Efforts to Increase Utilization & Reduce the Subsidy for a Mid-Size Cleanroom Facility

The annual operating budget of the University of Louisville's 10,000 ft2 100/1000 class cleanroom or the Micro/Nano Technology Center is heavily subsidized to cover salaried expenses by the engineering school of the University of Louisville (Speed School of Engineering). Expenses of the cleanroom include liquid nitrogen, gowning supplies, chemicals, compressed gas cylinders, sputtering targets, glassware, maintenance, repairs, etc. It is expected that these expenses are paid via cleanroom fees, while the salaried positions are subsidized. Yet, aging of the facility has increased expenses and the MNTC has been challenged to cover its operational expenses via collected cleanroom fees. Additionally, budget cuts from the state of Kentucky have given the impetus to reduce the subsidy from the engineering school and increase cleanroom revenue by means of increasing internal users, external users and service center work. In order to face this challenge, data was collected from other cleanroom facilities via the labnetwork to gain a better understanding of general operations and rate structures. Questions included were: 1. How many users do you have per month? 2. How many faculty use the cleanroom? 3. How many engineering, admin and IT people do you employ? 4. What is the square footage of your cleanroom? 5. What is your fee structure for internal and external clients? 6. Do you charge an access fee to the cleanroom? If so, it per hour, day or month? 7. Do your collected cleanroom fees cover your operational expenses or do you receive a subsidy? 8. If you receive a subsidy what percentage of your subsidy supports your operating budget? 9. Do you have a faculty advisory board that assists with determining direction of the cleanroom? If so, what kind of input do they offer? 10. What methods of communication do you utilize with your users? 11. Is training scheduled with users or is it offered on a regularly scheduled basis. 12. Do you charge for wafers, chemical usage, glassware, tweezers, cleanroom notebooks, etc. or are these incorporated with your fee structure? 13. How do you generate billing/invoice information for each user? 14. If you have a system that automatically captures usage at each tool did you implement a turnkey package or develop your own system? From this data and a thorough review of financial activities of the MNTC, changes were set into motion immediately with the development long term initiatives to help reduce the subsidy. These initiatives include the following: Short Term Implemented Measures 1. Development of a new cleanroom rate structure that was more effective in capturing tool usage. 2. Implement charges for wafers, photomasks, and dicing and training 3. Increase presence locally and regional through advertising and marketing. 4. Increase scrutiny over expenses and resolve outstanding invoices. 5. Generation of a Faculty Advisory Board (FAB) to provide idea stimulus, develop internal collaborations and operational guidance to the cleanroom. 6. Introduce the facility to potential users beyond chemistry, physics and engineering (i.e. School of Medicine). 7. Offer assistance to help faculty develop and write grants for cleanroom oriented research. Long Term Measures to be implemented: 1. Investigation of automated systems for the capture of tool usage. 2. Encourage the University of Louisville to acquire strategic junior faculty or power users to utilize the cleanroom. 3. Attract endowments for each bay of the cleanroom. 4. Reimbursement for tours. 5. Incorporate/develop more laboratory classes.