Unit Instruments wins Motorola GEM award.

YORBA LINDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 1995--Unit Instruments Inc. announced Monday that it has won a GEM Award from a Motorola Inc. wafer fabrication facility in Phoenix.

The award, which stands for "Going the Extra Mile," was given to Unit's Bruce Grissom, an applications engineer who provides support for Unit mass flow controllers (MFCs) sold to Motorola's new wafer fab. The plant, Communications One (COM 1), manufactures parts for cellular phones and base stations.

Bruce Phillips, a senior equipment engineer at COM 1, recommended Unit and Grissom for the award. "Bruce Grissom has really been a lot of help to us. His most recent accomplishment was his help on the in-situ calibration checks on one of our newest process tools. This tool is a multichamber polysilicon/tungsten sliced deposition system.

"This system has 24 mass flow controllers and uses a wide variety of gases. We needed a way to check the calibration of these MFCs without removing them from the tool. This can often cause problems, with all the purging, recalibration and possible leaks that can go with that approach.

"When COM 1 ordered this system, removal sections in the distribution system were specified after discussions with MOS 11 equipment engineer Dan Jones. These design modifications allowed us to perform these calibrations in the tool. This tool has a one-of-a-kind gas panel, so the in-situ calibration also allowed us to check the entire gas system, from the gas cylinder to the process chamber. These checks were instrumental in this system coming on line with absolutely no problems with the gas delivery system or the MFCs."

Bob Murphy, western regional service manager for Unit, said Bruce Grissom worked nights, weekends and holidays to assist Motorola to get its new tools up and running.

"This was a critical startup," said Murphy. "I understand that the average process tool costs $54,000 an hour to run, and one tool can cost upwards of several million dollars.

"Bruce Grissom used a Unit DataCal system to do in-situ verification and diagnostics that proved the apparent MFC problems were not caused by these Unit Model 8160 MFCs. He was able to isolate the problems and trace them to several different areas of the gas process system in the tool.

"Grissom is very meticulous, a root-cause type of engineer. He did an excellent job, the kind we provide to all our customers, whether we are helping them with a critical start-up or providing support on existing equipment."

Murphy also praised Motorola's Bruce Phillips and the Motorola attitude toward the start-up. "My hat is off to Bruce Phillips. He knows his fab and he knows his tools and he knows his support. It was Motorola's idea to have this Motorola/Unit `hand-shake' partnership on this start-up. They welcomed us with open arms. It worked out well for both of us. Our MFCs came out clean and they got a lot of data they can use in setting up future fabs."

Unit Instruments, located in Yorba Linda, Calif., is the world's leading manufacturer of mass flow controllers and other gas process equipment, including the newly released SmartCable(tm) mass flow signal translator, which adds digital capabilities to existing analog MFCs, and the Model 1660, which uses a new patented design to offer six times the reliability of elastomer sealed MFCs.

Founded in 1980, Unit Instruments also manufactures computerized calibration systems, digital power supplies, mass flow meters, pressure controllers and programmable ratio controllers.

Unit recently won the "Supplier of the Year" award for 1995 from Lam Research Corp., a leading supplier of wafer processing equipment for the worldwide semiconductor industry. Unit is publicly held and listed on the NASDAQ stock market under the symbol ACLV. Unit's Internet address is http://www.unit.com for on-line product information and application support.

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