Let’s get real and down to the bottom line. What does it cost to have a SEMI S2 evaluation? Many in the industry are hesitant to divulge this information and at the end of the day…it’s what you will need to know to budget, allocate and ultimately pay to get your equipment evaluated. High Tech Design Safety knows that the more educated and informed clients are…the quicker and easier it is for everyone to get through the process and to the goal.
(Link to video also available here: https://youtu.be/nInKNVHAuCI)
This is another episode of our SEMI S2 Training with High Tech Design Safety’s CEO, Steve Barcik Amstel, where we take a small diversion in a tangential series to answer three very important questions that we get from our clients. In the first episode, Steve dealt with some of the questions that we get about what to expect when you are going into a SEMI S2 evaluation and in that very information packed video, Steve also talked about how to prepare and design your equipment for that process. In the following video, Steve drilled down on what you can expect for timing for your process… And next in this video, Steve reveals the costs and pricing that goes along with getting your SEMI S2 certification.
Let’s dig right in. As part of the scoping process early on, we will help you to understand what your costs are right away. Once we get it scoped, we will get you a quote within 24 hours. So here is the ball park…. On the very low end, you are going to see prices about $17,000 for a SEMI S2 process from beginning to end. On the high end, you are going to see prices in the $40,000 to $50,000 or $55,000 range. Now what is at each end?
At the lower end is very simple equipment with no additional hazards other than typically electrical. The equipment is very well thought out and considered design practices along the design phase. It is a piece of equipment that we can come in and evaluate and get done for you in about two weeks. That is the very, very simple end of the product process.
Now on the high end, let’s say, you have a system that is using big RF generator and pyrophoric and poisonous or toxic gases and a bunch of lasers and a bunch of other hazards. So this all really pushes the process to the upper end of the scale. We will end up doing tracer gas testing and we use an iterate process to figure out what your exhaust flow rates are. This typically takes 2 – 2.5 days to do that for one piece of equipment. If you have flammable gases in there too, we will be doing Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) testing and if you need we will look at the hazardous locations, for ATEX 60079 and NFPA 70 Class 1 Division type testing and explosion protection that you may need for that. Let’s say you are heating liquid chemicals in there, either toxic or flammable, yet another hazard we will delve into. If you have lasers in there, we will do all of the laser standard IEC 60825 and FDA CDRH Note 50, so each of these hazards typically adds time, of course, but it adds anywhere from $2000 – $5000 for normal hazards and for extensive hazards like tracer gas testing, you are looking at $10,000 – $17,000 depending on how involved that testing is.
So what you are seeing is on the low end, very simple equipment, a few weeks for most and in the $17,000 range. And for equipment with a lot of hazards expect us to be on site 5 full days or maybe 3 days one week for all of the constructional requirements and then maybe 2 or 2.5 days the following week for tracer gas. Additionally you can plan for tracer gas testing SEMI S6 and F14 for SEMI S2 testing; another $12,000 to $22,000 depending on complexity. Now for all of these costs, we also need to include travel and we have a fee-based line item for travel. That is what the costs are going to be.
You could say, I have a very simple piece of equipment, electrical only hazards or a very simple piece of equipment with electrical and maybe some wafer handling hazards…You are going to be in the $17,000 – $22,000 range. If you are doing some very complex piece of equipment with lots of gases or toxic gases you are going to be on that higher end range.
What we here at High Tech Design Safety see on average in a SEMI S2 evaluation is in the $22,000 – $25,000 or even $32,000 range and then there are the outliers of much simpler equipment or much more complex equipment.
If you like having this information, then please like and subscribe. And let us really figure out what your equipment is going to take to get evaluated. Let us do that scoping process and get you a quote so that you will know where you stand on getting your equipment approved.
