>Our photoresist spinner died last week and we are looking for a new one.
>I found several manufacturers of small benchtop spinners - Headway,
>Laurell, Cost Effective Equipment (part of Brewer Science) and SCS
>(Specialty Coating System). Does anyone have experience, good or bad,
>with these spinners? Are there others that I should be looking into?

Winston -

We have bought about 10 Headway spinners over the past 15 years. They seem
like pretty good machines. The main failure mode is too much
acetone/photoresist being sucked down the vacuum line which ruins the motor
bearings after a few years. Motor replacement is about $1K.

We had one of the Laurell plastic machines (the very low end one) for a
dedicated HF process - it seemed fine for that and general wafer drying,
but I don't think that model had motor speed control. I know they make
speed copntrolled models also.

We also have a Solitec spin coater/developer setup which uses an offset
motor and belt drive arrangement for bearing protection. We don't have
enough experience with it yet to predict its lifetime.

good luck with your search,

Jim



 - Jim Beall 303-497-5989
   beall@boulder.nist.gov