill i got back home02:34
azonenberg?02:34
B0101and i found that i was at the correct building... wrong position...02:34
B0101and their directory was not updated02:34
azonenberglol02:34
B0101When i found out... my mind was thinking: "darn..."02:36
B0101gonna be afk... bbl02:36
B0101back02:50
Anarchoshello13:01
azonenberghi13:04
Anarchosazonenberg hi how are you ?13:07
azonenberggood, you?13:07
Anarchosi am fine too13:07
Anarchosi am looking for standard cell libraries for Electric13:08
azonenbergNever used it, sorry13:08
azonenbergMost of our work at the moment is lower level than that13:08
azonenbergprocess development etc13:08
azonenbergi'm fighting yield issues in the lithography atm13:08
Anarchoswhat are yield issues ?13:09
bart416The amount of succesful attempts vs total amount of attempts13:09
Anarchosok13:10
azonenbergfor example, an array of continuous parallel lines13:10
azonenbergthat ends up looking like this instead http://colossus.cs.rpi.edu/~azonenberg/images/homecmos/2011-08-26/5h10_004_annotated.jpg13:10
Anarchosi was looking for an irc channel about Electric or vlsi or cmos, this is the only one i found13:10
azonenberg(evaporated copper on <100> Si13:10
azonenbergand yeah, we are mostly on the DIY fab side of things13:10
azonenbergif and when we get a working cmos process try your question again lol13:11
Anarchosazonenberg sure :)13:11
azonenbergbut at the rate things are going (and considering i have a phd to work on and am not doing this full time or even close to it)13:11
azonenbergit will be a while lol13:11
Anarchosazonenberg ho nice scale on your jpeg :)13:11
Anarchoswhat kind of mask do you use ?*13:12
azonenbergAnarchos: The 5um process is still being debugged, the 20 is working a lot better13:12
azonenberglaser printer on plastic transparency film lol13:12
azonenbergreduced 10x or 40x (for the 20 and 5 micron processes respectively) by projection lithography13:12
azonenberghttp://colossus.cs.rpi.edu/~azonenberg/images/homecmos/2011-08-06/S7301603.JPG is a test die done on the 20um process13:14
azonenbergnyanotechnology ;)13:14
azonenbergthis is, like the other one, evaporated copper on <100> silicon13:14
azonenbergmag of this image is 100x13:14
azonenbergThe pixels blurring against each other were violating DRC by touching at corners13:15
Anarchosazonenberg and how do you evaporate copper at home ? lol13:15
azonenbergAnarchos: I wish i could lol13:15
azonenbergi did that in a lab on campus and have been working with the results ever since13:15
azonenbergat home13:15
azonenbergits on the to-do list though13:15
azonenbergi just need a bell jar, mechanical pump, diffusion pump, and variac13:15
azonenbergthe theory is trivially simple and you dont need really tight alignment tolerances etc13:16
Anarchosazonenberg eh eh "do your sparc 64 VIIIfx at home " :)13:16
azonenbergjust reasonably deep vacuum13:16
azonenbergBut right now i have two or three wafers with evaporated metal films on them i've been gradualyl running experiments on13:16
azonenbergAnd the current focus is actually mems, not cmos13:18
azonenbergi want to build a comb drive13:18
azonenberghttp://i.imgur.com/CMaJN.jpg was a test of line edge roughness on the 20um process13:18
azonenbergi want to do some SEM cross sections soon (benefits of knowing the matsci lab manager ;) )13:18
azonenbergto measure edge profiles etc13:19
azonenberghttp://i.imgur.com/we2Mp.jpg was the best i've done so far for cross sectioning and optical imaging13:19
azonenbergthe copper is around 150um wide and 30 high lol13:20
Anarchosso i will continue my quest of standard cells :)13:20
azonenbergmy 20um features in ~1um layers wont even show up at this mag13:20
azonenbergmuch less provide useful slow values13:20
azonenbergand yep, good luck13:20
swkhanif i don't have a scale or a triple beam balance, how can i accurately (or at least precisely) measure out a certain mass of something?18:16
swkhani've been putting this on hold for a while. i want to make sodium sulfate, ultimately so i can mix it with copper sulfate and get electroplated copper. i'm not sure i have all the equipment yet but i want to see if i can make some of the stuff today at least18:17
bart416Meh, use a kitchen scale18:50
bart4160.1g is precise enough for most things18:50
azonenbergswkhan: I found a scale on ebay good to 1mg20:03
azonenbergin graduation20:03
azonenbergactual accuracy maybe +/- 2 or 320:03
bart416The issue with scales that go down to 1mg is that airflow and pressure will actually have a noticable affect22:55
bart416You need to put a cover over it to get a good reading22:55
azonenbergbart416: i've noticed lol22:57
XgFEvery 1mg scale I've worke dwith has had a glass surround22:57
azonenbergbreathe on it and it fluctuates by a decent amount22:57
azonenbergthis has a plastic cover22:57
azonenbergits cheap, but is noticeably better accuracy than the 10mg i have22:57
bart416XgF, we were fighting for the ones with the covers during the labs22:59
bart416Except if it was something volatile that was hard to scoop up22:59
bart416Cause the cover makes that rather hard :(22:59
azonenbergbart416: lol22:59
azonenberguse a micropipette and go by volume?22:59
XgF:S we had covered 1mg scales back in sixth form22:59
bart416XgF, the covers got blown off :P23:00
bart416In miniature explosions23:00
azonenberglol23:00
bart416Hence, some scales didn't have any covers left23:00
azonenbergi imagine it wasnt healthy for the scale either23:00
azonenberganything that intense probably fried the load cell23:01
bart416Weirdly enough after being calibrated again it doesn't really seem to have any effect :S23:01
azonenbergo_O23:01
XgFWhat? The scales i'm thinking of have a steel frame which is an extension of the case, with glass plates attached to the inside of the frame23:01
bart416past a certain load it rests on a metal pad instead of transfering pressure to the load cell I guess23:01
bart416never ever use one of them to weigh blackpowder XgF!23:02
XgFHah23:02
bart416it doesn't just lift the lid23:02
bart416it blows the glass or plastic out lol23:02
XgFWhy would you weigh BP? Weigh the constituent ingredients then mix23:03
azonenbergAlso, if it is spontaneously igniting you probably have ESD problems23:03
azonenbergget better grounding23:03
XgFYeah. My BP has never blown up without me asking it to23:04
bart416XgF, mine neither23:04
bart416But some people managed it :S23:04
azonenbergwas this for a class project?23:04
bart416Yes23:04
XgFBack in college I once set fire to a desk...23:05
azonenbergno fair, you get to play with explosives in class?23:05
bart416Yes23:05
bart416We also managed to crack a ceramic  table top btw23:05
azonenberghow23:05
bart416well, not we23:05
bart416Another class did during the same experiment23:05
azonenbergwith BP?23:05
bart416Somebody built a miniature rocket engine with a test tube somehow23:05
azonenberg...23:06
azonenbergBP is a low explosive23:06
bart416(with something more volatile than bp)23:06
azonenbergit *should* not explode unless confined23:06
bart416It managed to knock lose a piece of metal and take it along and smash into the table23:06
XgF(We were heating some ethanol. Perhaps I was heating it too vigorously; it decided it would like to be on fire. When I was placing a gauze on top to remove the oxygen supply... I knocked over the flask...)23:06
azonenberglol23:06
bart416lol XgF23:06
bart416Also fun was "disolve this little block of marble and calculate how much carbon and calcium it contains"23:07
bart416Oh was that one fun...23:07
bart416Half the gas captured was actually our table disolving instead of the piece of marble23:07
Action: XgF snorts23:08
bart416Something about not providing propper equipment23:08
bart416lol23:08
XgFI also remember a bung on a tube full of conc H2SO4 (I forget the name of that particular pecie of equipment :P) blowing out in my hand...23:09
bart416Fun23:10
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