Micro & Nanofabrication Consulting
From a napkin sketch to a fully fabricated device — micro- and nanofabrication consultation and fabrication, scaled to wherever your project stands: a single process step, a series of steps or a complete process module, or a finished prototype or device. Backed by more than 25 years of hands-on experience, much of it at the Cornell NanoScale Facility.
What Gingerich Consulting offers
Whether you arrive with a finished design or just a rough idea on the back of an envelope, Gingerich Consulting can help — from a single process question through to a fully fabricated device.
Expert guidance on microfabrication and nanofabrication process development — troubleshooting, optimization, design-for-manufacturability, and technology selection for your specific application.
Hands-on execution of individual process steps or complete modules within the CNF. Ideal for teams that need specific steps performed by an experienced fabricator.
Arrive with a concept — even a rough sketch — and Gingerich Consulting will develop the process flow and fabricate at the CNF, iterating toward a finished prototype or device. Suited for proof-of-concept and small-batch production.
Ongoing advisory support for R&D teams, startups, and academic groups navigating micro and nanofabrication challenges — including feasibility assessment, process roadmaps, and vendor evaluation.
Facility access
As an independent contractor, Gingerich Consulting works as a user of two of Cornell's premier shared user facilities in Ithaca, New York — giving clients access to advanced fabrication and characterization equipment without the overhead of facility ownership. Gingerich Consulting is an independent contractor and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cornell University, the CNF, or the CCMR.
One of the premier academic nanofabrication centers in the United States — where devices are designed and built, from a single process step through a complete fabrication flow.
Capabilities include
Cornell's sister user facility for materials characterization — where fabricated samples are prepared, imaged, and analyzed, letting a project move from fabrication straight through to verification.
Capabilities include
Already have a design or process, why not hire experience?
Running your own process at the CNF means becoming a registered user and training and qualifying on each tool you need before your first run. Handing it to an experienced contractor skips all of that: you set up the CNF project, and the hands-on work gets done for you.
Research always carries unknowns — experience clears the avoidable ones out of the way.
Areas of expertise
More than two decades of hands-on work spanning implantable medical devices and neural interfaces through to core micro/nanofabrication technologies — with particular depth in flexible, biocompatible microsystems.
Selected work
A sample of micro/nanofabrication work — from cleanroom process structures to complete device assemblies.
High aspect SU-8 resist structures
Manually formed gold stud-bump (uncoined)
Manually wire-bonded test ASIC
Flexible, polymer-based microelectrode array
Implant components (mechanical mockup) shown against a US quarter for scale
Mechanical mockup of a retinal prosthesis on a model eyeball
Custom acute recording electrode array
Optically transparent recording electrode array
About
Gingerich Consulting is the independent practice of Marcus Gingerich, Ph.D. — a micro/nanofabrication engineer with more than 25 years of hands-on experience, over 20 of them working at the CNF. The most complex fabrication challenges are best solved by someone who has spent a career solving them in the cleanroom.
Fluent in both engineering and the life sciences, Marcus can translate a concept from your field into something fabricable — helping take an idea from rough concept to a finished device. His work spans implantable medical devices, neural interfaces, and flexible biocompatible microsystems, backed by three issued U.S. patents. A particular strength is anticipating where a process will run into trouble before it does.
How it works
You hold your own CNF account and are billed directly by the CNF for facility and tool use. Those charges depend on the actual time and tools a project requires, so they vary from job to job. Gingerich Consulting contracts its time and labor separately, and never fronts lab or tool expenses.
You (or your organization) register your own CNF project/account and fund the facility and tool charges directly with the CNF.
You direct the CNF to allow Gingerich Consulting to use the facility on your behalf, under your project.
Gingerich Consulting performs the fabrication (and any CCMR characterization) and bills for time and labor; the CNF bills you directly for facility use.
FAQ
Yes. As an independent contractor and long-time CNF user, Gingerich Consulting can perform your micro/nanofabrication at the CNF on your behalf — a single step, a module, or a complete device.
Yes. Alongside fabrication at the CNF, Gingerich Consulting works at the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR) for materials characterization and metrology — SEM with EDS/EDX, sample preparation and cross-sectioning, and profilometry among them. The arrangement mirrors the CNF: you set up your own CCMR account and are billed directly for facility use, and Gingerich Consulting contracts its time and labor.
You (or your organization) set up your own account at the CNF — and, for characterization work, the CCMR — and cover the facility and tool charges directly, then authorize Gingerich Consulting to use the facility on your behalf. Gingerich Consulting contracts its time and labor separately; the facility bills you directly for tool and facility use, based on actual usage.
Time and focus. Doing the hands-on work yourself means training and qualifying on each tool and climbing the learning curve for your specific process. An experienced user lets your team skip that ramp-up, and experience helps avoid many common, avoidable mistakes — though, because this is research in a shared facility, no one can promise a process free of surprises.
No — and it's worth being cautious of anyone who would. This is research and development; much of it has never been done before. The CNF is also a shared user facility, so tools and processes can drift over time and prior users' work can introduce variables outside anyone's control. Work is performed on a best-effort basis. What experience provides is a head start: sound process judgment, fewer avoidable mistakes, and a realistic read on what's feasible.
Anything from advising on or troubleshooting a process flow, to executing specific steps or modules, to complete device fabrication — drawing on both the CNF (fabrication) and the CCMR (materials characterization and sample preparation).
The core of the work — fabrication and characterization — is performed hands-on at the CNF and CCMR in Ithaca, NY. Some consulting and advisory can be handled remotely, but the fabrication itself is done on-site.
No. Gingerich Consulting is an independent contractor and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cornell University, the CNF, or the CCMR. The work is performed as an independent user of those shared facilities.
Get in touch
Share your project, your problem, or even a rough idea, and Gingerich Consulting will respond promptly to discuss whether and how it can help.
Gingerich Consulting LLC
Enfield, New York