Clean rooms form an essential infrastructure for space projects. Assembly of highly sophisticated electronic circuitry, fine mechanical parts and optical equipment require an environment where dust level, temperature, humidity and static electricity must be controlled carefully.

Especially the fabrication of micron size structures by means of lithographic techniques requires a high standard of clean environment.

General facilities

• Temperature control ( 19 to 21 °C +-0.5 °C)
• Humidity control (35% to 60%)
• Standard clean conditions:
  – ISO 14644-1 class 6 (eq. US Fed. standard 209E class 1000)
• Ultra clean conditions in restricted areas:
  – ISO 14644-1 class 5 (eq. US Fed. standard 209E class 100)
• Controlled luminosity and color
• Services:
  – special gasses
  – ultra pure water
  – ultra pure water
  – disposal of exhaust fumes
  – other standard laboratory facilities.

Lithographic facilities

• Deposition of thin layers:
  – Thermal evaporation (metals, insulators)
  – Magnetron sputter deposition (Al, AlCu, Bi, Cr, Cu, Mo, Nb, NiCr, Ta, Ti, W)
  – Electron Beam evaporation, combined with ion bombardment
• Reactive Ion Etching (SF6, CHF3, Ar, O2). A Corial 200R with optical end point monitoring
• Photoresist coating / baking
• Mask alignment / UV-exposure
  – Standard resolution 0.7 micron
• Wet chemical processing
• Inspection:
  – Optical microscopy, interferometry, ellipsometry
  – Optical line width measurement
  – Step profiling
  – Resistance probing
• Back-end:
  – Dicing by diamond sawing
  – Wedge wire bonding