A method and an apparatus for forming an under bump metallurgy layer over a contact pad area on an interconnect formed over a semiconductor substrate are provided which eliminate a pretreatment process for removing native oxide on the contact pad area prior to the deposition of the under bump metallurgy layer. A stripper plates which has been positioned close to the workpiece in accordance with the thickness thereof does not press the workpiece, but draws the punch during rising out of the workpiece to transmit the striking driving force of the electric motor to the movable die holding the punch. The analysis leading to the model assumes that the electrode gap is being accurately controlled during the melting process. An assigned state is provided in which handles are assigned to a particular resource and can be dereferenced to obtain a pointer to the resource. Further, some embodiments include a telescoping funnel that can be selectively isolated from the vacuum fuel tank so that the tank can be held at vacuum pressure.