Feb 1, 2006 Note : An updated website is available here : Updated Website

About H & L Associates

H & L Associates is an electronics engineering consulting firm which has been in operation since 1980. A portion of our work involves the design of custom, real-time control and data acquisition systems. As a result of one such design, we have developed retrofit products for a line of photolithography cameras and steppers originally made by D.W. Mann/GCA Corp. and used in the manufacture of photomasks for the semiconductor fabrication industry..

Support for D. W. Mann/GCA Pattern Generators and Steppers

Mann Format Data File Support Products

Pattern Generator Related Information

Future products, Freeware and Other Information

Our support products for the GCA 3600 pattern generator and GCA 3696 stepper required the development of a UNIBUS to 16-bit ISA bus bridge. We can arrange to supply this product as a separate item if so desired.DBit produces a PDP-11 emulator for the PC (ERSATZ-11) which will support this bridge product for those who may need to maintain PDP-11 software but don't want the problems related to maintaining the hardware.

We have actually done an upgrade for an old Jade 4M-10XY Step and repeat camera for Carleton University. It replaces the box of tubes and switches with an IBM-PC and a custom interface box. The high voltage power supply for the Xenon flash unit was repackaged. We couldn't imagine there being more of these cameras in existence (the technology is circa 1968) but if you need help, let us know.

GCA apparently stopped producing pattern generators after the GCA 3600F model, but continued making steppers and direct step on wafer (DSW) equipment e.g. GCA 4800, 6000, 6300, 8000, ALS etc. We have finished testing our upgrade kits for the line of steppers based on DEC 11/53 (or better) CPUs running RSX-11M+ and MOP versions 6.xx to 7.xx. Please contact us if you would like more information.

As part of a CIF (Caltech Intermediate Form) to DXF conversion option for UPGUTILS, we developed a simple DOS programme to perform most of this conversion. It won't process any of the transformations specified in the CIF 'CALL' command, but will handle all other basic CIF commands. If nothing else, it should allow you to view and print most CIF files using any DXF compatible CAD software (e.g. AutoCAD). You can download CIF2DXF.ZIP here. The software was tested on a limited set of Cadence files under a simple DOS environment so please contact us if you have any problems running this software or find errors in the conversion results. Note that some CIF files DEFINE a single enormous symbol and CALL it once. This may result in a large DXF file with a large BLOCK definition and a single INSERT command which some CAD packages may not be able to handle.

As part of a GDS II to DXF conversion option for UPGUTILS, we developed a simple DOS programme to perform a GDS to text conversion. This programme expands the stream codes of a GDS II file into a more easily readable form and then sends the results to a text file. You can download GDS2TXT.ZIP here. Again, please let us know if you have any problems running this software or find errors in the conversion results.

As part of the UPG_STEP development, we produced a programme that will let the user browse through the directory structure of PC files that represent binary images of Files-11/ODS-1 compatible drives. Files-11/ODS-1 is the file structure used in Digital Equipment Corp's RSX-11M operating system.The user is able to find, view and extract data files from within the Files-11 image file. You can download the F11BROWS.EXE programme from here.

Contact us

H & L Associates, 21 Parkmount Crescent, Suite 103, 

Nepean, Ontario K2H 5T3 Canada
Tel: (613) 828-1462

FAX: (613) 828-6876 e-mail

copyright H&L Associates, 1997,1998
Maintained by P. Scott Harris, M.Eng., P.Eng.

created January 16, 1998.....last updated July 27, 1998