The Design and Building of the Draper Laboratory Microfabrication Center

Draper is a not-for-profit research and development laboratory focused on the design, development, and deployment of advanced technological solutions for our nation's most challenging and important problems in security, space exploration, healthcare, and energy. Since the late 1980's, Draper has been performing research and development in the areas of MEMS and Multichip Modules (MCM). Two separate laboratories have been utilized by Draper over the past 25 years in pursuit of this research. When these laboratories were constructed cleanroom technology was is in its mid-life cycle. Class 100 laboratory spaces were common, with local Class 10 areas needed to control particles in critical process areas. The MCM lab at Draper is Class 10000 with local Class 1000 areas supporting line/space processes of 25 microns. The MEMS lab at Draper is Class 1000 with Class 100 areas and supports line/space process of ~2-5 microns. Due to customer requirements and industry road maps, Draper must support MCM technology down to 5 micron line/space and MEMS technology down to a 1 micron line space or smaller. Therefore, Draper needs to upgrade its cleanroom laboratories. This paper will discuss the rationale used by Draper Laboratory to design its new Microfabrication Center. We will discuss the trade-offs required to retrofit a state-of-the-art processing facility into a building built in the 1970's. Expanding on that theme, we will discuss how the design specifications were defined, how we selected an architecture firm, construction manager (CM) and the pros and cons of using a Commissioning Agent (Cx). We will discuss the construction and commissioning aspects of the project, which is due to be completed in September 2012.