Project 013 – Automation and improvement

Development and Build of Laboratory Process Equipment

Many years ago this setup was built for a research institute that needed to do processing on silicon and ceramic samples, typically heat treatment, doping, diffusion and layer depositing processes. The samples were heated under vacuum or under a protective atmosphere of argon and/or hydrogen. The heating took place inside a quartz tube inside a tube furnace.

The institute already had existing equipment to do sample processing, but each process step had to be done by hand which was labour intensive and prone to errors.

The institute had the wish to have a single setup to do automated processing.

To make the experimenting faster, and to avoid human errors, the existing equipment was all integrated into one automated setup. Additions to the manual process were added to have a more flexible processing machine.

The setup contained a PC with software to control the furnace, the vacuum pump, the furnace, the mass flow controllers and the tilt motor of the sample. Sensor data was logged for later analysis.

The operator could now mount his sample and run a software script to process the samples. This was already a big improvement, but it now also became possible to process samples overnight, increasing the lab throughput.

The setup included enclosed spaces for the samples and tools to keep things tidy and clean. Because of the integration, the setup now had a small floor footprint.