The Acquisition Management Division (AMD) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), intends to negotiate, on behalf of the Precision Engineering Division, with FEI Company of Hillsboro, OR, for a service contract for a scanning electron microscope. The Precision Engineering Division, Nanoscale Metrology Group, utilizes an FEI Helios NanoLab Dual-beam Scanning Electron Microscope. The microscope is equipped with a SideWinder FEG type ion optical column, an Elstar electron optical column, a high-accuracy laser interferometer sample stage, a cryo-sample stage, an energy dispersive micro-analyzer, and other essential detectors and measurement systems. The microscope has shown excellent imaging resolution and is very capable of providing needed information and carrying out measurements and calibrations on various samples of the above-mentioned group. In order to ensure the performance of the FEI Helios, a maintenance contract must be maintained. FEI Company is the sole source for the maintenance contract. All equipment being covered under the service agreement are commercial items. FEI has proprietary rights to the technology which governs the hardware and software. FEI Company guarantees the full system performance of the instrument. A potential source would have to possess proprietary knowledge of the FEI equipment. No other vendor possesses the knowledge to provide the required service and maintenance. No other vendor has rights to FEI’s proprietary hardware and software. FEI has no distributors. The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 334516, and the size standard is 500 employees. No solicitation package will be issued. This notice of intent is not a request for competitive quotations; however, responses received by August 9, 2010, will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete the proposed acquisition based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement.

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