[Bnc-facility-notice] SHUTDOWN begins September 4, 2012

[Weaver, John R]

The PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWN begins on Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - immediately following the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Additionally, ALL POWER WILL BE OFF AND THE BNC CLOSED on Thursday, September 6, 2012.

Prior to 11:00 pm on Monday, September 3 (Labor Day), all chemicals must be removed from the fume hoods and stored in closed containers in the appropriate chemical-storage cabinets. Note that covered beakers are not allowed - all chemicals must be in sealed bottles.

Also, prior to Monday evening final preparations for the full power outage on Thursday must be made. There will be no cleanroom access beginning Tuesday morning, so any preparations (see below) for the cleanroom and laboratory temperature and humidity increase must be completed before Monday evening.

The cleanroom and laboratories will close at 6:00 am Tuesday, September 4. The exhaust systems will not be functional, so no hood work is allowed. The preventative maintenance work will continue on Wednesday, September 5.

Prior to the end of the day on Wednesday, September 5, preparations for the loss of power to all offices and laboratories must be completed. It is recommended that all computers and critical equipment be shut down at this time and restarted after power has been restored on Friday, September 7. 

Work on the electrical shutdown of the Birck Nanotechnology Center will begin approximately 4:00 am on Thursday, September 6. By 7:00 am, the building will "go dark," meaning that there will be NO POWER in the building, no air conditioning, etc. Lighting, computers, etc. will be off. NO ONE SHOULD PLAN ON OCCUPYING THE BUILDING DURING THIS TIME - alternative arrangements should be made.

Please note that during the power outage cleanroom temperature and humidity are expected to rise, and there will be no exhaust in the facility. For these reasons, NO BEAKERS, covered or not, can contain any chemicals - all chemicals must be in sealed bottles in the chemical storage cabinets. Also, it is strongly recommended that no photoresist-coated wafers (including patterned wafers awaiting etch) be kept over the shutdown. Patterning issues should be expected if wafers are subjected to the high temperature and humidity conditions.

It is expected that power will be restored to the building by 10:00 pm on Thursday, September 6. This is contingent on there being no unforeseen issues. During the previous electrical shutdown, all systems returned to service as expected. It is likely that it will take a significant amount of time to restore temperature control to the offices and laboratories following the restoration of power.

The preventative maintenance work will continue on Friday, September 7, but the building may be occupied. It is expected that the temperature in the offices and laboratories will be fully stabilized by approximately 10:00 am, so temperature-sensitive experiments can begin after that time. Note that there will still be no exhaust Friday, September 7, so the cleanroom and laboratories will remain closed.

If all goes well, it is expected that we will reopen the cleanroom and laboratories by 4:00 pm on Friday, Sept. 7, 2012. The processing equipment may be operational subsequent to that time - check Coral for equipment availability. Note that it will most likely take until sometime on Monday or Tuesday for the ultrapure water to recover its purity level.

There will be no mail or package delivery on Monday, September 3, due to the Labor Day holiday. There will also be no mail or package delivery on Thursday, September 6, due to the power outage. Mail and package delivery will operate normally on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Thank you in advance for your patience and support during this necessary power outage and maintenance shutdown.

John R. Weaver
Facility Manager
Birck Nanotechnology Center
Purdue University
(765) 494-5494
jrweaver at purdue.edu