Grandma get well soon

My grandma is right now lying on a hospital bed under heavy dependency. A week ago my mum called me during workhours to tell me that grandma was very sick. On Sunday, I went back to see her. When I saw her, I was shocked to see a pale 80 plus year old lady on her bed. She could not move herself except for some hand gestures and she could not talk. Breathing from her mouth, what she had left functioning properly was her eyes. Even then her left eye could hardly open.

Monday I had to come back with a heavy heart. I worked through and yesterday I called to check how the hospital check up went. My mum told me that her kidneys failed and required a few life support systems. I cried soon after that phone call....

Only two weeks ago when I went back, I chatted with her. I bought them some heong piah to eat. In my younger days, my granddad used to buy home those after work. My grandfolks have been on semi strict diet since a few years back. So I know they have not had these for the longest time. I know they'd enjoy it. Before I left hometown, my grandma told me to take good care of myself.... because she can't be here to take care of me. I felt really touched.

When I saw her on Sunday, she vigorously shook my hand as if she'd wanted to tell me something. I didn't understand what it meant. I saw it in her eyes, she'd meant something, but at that time I interpreted it as she wanted some water. Later I asked my mum what it could have meant. My mum said it was probably due to the Parkinson's. I hardly think so now. I think she wanted to tell me that it wasn't her time yet, and she didn't want to leave us.

I have lived beside my grandfolks all my life. For the past 10 years I have been studying and working outside of the country and only occassionally went back home. I really appreciate their company and the fact that they are just next door. I grew up knowing that my grandfolks are near me, and that I am not so alone. For as long as I can remember, Chinese New Year eves we'd always stayed up till past midnight and burnt incense, then tea ceremony. Now I can only pray that next year it be the same... everyone be there.

So there I was, at the void deck feeling - void. Phone in my hand, I sat there for the longest time. Then I went to a safe place, where my tears rolled and my words heard. 20 minutes later, I took a walk.

This afternoon, I called home. Dad said there is some improvement, as the kidney functioned slightly better today. I am praying hard that she lives through this challenging time.

Of badspins and Installations

Aiks...Its already March and my machine is coming in 3 days! Hell am I gona be busy and shit in my pants. Before I lose myself as a result of overstressing, let me confess all my sins. Yeah rite.

Moving in a new machine is a big job. This is my major project since last year and it is finally coming to the exciting part. This is also a chance for me to see a full-on installation. Incidentally, yesterday I had to put on a rushed job with a last minute modification with the mini environment with Stepper-36. Damn hell I went thru so much pain to get the mini environment raised by 8 inches. Basically its like this. My machine is called the Track. It works hand-in-hand with another machine called the Stepper and they form a machine cluster and is the mainstay of photolithography in wafer manufacturing. Now, the stepper has been brought in 3 months ago and has been churning out wafers faster than expected... and so it is a golden machine to those ppl in Industrial Engineering, Production Control and Manufacturing. But there is a problem.... to run it without a track means manual cassette loading into the machine. To do that, they have to build an enclosure with ULPA fans blowing down to create a class 1 laminar flow. This is called the mini environment. Yeah, but nobody told the Stepper Engineer who ordered the mini enviroment design that hey! the Track will come in 3 months later and as installation will take more than a month, we must find a way to run the stepper in conjunction and despite the installation. So we have a PROBLEM. Why? Because the Track will be encroaching into the mini environment but its just too tall for the latter! By a few inches. So, the initial quote by the mini environment vendor is SGD2850, and boss asked me to haggle it down to SGD2400. Screw! We r in a rush here and cannot afford to lose this vendor. Yeap, we were desperate and the vendor has to do a very rushed job on it. Finally I had to compromise by simplifying the design, and provide manpower for the leg extension installation to cut 1K off the price. 8x3 manhours later, we got the job done. Has that been worth the 1K reduction? Let's see.... you had 1 Snr Eng, 2 engrs and 4 AEs for 3 hours.... _(*$*()#^T^(#$* Time to go home...

Today was my off day, but I had to go in to make sure some mark-out on the floorboards are done by the Track vendor. Had it done before lunch. Had a meeting to attend, but ended only me and my mentor - to discuss the recent bout of badspins that has taken a toll on the morale of me and my colleagues. Then tended to Track-34 - our major badspin machine. Shish! This war on badspin on this track has taken too long.... 3 weeks already. Hopefully our measures have been conclusive today. In the past few weeks, the machine has undergone 2 pump changes, line modifications and demodifications, nozzle change, centre change and today we re-ran a new line to the resist to move to the nozzle.

Basically, working in a 10 year old fab is never the same as a in a young fab. Our machines have seen wayyyyy better days, and the process parameters keep on tightening due to demands by customers, yield enhancement activities and cost reduction measures. So if today there is a defect on product, who the hell is gonna get shit first? The process engineers or the equipment engineers? The latter, why? Coz all products run thru an equipment but defects are caught at certain specific layers only, thus mitigating most processes. We are at the wrong side of the deal here!

This week I worked 6 days including today. Sunday to Wed, I left the company no earlier than 10:30. One night I left at 1 am. I missed my sax class, and miss a life of my own. All because of badspins. And not that you will be thanked for staying back late, u get screwed for downing the machine too long, redoing checks, too much containment checks, recurring problems. Last week I din have things good as well. I had problems with badspins, wafer management, machine installation preparations and got screwed by my boss and my director. I am at war with a manufacturing manager now and I will hell piss in his cubicle if I get the chance to. That guy is a fucking arsehole.

Phew!...that sums up my two weeks.