[labnetwork] An R&D FOUP

[Massey, Travis]

Hi Chris,

Good to hear!  LLNL picked up one of these Accu-Seal systems within the last year.  It’s basically a heat-sealed bagging system with options for either vacuum or inert gas fill (N2, Ar, your choice).
https://accu-seal.com/model-675-smartvac2-bag-sealer-impulse-heat/

This might be a faster and more economical alternative to a FOUP.  If you want to try it first, perhaps to quantify native oxide regrowth after bagging, we can make that happen.  I’m only 45 minutes away.

Best,
Travis Massey, PhD
Operations Manager | Center for Micro and Nano Technology (CMNT)
Staff Scientist | Center for Bioengineering, Implantable Microsystems Group
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
7000 East Avenue, L-222
Livermore, CA 94550
925-495-7103 (cell/text) | 925-422-9509 (desk/vm)


From: labnetwork <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> On Behalf Of Christopher Raum
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2025 11:56 AM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] An R&D FOUP

Hi all,

I work between two fabs at UC Berkeley and part of my process flow involves shuttling wafers between those two fabs to their respective tools.

Currently I use a wafer box and double bag to ensure the wafers aren't contaminated by the environment outside the two fab labs. This is generally standard practice for transporting wafers outside a cleanroom.

But there are more complicated concerns. For example one fab lab has a wetbench used to remove native oxide from wafers, and when the next tool in the flow is in the same fab, I can minimize the regrowth of native oxide - but when I need to transfer between fabs regrowth can become an issue.

In industry they use a FOUP (Front Opening Unified Pod) to move wafers around while controlling the environment the wafers sees. The pods can be purged with nitrogen (and perhaps placed under vacuum?) and I think they can also be light tight to allow PR coated wafers to be transported in unfiltered light.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP<https://urldefense.us/v3/__https:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOUP__;!!G2kpM7uM-TzIFchu!xXYGIqBlgS7Le4Za8tr2ifZ0wMGkbtkwRUOajwOg1qxuMwRsl6mbszS3s2hyUoD3V4Lfx9-UORxTvIkz$>

Since it's the industry that uses FOUPs, all the systems are for 12" and above wafers. I know I could never be so lucky, but I'll ask anyway - does anyone know of any FOUP systems that are fitted for six inch wafers?

Outside that possibility, my ask for the community is: Is there an interest in developing such a system? Some sort of crowdsourcing? There are many members of industry in this mailing list and I'm sure there would be quite a few academic and research customers if someone wanted to develop and fabricate such a wafer transportation system.

I hope this post stimulates some interesting discussion.

-Chris
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