Rob Page writes:

They use a vertically-oriented frames interface where the left frame gives you a list of the steps in the process. The current step is highlighted. The right frame is where you actually perform the current

We've thought of that, but people don't seem to work in a linear fashion, and you can't really say that selecting wafer characteristics comes before or after entering the sequence. Some people may know their desired wafers beforehand, others may not know what they want initially, or may not care very much.

step. It looks like these devices are built like sandwiches (how's that for a high-tech metaphor). Knowing what the sandwich looks like at all times (i.e., by viewing it in a separate frame) might be handy. (??)

That's pretty correct; papers presenting a new process usually contain step-by-step diagram that show adding a layer, etching the layer away, and so forth, in order to build the final structure. In fact, we want to write software to generate such diagrams based on your process sequence. (That's contingent on our finding staff to work on all this stuff.) I suspect drawing a diagram is difficult, though, one of those messy problems like pretty-printing an arbitrary graph. -- A.M. Kuchling http://starship.python.net/crew/amk/ When one has stopped loving somebody, one feels that he has become someone else, even though he is still the same person. -- Sei Shonagon, _The Pillow Book_