Attendees
Description
To come to a resolution on the outstanding equipment issues we are experiencing.
Current Issues
Ion gun cartridges are not lasting, require frequent cleaning, and are shorting out after not much use.
History of Recent Work Done on the Tool
March 15/16 2022 - Warranty Service visit by Gene Maxwell
- The tool was unuseable prior to this visit as the load lock motor had stopped working.
- It took many attempts to get the stage loaded in the chamber while clicking through many error messages.
Replacement parts were shipped to us and installed by the service engineer, these included:
- a new load lock transfer motor (M1),
- new digital input card on position 12 of the control board, a new
- new motor controller card on position 2 of the control board.
- New Ion gun cartridges were also installed as the current hours on the guns were approaching 250 hours, about the lifetime of the gun's internal components. Both gun hour meters were reset as well to reflect this hardware change.
- Issues with the Ion Guns
- Both guns were run by the service engineer for about 5 minutes and he reported everything appeared to be working ok. At this point, a 3mm glass slide was loaded to check the alignment of the beams.
- When trying to run the guns again, they didn't come on and work like before. When the guns are not running, they are now reading some current/voltage (gun1 0.7kV 5.0mA, gun2 0 kV 0.5mA) this essentially looks like both guns are shorting out.
- Gene noted the gas pressure seemed quite high so the regulator was set to around 0.2 Bar, manual asks for 0.5 Bar.
- In an attempt to fix the V/mA reading from the guns while they are not on, Gene is swapping the analog input control board from position 8 out with the same board from our spare controller from the old Baltec system.
- Analog output board 10 was also swapped from the old controller into the new.
- The Ion Gun problem looks to be tied to the gun power supplies (on the left side of the tool enclosure, gun power cables coming directly out of this unit). Gene switched power supplies and cables between guns and the problem followed the power supply.
- While the tool was on but guns were off, Gene was plugging/unplugging the power cables from the guns, the voltage/current readings did not not correct themselves when unplugged.
- Determination on Ion Guns
- Gene has agreed that this problem with the guns occurred during his troubleshooting, and is speaking with his team to get new replacement gun power supplies sent to us. If and when we receive them, we will determine if it is necessary for him to travel back and install or remotely advise while I install.
- Loading still seems to be an issue
- Load lock was found to be rotated completely upside down when the sample was OUT causing the cable assembly to tightly wrap around the load lock
- After cycling the sample in and out, the sample did not come out sitting flat but was at a forward slant
- Gene did find a sensor switch that wasn't engaging on the top of the load lock. This caused the over-rotation. He adjusted the switch and said that the loading has been fixed. I will do further testing to confirm this.
- Controller Board Swaps
- I had Gene return all the new boards that were swapped out during troubleshooting into the controller to avoid having a mix of new and old boards.
- Two new boards, mentioned above, were installed and remain in the controller to fix the sample transfer issue
- Power supply lights for 5V and 24V are no longer lighting up on the main controller, yet to be determined if this is actually affecting the hardware or just the leds. For this reason, Gene installed the old board from the Baltec into the RES102 so we would have lights back on on the controller. No determination was made if this board was causing an issue or not either before or after the swap, or why the board that was originally in the controller had seemingly failed.
Sept. 7 2022 Warranty Service Visit by Nothern Optic
- We were measuring current from both guns while they were not on. Because this was determined to be caused by the Leica service engineer, we were provided with two new gun power supplies for Markus to install. The power supplies were replaced, and the guns were tested.
- The current is now reading zero when the guns are idle, and we were seeing typical behavior from the guns (voltage and current levels) when running the gun warm-up recipe. Unfortunately, since the tool has been idle for so long, the guns are still not "firing on all cylinders".
- They are taking a very long time to warm up and show a "green" beam in the software, which indicates the gun is running at the voltage and current setpoints. They are staying in the "yellow" which means they are on, but at lower power levels. The guns may just require more purging and warming up, a full disassembly/cleaning/rebuild or the internal components may still need to be replaced.
Oct. 05 2022 Remote Assistance From Martin Wittman
- After trying for many hours to condition and warm up the guns to no avail, Martin Wittmann (Martin.Wittmann@leica-microsystems.com) was contacted to provide troubleshooting guidance. He had helped update the tool software in the past and proved to be the most useful contact at Leica to work with.
- After describing the behavior I was seeing from the guns, he said it sounded like the high voltage connectors to the guns had been swapped. This could be verified by running the guns one at a time and visually verifying through the top chamber port which gun was lighting up.
- Sure enough, when asking to run gun 1, gun 2 was igniting. The HV connectors and ground connections to the guns were swapped at some point in time while a Leica technician was working on it during a previous service visit.
- Once the cables were swapped back to the correct guns, both guns worked right away with no issues.
Jan 23 2023 Gun Cleaning
- While trying to run long milling process, the gun were shorting out and failing to for a stable ion beam. Shihong and Nas mentioned they performed long mills of 8 hours the day prior, then the next day the guns would not start back up. Figures 1 and 2 show the guns had flaked on the anode and cathode, causing the shorting.
- There also seems to be an issue with the start/stop of processes. Typically, if you hit stop to terminate a process early, the button switches back to say Start, meaning you can click it again to start another process. This is not happening though, and it is staying on Stop. The gun powers are also staying on when this happens. The only way to get the gun power to shut off is to turn the guns off in the recipe parameters and hit Apply.
- The current operating hours on the guns are ~16.5 hours each.
March 15 2023 Gun Cleaning
- The internals for these guns were installed in March 2022, and currently have only 75 hours on them, run for the majority of the time at 8kV. Almost 1/4 of this time was spent just trying to get the guns to run and not actually milling anything. Typically, these gun internals should last for at least 250 hours at 8kV.