SOLICITATION NOTICE
66 -- Reactive Ion Etching System
- Notice Date
- 7/24/2006
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 333295
— Semiconductor Machinery Manufacturing
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Mountain Region Acquisition Division, 325 Broadway - MC3, Boulder, CO, 80305-3328
- ZIP Code
- 80305-3328
- Solicitation Number
- RA1341-06-RP-0211
- Response Due
- 8/15/2006
- Archive Date
- 11/1/2006
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for a commercial item prepared in accordance with the format in FAR Subpart 12.6, as supplemented by additional information included in this notice and in accordance with simplified acquisition procedures authorized in FAR Part 13. This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; proposals are being requested and a written solicitation will NOT be issued. The solicitation number is RA1341-06-RP-0211 and is issued as a request for proposal (RFP). The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2005-11. The NAICS code is 333295, size standard is 500 employees. Any amendment(s) hereto will only be published in the FedBizOpps. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) requires a Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) system for use in the Quantum Electrical Metrology Division, Boulder, CO. This system will be used to etch both inter-layer dielectrics (such as silicon dioxide and silicon nitride) and aluminum-based materials, mainly aluminum and aluminum oxide. The Government is also interested in four (4) optional items which shall be priced separately from the base requirement. (CLIN 0001) BASE REQUIREMENT SPECIFICATIONS - GENERAL INFORMATION: All equipment, excluding the rough vacuum pump, shall be Class 100 clean-room compatible, designed to sit entirely within the clean-room. The Contractor shall be required to install the system in a Class 100 clean-room. The equipment shall be a current year production model and not a prototype or one-of-a-kind system. There shall be at least five (5) working units of the proposed make and model operating currently in the field. Any substitutions of normally used major system components, such as software, power-supplies, load-lock mechanisms, vacuum valves, gauges and pumping equipment repaired to meet these specifications shall be clearly noted in offerors proposals. The equipment, including standard clearances, should be housed entirely within a footprint of 2.2 meters, adjacent to the chase by 1.8 meters, perpendicular to the chase by 2.4 meters in height including hook-ups to house facilities, such as gas line connections and vacuum lines, which will pass through the wall of the clean-room. In addition, there will be a space of 2 meters by 0.5 meters by 2.4 meters in height along the inside of the chase for placement of pumps and electronics not needed for standard operation. The system shall utilize single point connections for any necessary house facilities (such as chilled water, compressed air, vent gas, process gas). The system shall have an internal electrical distribution and require only a single connection to a 208 V 3 phase 100 amp connection per system. The system shall meet OSHA standards for operator safety and SEMI standards for environmental safety. The system shall have water cooling for the various components with shut-off valves for each component and flow switches to interlock turbo pumps, and other critical components. The system shall be equipped with an easily accessible emergency, red in color, shut-off switch which, when activated, safely turns off any ongoing process without causing damage to a wafer in process during the shut-down procedure. 1. ETCHING CHAMBER SHALL: a. Be of sufficient size to etch 150 mm diameter Silicon wafer (maximum); b. be easy to open and clean; c. have load-lock attachment port; d. be capable of heating the process chamber to less than 80 C to provide maximum process flexibility (d. desired, not required); e. have electromechanical hoist that is capable of raising the top plate or other mechanism for a single individual to easily open the chamber; f. have an optical viewport for visual endpoint control which should be configured to remain optically clean through hundreds of etch cycles; g. have optical ports for spectrometer and/or optical interferometer endpoint detectors; and h. have additional ports for diagnostics (h. desired, not required). 2. LOAD-LOCK CHAMBER: The system shall be equipped with a load-lock for the transfer of a single wafer into the etching chamber. It shall: a. Have a hinged, o-ring sealed door for ease of mounting wafers; b. have a holder for a single 75 mm to 150 mm diameter substrate (the system will initially be configured for 75 mm wafers); c. be reliable and have an easy-to-use substrate to chamber transfer mechanism with low particulate addition into the etching platen; d. have an expansion port for diagnostic purposes (d. desired, not required); and e. have vacuum isolation valve and control hardware. 3. PUMPING AND GAUGING: The vacuum pumping system shall be capable of routinely providing a base pressure of under 0.1 micro torr. The system shall be helium leak checked prior to shipment. The components shall consist of: 3a. Pumping: (i) a turbo molecular pump of at least 400 liter/second pumping speed; (ii) a pneumatically actuated isolation gate valve; (iii) direct-drive mechanical roughing pump for roughing, capable of corrosive gases; (iv) foreline trap, mist eliminator, roughing valve and assorted roughing hardware ? all flanges should be ISO/KF; (v) heating pumping lines to reduce particulates (v. desired, not required); (vi) independent, pneumatically actuated vent; (vii) vacuum system controller with available computer control; and (viii) a separate dry roughing pump for the load lock (viii. desired, not required). 3b. Gauges: The system shall have the following vacuum gauging: (i) one high vacuum gauge in the process chamber. If this is an ionization gauge in the process chamber, there shall be an isolation valve to protect it from corrosive process gases; (ii) one low vacuum gauge each in the process chamber, load-lock, and roughing line. The low vacuum gauges in the load-lock and process chamber shall be capable of reading pressures between atmosphere and 1 mTorr; (iii) capacitance manometer, 200 mTorr range with pneumatic isolation valve, with controller, and pressure display under computer control. The manometer should have an accuracy of plus or minus 0.25 percent reading or better; and (iv) controllers and displays for all vacuum gauges. 4. GAS HANDLING: The system shall have the following chamber pressure control features: a. gate valve with adjustable throttle valve to regulate the pumping rate for pump that may be controlled by the vacuum system controller; b. gas shall be evenly distributed inside the etching chamber to minimize plasma loading effects. Data shall be provided in proposals to support the quoted uniformity; c. eight channels of mass flow control with controller, sensors and valves. Four channels will be for corrosive gases. There should be a shut-off valve on each mass flow line. MKS Instruments pressure control subsystems is desired based on compatibility and past proven reliability, but not required; d. two corrosive gas lines must be heated to promote volatility of the process gases; e. chlorine-based gases shall have facilities appropriate for corrosive gas handling, and appropriate pumping services for corrosive gases; and f. the system shall have closed loop control of the process pressure. 5. ETCHING PERFORMANCE: Data shall be provided in proposals for two baseline processes on this system which simultaneously meetings the following criteria: 5a. Silicon Dioxide Etch: (i) etch rate: the system must etch at least 0.5 nm/second; (ii) uniformity: plus or minus 3 percent over a 75 mm wafer; (iii) selectivity to photo resist of at least 3:1; and (iv) selectivity to silicon of at least 10:1. 5b. Aluminum Etch: (i) etch rate: at least 5 nm/second; (ii) uniformity: plus or minus 3 percent over a 75 mm wafer; (iii) selectivity to photo resist of at least 2:1; (iv) selectivity to silicon dioxide of at least 4:1; and (v) profile sharper than 80 degrees; 5c. Baseline processes shall be provided with the system to perform these etches; and 5d. a manufacturer recommended chamber cleaning and conditioning process shall be provided with the system. 6. CONTROLS, INSTRUMENTATION, AND AUTOMATION: A computer with the following features shall control the system: a. A 600 W rf power supply with tuning network to produce the plasma. Advanced Energy supplies are desired based on compatibility and past proven reliability, but not required; b. computer control over all valves, pumps and gas handling functions; c. computer control over all etching systems; d. software which is user configurable, including source code (d. desired, not required); e. graphical user interface; f. any external computer should be as small as possible to minimize clean room footprint; g. film etching shall be controlled with user-configurable recipes; h. recipe control and editing functions; i. compatible with Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Linux, or more recent operating system; and, j. system shall contain the flexibility such that, if additional process gases are later added, the software will be able to be modified by government personnel to accommodate these changes. 7. WAFER HANDLING: a. The system shall be originally set up to handle 75 mm Si wafers; however, the system shall be capable of being modified to handle 100 and 150 mm wafers within a 4-hour operation by a trained user; b. wafer shall be clamped to a helium-cooled platen during the etch process to reduce heating. The exclusion on the wafer should be minimized; c. the exclusion on the 75 mm wafers should be less than 5 mm. The edge exclusion zone shall be described in the proposal; and, d. for a 5 minute, 200W etch, the substrate temperature shall not exceed 60 C. Data shall be provided that confirms this. 8. INSTALLATION AND DOCUMENTATION: 8a. The contractor is required to provide a complete set of system electrical, vacuum, and plumbing schematics including control schematics, and a complete set of operations and maintenance manuals. All manuals shall be provided in an electronic format. 8b. The system shall be installed by the contractor at NIST, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305 in cooperation with NIST staff. The government is responsible to have the installation site ready for contractor installation. Therefore, the contractor shall contact the government in advance of shipment to make sure the government has the site ready for installation. The contractor shall provide training for at least three individuals for at least one day. 9. ACCEPTANCE: Prior to shipment the contractor shall ensure that the system has passed all tests specified as follows: 9a. The system shall demonstrate a base pressure of less than 0.1 Micro torr; 9b. The system shall demonstrate cycle time from loading to unloading of the water not to exceed 5 minutes (excluding process time); 9c. Etching of NIST-grown oxide as per specification 5a. (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) outlined above; 9d. Etching of NIST-grown Aluminum film as per specification 5b. (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) outlined above; and 9c. The system shall demonstrate a substrate temperature not to exceed 60 C after etching at 200W for 5 minutes. These same tests shall be performed at the Boulder Laboratories in Boulder, CO following installation demonstrating process performance. Final payment will not be made until the system has passed all the tests performed at the government site. 10. DELIVERY AND WARRANTY: 10a. Delivery shall be not later than 180 days following the effective date of contract award. Delivery shall be FOB Destination at the Department of Commerce/Boulder Laboratories, Building 1, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328. 10b. The system shall include a one year warranty for all parts and labor from the date of acceptance at the Boulder Laboratories, Boulder, CO. 11. OPTIONAL ITEMS: Description of the options shall be included in offeror?s proposals and all optional items shall be priced separately. Optional Items 1-3 may be exercised within 30 days of award. Optional Item 4 may be exercised within 20 days of final acceptance of the base requirement by the Government. 11a. Optional Item 1: Endpoint Detection. Endpoint systems must be interfaced with software which will visibly display the endpoint signal in a strip chart format: Optional Item 1a: An optical-spectrometer based endpoint system for plasma diagnostic-based endpoints. Optional Item 1b: A laser interferometer/reflectometer-based endpoint system for reflective substrates. The placement of the beam on the wafer should be adjustable over at least one quarter of the wafer area. The laser spot placement on the wafer shall be described in the proposal. 11b. Optional Item 2: Wafer size upgrade. Components to upgrade the wafer handling for both 100 mm and 150 mm wafers. 11c. Optional Item 3: Chiller/Heater. To control the substrate temperature. 11d. Optional Item 4: Separate System dedicated for the etching of dielectric structures. This system would be used for separating the dielectric and aluminum etch functions. The Government would prefer that offerors submit proposals and pricing for both configurations. Configuration 1: A separate reactive ion etch system with specifications identical to the base system, but configured for six non-corrosive gases. Configuration 2: A separate reactive ion system with specifications identical to the base system, but configured with an Inductively Coupled Plasma source and six non-corrosive gases. (NOTE: For Configuration 2 offerors are to include system performance data on high aspect-ratio dielectric etch processes). EVALUATION CRITERIA: 1. System Specifications (60%). Proposals should address all points in the specifications as outline above. For major pieces of third party hardware (pumps, flow controllers, power supplies, etc.) the manufacturer and model number shall be listed. The proposed system shall meet all requirements outlined in the specifications above. For each of the categories (1-11) above, 70% of the 60 will be awarded for meeting the listed specifications. The remainder of points (30) will be awarded where the proposed system exceeds the specifications or contains the desired implementations. 2. Past Performance (40%). Proposals shall include no fewer than three (3) references, including address, phone number, and point-of-contact, from users who are currently operating the make and model of the proposed system in the field. Referenced models need not be of the current production year, but shall be production equipment manufactured within the past 24 months and designed for the purpose, and functionally identical to the equipment described in the specifications. 3. Price. The government regards Criteria 1 and 2 to be more important than price. However, the government will not make an award at a significantly higher price to achieve slightly superior technical features. Forms and clauses stipulated herein may be downloaded via the internet at the following address: http://acquisition.gov/far/index.html. Interested parties are responsible for accessing and downloading documents and forms from that (or any other) site. Firms without internet access may call (303) 497-6320 and request copies of the clauses, provisions, and/or forms be either mailed or faxed to them. Offers shall include a properly completed and signed Standard Form 1449. The firm fixed-price for the Base Requirement (CLIN 0001) shall include specifications 1-10 inclusive of shipping (FOB Destination) and taxes. Optional Items 1-4 shall also be fixed-price and priced separately. The following provisions and clauses are hereby incorporated by reference: FAR 52.212-1 (JAN 2006) (provision) Instructions to Offerors ? Commercial Items// FAR 52.212-2 (JAN 1999) (provision) Evaluation ? Commercial Items// FAR 52.212-3 (JUNE 2006) (provision) Offerors Representations and Certifications ? Commercial Items (NOTE: Offerors aer only required to complete paragraph (j) of this provision if the offeror has completed the annual representations and certifications at http://orca.bpn.gov. If an offeror has not completed the annual representations and certifications at the ORCA website, the offeror shall completed paragraphs (b) through (i) of the provision.) // FAR 52.212-4 (SEPT 2005) (clause) Contract Terms and Conditions ? Commercial Items // FAR 52.212-5 (JUNE 2006) (clause) Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or Executive Orders ? Commercial Items, including the following additional FAR clauses referenced in FAR 52.212-5, subparagraphs (b) (1), (5), (9), (14), (15), (16), (17), (18), (19), (20), (23), (26), (30), and (31). Addendum 52.217-7 (clause) Option for Increased Quantity ? Separately Priced Line Item (MAR 1989)// 52.217-5 (provision) Evaluation of Options (JULY 1990). Award will be made to the offeror representing the best overall value to the Government. Offers will be evaluated in accordance with the Test Program procedures at 13.500. The Government reserves the right to make award without discussions. For further information, please contact Jan Clark (303/497-6320). Offers are due at 3:00 PM Mountain Time on AUGUST 15, 2006 and shall be mailed to: BID DEPOSITORY/DOC/NOAA/Mountain Region Acquisition Division/MC3/DSRC Room 33-GB506A, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328. ALL hand-carried offers must be scanned in Building 22 at 325 Broadway in Boulder, CO prior to being delivered to the David Skaggs Research Center (DSRC), Room 33-GB506A, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO. If they are not scanned, they may be refused. E-MAIL OR FACSIMILE OFFERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. SEE NUMBERED NOTE 1.
- Place of Performance
- Address: 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO
- Zip Code: 80305-3328
- Country: UNITED STATES
- Zip Code: 80305-3328
- Record
- SN01096140-W 20060726/060724220259 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |