Microprobe WDS Software Specification

for

UCB

Department of Geology

August, 1994

 

 

Table of Contents

A. General Requirements
B. Inclusion of Vendor's Technical Proposal into this Specification
C. Preliminary Testing by Vendor Prior to Shipping
D. Installation and Acceptance Testing
E. On Site Training
F. Documentation
G. Technical Specifications and Requirements

1. Microprobe analytical, acquisition and automation software

H. Quantitative acceptance tests to be performed by UCB
I. Miscellaneous

A. General Requirements

The vendor shall furnish all facilities, labor, and materials to provide goods and services in accordance with the terms and conditions described in this specification for both the hardware and software. The Vendor shall maintain an inventory of spare and repair parts and such tools and instruments as necessary to properly and efficiently maintain the equipment for the life of the equipment. Spare parts and consumables must be obtainable within a maximum of 20 working days after a purchase order number is received by the Vendor. The specifications listed in this document are the minimum requirements for the Department of Geology and Geophysics microprobe.

Please provide a detailed competitive price quotation for each major component, device or feature. Please quote each price and the system total on a duty free basis (however please include California sales tax @8.25 % and inland transportation costs) as we will be applying for a customs duty exemption. The prices quoted should reflect any educational discounts that can be applied to a non-profit educational organization purchase.

Please include in the quotation any additional equipment or software and pricing that will be required to efficiently operate all equipment features specified in this document if they are not standard equipment or not explicitly stated in the specifications.

A catalog and current price list of all spare parts and assemblies shall be provided by the Vendor with the equipment.

 

B. Inclusion of Vendor's Technical Proposal into this Specification

The Vendor's technical proposal entitled, [ ] dated [ ], is incorporated by reference and made a part of this contract. In the event of any inconsistency between the provisions of this contract and the Vendor's technical proposal, the contract provisions in this document take precedence.

 

C. Preliminary Testing by Vendor Prior to Shipping

Documentation of performance in accordance with following preliminary specifications shall be provided by the Vendor before shipping the equipment. The seller shall provide the necessary personnel, equipment and facilities to conduct these same acceptance tests and the other specifications described in section G. below entitled "Technical Specifications" on the installed equipment, unless this document specifically states that UCB (University of California at Berkeley) shall provide the items required.

Preliminary Performance Specifications to be Received by UCB Prior to Equipment Shipping :

- Software specifications 1a, 1c, 1d, 1g, 1h

 

D. Installation and Acceptance Testing

Acceptance of the equipment shall be based upon completion of installation and after testing of equipment hardware/software performance on site at UCB, McCone hall, Berkeley, CA by personnel selected by UCB.

The equipment shall meet ALL specifications described in this specification and the Vendors included proposal (with appropriate calculated scale factors at UCB's normal operating condition of 15 KeV). The equipment shall meet the specifications before acceptance and again 1 year after acceptance.

The acceptance tests shall be performed on samples provided by the Department of Geology at UCB, including thin sections, polished mounts of minerals and oxides and metal elements and alloys. Final payment will be made after all acceptance tests have been completed and the equipment meets all specifications in this document.

The Vendor shall provide all parts, materials, labor, and transportation required to perform preventive and remedial maintenance on the equipment during the installation and acceptance testing period. The maintenance services shall also be performed in accordance with the terms, conditions, and statement of work set forth herein. The Vendor's warranty shall not begin until the equipment has passed all acceptance tests and meets all technical specifications described in this document.

Preventive maintenance shall include, but not be limited to, cleaning, adjusting, inspecting, and testing procedures to keep the equipment in good operating condition, preclude equipment failures to the greatest extent possible, and extend useful equipment life. It includes running of all diagnostics, and repair and replacement of all defective parts.

Remedial Maintenance shall include replacement of parts that do not meet the specifications or requirements described in this document. This includes all transportation, labor and parts required for the parts replacement or upgrade.

All parts, materials, and components, including expendable items, shall be replaced when necessary during the installation and acceptance testing period at no additional cost to the University. Replaced parts shall become the property of the Vendor.

The work to be performed shall be in accordance with the original equipment Vendor's specifications and recommendations. All services are to be performed by competent personnel, experienced and highly qualified to provide required services in accordance with the best commercial practices, without unnecessary delays or interference with University functions.

 

E. On Site Training

Training for one designated personnel for the equipment in the operation of all hardware and software shall be provided at destination. Training shall be approximately one to two weeks in length, and be conducted during regular business hours Monday through Friday.

 

F. Documentation

Documentation manuals shall be provided for the equipment, that clearly and completely describe hardware and software operation, troubleshooting, and maintenance of all components. All vendor supplied dynamic link library (DLL) interfaces shall be completely documented so that UCB may write programs in C, C++ or Visual Basic to access them. Several code examples in Visual Basic shall be supplied to demonstrate the ability to interface to the Vendor's DLLs and access microprobe functions.

All manuals for Vendor supplied third-party items such as the computer boards and interface cables shall be provided. All documentation shall be provided in English.

General interconnect and wiring schematics in English shall be provided by the Vendor. Detailed schematics shall be available from the vendor in the event that UCB might make future modifications to the hardware interface.

 

G. Technical Specifications and Requirements

The Department of Geology at the University of California requires a state-of-the-art microprobe automation acquisition and analysis software package and EDS analyzer system to conduct its research programs.

The software automation and acquisition system must fully and completely support all instrument and control features of the current instrument platforms of either the JEOL (8900) or Cameca (SX-51) instruments and either of the 3rd party EDS detector hardware/software systems (Kevex Sigma, Link Isis, Edax DX-4, etc.). This software-hardware system shall be able to both qualitatively and quantitatively analyze and image (using both WDS and EDS data) all elements from B to U and must meet the following additional requirements :

1. Microprobe analytical, acquisition and automation software :

a) Microsoft Windows 3.1 based high level (e.g., C, C++, Visual Basic or FORTRAN) programs running on an IBM PC or compatible, which supports complete qualitative and quantitative X-ray microanalysis, image acquisition (SE, BSE, WDS and EDS X-ray, Optical), processing and analysis, data and image storage, retrieval, and graphical output, and sample stage, beam and spectrometer positioning and scanning analytical routines and all instrument control for PHA, electron column and operating hardware.

Licenses (and any hardware copy protection devices if necessary) shall be provided for running two copies of the vendor software simultaneously on separate computers. This is to allow UCB to one copy for on-line for acquisition and analysis and another copy for off-line processing of spectra, calculation of quantitative data and image processing of previously acquired spectra, data and x-ray maps.

b) fully documented application programming interface (API) shall be provided for the automation, acquisition and analysis programs. This is to allow UCB to develop software to interface directly to the Vendor's low level hardware/software routines. All vendor software upgrades shall be provided at no extra cost to UCB for 5 years.

c) the software shall be capable of acquiring the standard calibration data in exactly the same manner (number of elements analyzed, count times, etc.) as the unknowns.

- it shall be possible, to have as a default option, the ability to perform a complete data acquisition on each or all standards for all elements in the run. The complete data for each standard shall be saved and allow for standard re-assignments and comparison of primary and secondary standard analyses.

- the concentration of elements present but not currently analyzed for, in the primary and secondary standards, shall be automatically loaded into the run configuration as elements specified by fixed concentration for each standard sample. This will facilitate the analysis of standards by allowing for the matrix correction of unanalyzed elements.

d) an option shall be provided for the user to specify an external calculation of the background, interference, and area-peak-factor (APF), loss of volatile element and ZAF or Phi-Rho-Z corrections via a user written application. The external program shall be provided with an ASCII input file of all the required raw data, including, but not limited to :

- the sample names and types, the deadtime and beam drift corrected x-ray intensities in counts per second for all pertinent unknown samples and the actual count time for each element

- the standard compositions and deadtime and beam drift corrected x-ray intensities in counts per second and the actual count time for each element in the calibration standard(s)

- the output file created by the user written shall be displayed in the main automation/analysis program and should allow cut and paste to other applications of the calculated results

e) qualitative x-ray microanalysis software shall provide wavelength scan data acquisition, sample step-scan data acquisition, automatic peak identification, and graphical display/manipulation of data

f) wavelength scan peak identification and peak markers shall display :

- ALL (K, L, M, N, a, b, g, etc.) x-ray lines capable of being generated at the current operating voltage and must also include all valid higher order reflections (up to 9th order) as well, in addition to all satellite lines and absorption edges.

- each x-ray line marker must be labeled using standard (Siegbahn) nomenclature (e.g., Ba Lb5 II for barium L-beta 5, 2nd order line)

-the height of the x-ray line markers should indicate the approximate intensity with higher orders displayed at a user defined decrease in height for each subsequent order

g) the quantitative x-ray microanalysis software shall provide complete routines for :

- instrument and standards parameters setup and recall of instrument setups from previous runs

- element and spectral line selection (Ka, La and Ma) standardization and calibration and recall of standard position and intensity calibrations from previous runs

- off-peak background measurement with a user option of averaged, interpolated/extrapolated slope (default) or single side off-peak measurements

- manual and automated sample positioning (X, Y, and Z coordinates) for both quantitative standard and unknown data acquisition and qualitative wavelength scanning

- support for x, y and z coordinate transformation of pre-digitized standard and/or unknown coordinate files using 3 fiducial marks for translation, scaling and rotation of coordinates systems

- calculation of integrated and peak intensities for wavelength scan data (peak deconvolution of WDS data desired but not required)

h) the quantitative software options :

- provide simultaneous WDS and EDS data acquisition and be capable of accepting EDS and WDS data either alone or in combination

- provide capability for analysis and reduction of a minimum of 32 elements or oxides (40 preferred), including calculating an element by difference, by stoichiometry, by fixing formulas proportional to oxygen and/or by including fixed concentrations of selected elements (such as carbon)

- oxide cation ratios can be defined by the user during the analytical run for the calculation of oxygen whether calculated by stoichiometry or measured; if measured the calculated oxygen must be subtracted from the measured and the difference displayed

- a standard database that can store up to 1000 standards with 32 elements (40 preferred) each and include support for composition input by element weight percent, oxide weight percent (with default or user specified oxide cation ratios), mole or atomic percents or formula atoms; search for standard compositions that meet a user specified compositional range, calculate and display elemental k-ratio and matrix correction factors for each element in a specified standard; import a standard composition from an ASCII file; output selected or all standard compositions to an ASCII file

- provide correction routines for x-ray intensity data by atomic number, absorption, and fluorescence (ZAF), x-ray emission vs. depth/density [f(pz) or PAP] (Armstrong CITZAF silicate Phi-Rho-Z algorithm preferred), or calculated or user calibrated alpha factor methods utilizing the 2nd order polynomial fit method by John Armstrong (a vs. C)

- provide a option for different MAC (mass absorption coefficient) data (for example Heinrich vs. Henke vs. Pouchou) reference tables and allow the user the option to specify empirically derived MACs on an individual basis

- provide quantitative mapping (X, Y) capability using stage grid stepping and output of calculated weight percent/atomic percent/formulas as 3-D surface plot or color flood contour plots with title and axis labels

- be able to perform a complete multiple analysis sequence of standard and digitized unknowns (random points, traverses and x-y rectangular and polygon defined grid patterns) without operator intervention

- provide complete saving of all instrument settings and user specified analytical options to disk and the ability to recall any sample raw data for further recalculation and to allow restarting the saved run or starting a new run based on a previous run instrument setup

i) the digital imaging software shall provide for :

- digital x-ray images at 1024 x 1024 x 8 bits per pixel (2048 X 2048 by 16 bits per pixel preferred) to be acquired using the WDS spectrometer PHA signals and/or EDS detector ROI signals. The images must be capable of being stored to hard disk or optical storage media in a TIFF or other standard image format

- digital image capture resolution for either BSE or SE signals must be at least 1024 X 1024 pixels by 8 bits per pixel (2048 X 2048 pixels by 16 bits per pixel preferred) with output capability to hard disk or magneto-optical storage media in a TIFF or other standard image format

- light optical image digitizing, and storage capability shall be provided up to 1024 X 1024 pixels X 8 bits per pixel (2048 X 2048 pixels X 16 bits per pixel preferred) with output capability to hard disk or magneto-optical storage media in a TIFF or other standard image format

 

H. Quantitative acceptance tests to be performed by UCB :

The following analytical tests shall be performed for evaluation of the quantitative analysis and automation system at UCB :

- replicate analysis (10 seconds counts on-peak and off-peak will be made on standards for Mg (MgO), Al (Al2O3), Si (SiO2) and Fe (synthetic fayalite). This will be followed by 20 analyses of a mineral standard selected by UCB with the stage programmed to move to various points over the sample. The standard analyses will be repeated. The operating conditions will be 15 KeV and 5 - 50 nA in a fully automated mode. Automatic control of the beam current and beam focus shall be possible for both standards and unknowns during the automation.

- the raw intensities and backgrounds will be printed out along with the integrated beam current. Quantitative analyses for all elements in oxide weight percent of both the standards and unknowns will be printed out along with the averages, standard deviations, standard errors, P/B, k-ratios, ZAF correction factors and for the standards the variance from the value entered in the standard database for each element

- the mole percents, formula based on oxygen (if applicable to the sample), results in elemental weight percent (including O), detection limits at several different confidence levels and level of homogeneity will be calculated and displayed

- this procedure shall be repeated using additional elements (2 per spectrometer) and additional standards. The standards and unknown analyses will be automated and repeated at least 10 times for an overnight run without operator intervention

 

I. Miscellaneous :

If this Purchase Order, including those documents forming a part hereof by reference or incorporation, provides for or requires the submission of any work to UCB for approval, any such approval given by UCB prior to final acceptance shall not relieve the seller of its responsibility for complying with the specifications and other provisions of this Purchase Order. Any such approval shall not be construed as an assumption by UCB of the responsibility that such work complies with or will comply with the specifications or other provisions of this Purchase Order.

 

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