Senior Design Team sdmay19-47 • NSF Lab furnace control system
Problem Statement:
The NSF lab contains four furnaces that are used for the oxidation and doping of silicon wafers in Iowa State University's EE 432: Microelectronic Fabrication course. Currently, the three operational furnaces are controlled by two Omega CN616 PID Temperature Controllers. These controllers require 11+ steps of user input for basic operations such as setting a new furnace temperature. The lack of user friendliness has made operation by new students and researchers very difficult. Additionally, there is a seperate, older control system that operates the gas flow through 7 mass flow controllers. Some of the seven-segment displays and knobs of this control system are faulty and unreliable.
Our Solution:
To solve these issues and create a more efficient and user friendly way to operate the NSF furnaces, we are creating a comprehensive user interface that will allow researchers and students to control both the NSF Furnace temperature and mass flow controlers. The control system will supply constant, updated readouts of temperatures and settings while also proividing automated options.
