This Notice is for planning purposes only and is not a Request for Proposal or Request for Quotation or an obligation on the part of the NIST for conducting a follow-on acquisition. NIST does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this Notice, or otherwise pay for the information requested. No entitlement or payment of direct or indirect costs or charges by NIST will arise as a result of submission of responses to this Notice and NIST's use of such information. NIST recognizes that proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary components, interfaces and equipment, and clearly mark restricted or proprietary data and present it as an addendum to the non-restricted/non-proprietary information. In the absence of such identification, NIST will assume to have unlimited rights to all technical data provided in the response.

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) seeks information on commercial vendors that are capable of providing upgrade services for our (qty 2) Oxford Plasma Lab 100 Reactive Ion Etch (RIE) Systems and (qty 1) Oxford FlexAL Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) system to support nanofabrication in the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) user facility.

The CNST NanoFab has a need to update the control systems on its three existing Oxford systems. The current systems utilize an obsolete PLC control architecture that requires frequent rebooting and the loadlock wafer handling system provides no active feedback of location resulting in frequent mishandling of user substrates during loading. Ongoing problems with the control systems have highlighted issues with parts availability, software platform maintenance, and limitations of operator and maintenance features. An upgrade to the control systems will bring the operation and maintenance features up to date on a current software platform. The loadlock wafer handling system loads wafers off-center after as few as ten wafers such that the clamping system will not seal resulting in poor backside cooling that presents as burnt resist and non-uniform processes.

General Requirements:
• Upgrade PLC system on each tool with current architecture.
o Qty 2 Oxford Plasma Lab 100 Etch systems
o Qty 1 Oxford FlexAL ALD system
o Import existing user developed recipes into new control system.
o Verify process results before and after upgrades and demonstrate no process shift.
• Upgrade loadlock to stepper motor control with active feedback.
o Qty 2 Oxford Plasma Lab 100 Etch systems.
o Integrate loadlock with hardware and new PLC.
o Verify wafer placement repeatability by processing 100 wafers with drift less than 1 mm.
• Vendor shall provide OEM approved hardware, software, installation, and process verification.
• Vendor shall provide Oxford qualified engineering personnel to perform all onsite activity.

After results of this market research are obtained and analyzed and specifications are developed for a vendor that can meet NIST's minimum requirements, NIST may conduct a competitive procurement and subsequently award a Purchase Order. If at least two qualified small businesses are identified during this market research stage, then any competitive procurement that resulted would be conducted as a small business set-aside.

NIST is seeking responses from all responsible sources, including large, foreign, and small businesses. Small businesses are defined under the associated NAICS code for this effort, 333242, as those domestic sources having 1,500 employees or less. Please include your company's size classification and socio-economic status in any response to this notice.

Companies that can provide the required upgrades are requested to email a detailed report describing their abilities to [email protected] no later than the response date for this sources sought notice. The report should include achievable specifications and any other information relevant to your product or capabilities. Also, the following information is requested to be provided as part of the response to this sources sought notice: 1. Name of the company that manufactures the system components for which specifications are provided. 2. Name of company(s) that are authorized to sell the system components, their addresses, and a point of contact for the company (name, phone number, fax number and email address). 3. Indication of number of days, after receipt of order that is typical for delivery of such systems. 4. Indication of whether each instrument for which specifications are sent to [email protected] are currently on one or more GSA Federal Supply Schedule contracts and, if so, the GSA FSS contract number(s). 5. Any other relevant information that is not listed above which the Government should consider in developing its minimum specifications and finalizing its market research.

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