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Updating the Beaglehole Instruments Control Software ------------------------------------------------------------- release 22may03 NOTE: If you have not updated your Beaglehole Instruments software in a while, you may find that a number of things have changed after installing this update. If your Measurement Controller does not support the 'Sampling factor' data aquisition scheme yet, you should adjust your configuration to improve the performance of the ellipsometer. This is described below. NOTE: This update contains the Beaglehole Instruments ellipsometry analysis system for analysing spectroscopic and variable angle measurements of multilayer samples. This software is described in the separate 'Analysis Manual', available from Beaglehole Instruments. NOTE: This update fixes a significant issue with the data display of the Beaglehole Instruments ellipsometry analysis system. NOTE: This release of Beaglehole Instruments Igor procedures requires Igor 4.07 or later! NOTE: This archive is for updating an existing installation. An installation CD for the Beaglehole Instruments control software is supplied with every instrument. Before beginning installation please read the license conditions contained within the file "LICENSE.TXT". Installation of this software indicates acceptance of the license terms set forth within that file. Please read this carefully before installing. Notes for this release can be found in the file "history_01apr03.txt". List of files: LICENCE.TXT Conditions of use of the software. Please read this. User Procedures A folder containing a number of Igor procedure files which make up the Igor software interface. Materials A folder containing material definition files for use with the ellipsometry analysis system. bictrl_update_2.33.1.pxp An Igor experiment containing an installer for the latest version of the Measurement Controller operating system. history_22may03.txt Version history of Beaglehole Instruments software updates. readme_update_22may03.txt This file. manual_supplement_15may03.pdf An electronic document in PDF format that describes the new features added by this software release. It uses the same format as the BI manuals and can be printed to supplement existing printed manuals. Update instructions: 1) Update Igor Pro on your system to the latest release (version 4.07 at the time of this writing). The updater can be downloaded from the Wavemetrics web site at http://www.wavemetrics.com. 2) Make sure that Igor is not running. 3) Copy all the files in the 'User Procedures' folder to C:\Program Files\WaveMetrics\Igor Pro Folder\User Procedures When asked if you want to overwrite the existing files with the newer ones, click 'Yes to all'. 4) If you want to use the ellipsometry analysis system and haven't used it before, copy the folder named "Materials" into the "Beaglehole Instruments" folder inside the "Igor Pro Folder". 5) Start Igor. 6) Load the Igor experiment file 'bictrl_update_2.33.1.pxp' and follow the instructions in the experiment to update the Measurement Controller software. If you have problems with the update, please contact Beaglehole Instruments at support@beaglehole.com. Adjusting the Measurement Controller configuration: If you have a Picometer Ellipsometer, and your system did not have the 'Sampling factor' data acquisition scheme installed before this update, you should adjust the instrument configuration to get the best performance from ellipsometry measurements. The 'Sampling Factor' setting controls a new method of averaging multiple readings of the data acquisition hardware, resulting in lower noise. The method is described in detail in the manual supplement (manual_supplement_01apr03.pdf). In order to set up the signal averaging, open the Controller Configuration panel from the 'bi' menu after you have finished the update installation process. In the 'Picometer' section of the panel, set the 'Sampling factor' value to 2. The 'Lock-in wait factor' should be set to 4. In addition, it should be checked that the block averaging for individual analog input channels is set to 1. The block averaging scheme is superseded by the sampling factor scheme. In order to do this, open the Controller Configuration (as above) and do the following: - In the device section in the center of the panel, select 'ADC' from the popup menu. - In the 'unit' field of the 'ADC' section, enter '4' and hit 'Return' (this is the input channel for the DC signal). - In the 'averaging' field, enter '1' and hit return. - Click the 'send' button underneath the 'averaging' field. - Repeat the above steps for units 7 and 8 (the lock-in readout channels). - Click the 'Save Config' button at the bottom of the Controller Configuration panel. Note that a 'Sampling factor' setting larger than zero increases the measurement time by the lock-in integration time times the sampling factor setting. This is explained in more detail in the manual supplement that is part of this software update. Please report any bugs in the software to support@beaglehole.com. We can only fix them if we know about them! We also appreciate positive and negative feedback on any aspect of our software. Beaglehole Instruments http://www.beaglehole.com (c) beaglehole instruments 2000-2003

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