The Utah Procurement Code provides that a procurement may be made without competition when the University determines that there is only one source that can reasonably meet the University’s need for the required supply or service, as described in Utah Code Ann. § 63G-6a-802.
The Purchasing Department has received the following request for sole source procurement
Current date: 20250402
Product and/or Service to be purchased: AlphaStep D-600 Stylus Profiler
Sole Source Supplier: AFP Technology, Inc.
Earliest Proposed Purchase Date: April 07, 2025
Buyer Name: Kayla McMullen
Sole Source Justification:
We are a multi-user facility and our equipment has to be as flexible and adaptable as possible to support multiple semiconductor wafer processing materials and measurements.
Stylus surface profiler to measure of step height ranging from less than 5nm to more than 1.1mm and surface roughness of metallic, semiconducting, plastics, polymers, ceramics, transparent or opaque, hard and soft thin film materials and substrates.
Vertical resolution should be better than 0.05nm for step heights less than 1um.
Measurement repeatability should be better than 0.5nm for step heights less than 1um.
Stylus force must be adjustable to accommodate both soft and hard materials, from at least 0.05 mg up to at least 13mg.
Adjustable scanning speed and data capture rate able to have a minimum xy lateral resolution of at least 200nm.
Maximum scan length of at least 50mm.
Ability to measure wafer bow and calculate thin film stress
Ability to measure surface roughness and waviness and apply associated filters and calculations
Ability to capture, display, and export 2D and 3D graphical data with more than 250,000 data points
Must be able to measure substrates of 200mm diameter and smaller substrate sizes down to 1mm, with substrate thicknesses up to 25mm thick, with a stage xy range of motion of at lest 150mm in both directions.
Automated x y stage translation controlled in software with vacuum hold down for various sample sizes
Automated or Manual 360 degree theta stage rotation
High resolution optical camera (at least 5Mpixel) for aid in alignment of small micro/nano features to be measured
User-exchangeable stylus tips of 2um and 5um radius with calibration step height standards included
This is the only vendor that provides these exact specifications. Other vendors can’t achieve the measurement range needed for our applications. Other wafer stylus profilers are not able to measure our glass substrate thicknesses that are typically ~1.1 mm. Machining stylus profilers are not able to accurately measure thin films less than 500nm. Optical profilers are not able to accurately measure transparent thin films.