NRE series is a stand alone Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) system with shower head gas distribution and water cooled RF platen. It has a stainless steel cabinet and a 13” cylindrical Aluminum chamber that opens from top for wafer loading. It can accept up to 8” (200 mm) wafers. The chamber has two ports, one with a 2” window the other with a blank off for diagnostic equipment such end point detec- tion. The chamber is extremely clean in design and reaches a base pressure in the 10-7 Torr range or lower depending on the pumping package. It can be operated in the pressure range of 20 mTorr to 8 Torr. The standard pumping package consists  of  a  throttle  valve,  250  l/sec  corrosive  turbo molecular pump, sieve filter, and a 10cfm PFPE prepared mechanical pump. The RF power is provided by 600 W 13.5 MHz power supply, and an auto-tuner. The substrate DC bias is continuously monitored and reaches as high as -500 V, which is important for anisotropic etching. The system is PC controlled which allows for complete automation of the system and recipes. The real time system pressure and DC bias are displayed in graphic format, while the flow and power are displayed in alpha numeric format. Four levels of authorization Auto, Engineering, Process and Maintenance prevents unauthorized use of the system while giving maxi- mum flexibility to user for setting up recipes in Process mode and running in Auto mode with high reproducibility.  Auto load and unload is available for single wafers and cassette to cassette. Other options include high temperature platens and a larger chamber to handle 12” (300mm) wafers.