The Ångström Space Technology Centre (ÅSTC) is located in the Ångström Laboratory, which is part of Uppsala University, and also one of Europe’s most modern centres for teaching and research in natural sciences and engineering sciences. It was inaugurated in 1997, and has since then roughly doubled in size. It accommodates nine departments and eight other major entities, and around 1000 employees whereof PhD students account for one third. The offices and laboratories together occupy 65,000 m².


The Ångström Laboratory, Photo: Teddy Thörnlund

Somewhat of a heart in the Ångström Laboratory, and of particular importance to the Department of Engineering Sciences, to which ÅSTC belongs, is the clean room facility: the Microstructure Laboratory (MSL). It offers close to a complete resource for the realization and analysis of structures with dimensions in the micrometer or nanometer range, and, quite uniquely, allows for good adaptation to very different project needs. With its total area of 2,500 m², including over 30 rooms with service corridors, it is the largest university clean room in the Nordic countries. Most of the clean room is classified as 10,000 but at least 150 m² are constructed as a class 100 areas with laminar, vertical airflow. In reality the cleanest parts seldom range above class 1. The temperature is stable within one degree Celsius, and the relative humidity is held constant at 43%, given or taken up to 3%, in one third of the clean room. To allow for extreme electron microscopy and lithography a large part of the clean room is built on a vibration-free foundation. Adding to the creative and productive atmosphere are users from both university and nearby industry. The clean room is where ÅSTC makes all processing on the wafer level (lithography, thin film deposition, etching, bonding, etc), and some backend and chip processing (dicing, soldering, wire bonding, etc.). On occasion, use is also made of the analysis part of the MSL – especially stylus profilometry, interferomtery and scanning electron microscopy.


Cleanroom

The ÅSTC is also pleased to have its very own laboratory for measurements and post clean room processing. In its just over 60 m², this laboratory has, among other things, a small mechanical workshop, a place for precision soldering and electrical measurements, an apparatus for thrust balance measurements, l aminar air flow (LAF) boxes, stereomicroscopy, rapid prototyping equipment, a pick and place machine, and a set up for thermography. Besides being a multifunctional test plant for all kind of microsystems, this also facilitates assembling and interfacing of devices and subsystems – much because of the local cleanliness offered by the LAFs.


ÅSTC lab