Clean Rooms and Duct Tape

Posted on February 22, 2012 by micheals

In the days, months and years immediately following the September 11th, 2001 attacks, threats to national security seemed to be popping up out of nowhere, some credible, some incredible. I remember, for example, when fear of coordinated biological warfare became evident in news coverage and in the repertoires of comedians. If I remember correctly, people began stocking up on duct tape. The rumor that duct tape would protect a home in the event of Continue reading →

Industrial Clean Rooms – Reality vs Unreality

Posted on February 14, 2012 by micheals

Hard Drive Manufacturing Clean Room

Hard drive manufacturing in an industrial clean room – image source

You might not think of clean rooms as being industrial utilities. Many people might instead picture scenes from a Dustin Hoffman movie involving the Ebola virus when they hear the words “clean room.” But the fact is that clean rooms are actually rather common in a variety of industrial contexts. This has become increasingly true as electronics have become more important to our economy. As those electronics become more advanced, the conditions under which they must be Continue reading →

The Responsibility of Clean Room Manufacturers

Posted on January 25, 2012 by micheals

Clean room manufacturers deal in trust as much as they do in clean rooms. I remember hearing once that the medical profession is the only profession from which perfection is always demanded. At the time I heard that, it seemed like a sensible enough declaration. When medical professionals and technology are unreliable, people can suffer for it. But you don’t have to think too hard before you can think of other examples of professions in which failure is not an option. You don’t want the Continue reading →

High Tech Fabrication in Semiconductor Clean Rooms

Posted on January 10, 2012 by micheals

Ever heard of Moore’s law? The law states, basically, that approximately every two years, the number of transistors that can be included in an integrated circuit doubles. In other words, every two years, the amount of necessary space occupied by the transistors in a computer gets cut in half. The expression of Moore’s law is that on an ongoing basis, computers are becoming smaller and smaller. Why is this? There are two reasons. First: investment in new computer technology is never in Continue reading →

Laminar Clean Rooms and Bubble Boy

Posted on December 29, 2011 by micheals

I’ve long been a fan of the T.V. show, Seinfeld. In case you’re not familiar with the show, it’s a situational comedy written by real-life comedian Jerry Seinfeld in which he and the rest of the cast, over the course of nine seasons, act out series of observational comedy-related vignettes in half-hour increments. I’m reminded of an episode that featured a minor character who had to be permanently housed in a bubble in order to compensate for his diminished immune system. On and off during Continue reading →

Clean Room Air Showers are Important Clean Room Accessories

Posted on December 13, 2011 by micheals

Air showers – you’ve probably seen them in science fiction movies. They’re the equipment that is responsible for the burst of air or other gasses when a person enters certain kinds of clean rooms with strict air quality regulation requirements. There exist types of clean rooms that are so rigidly controlled in terms of their air contaminant tolerance levels that it is necessary to install peripheral contaminant control and elimination utilities like air showers. Air showers are used to dislodge or otherwise remove contaminants from the Continue reading →

Advanced Research and Manufacturing Clean Rooms

Posted on December 5, 2011 by micheals

On November 26, NASA launched its latest excursion to the surface of Mars; 244 days from now, the Curiosity probe is scheduled to touch down on the surface of Mars. The 2,000 lbs, nuclear powered rover has been described by NASA officials as the most advanced scientific laboratory ever created, and it is planned that the rover will operate for a little less than 700 days on the planet, collecting and analyzing soil and rock samples, taking photos and sending all of its findings back to earth. It is one of NASA’s most ambitious projects ever, and it all began in a clean room.

Curiosity Lift Off

Liftoff on November 26 of the Mars Science Laboratory Continue reading →

The Importance of Clean Room Clothing

Posted on November 14, 2011 by micheals

The words “clean room” are just as likely to evoke images of people in protective clothing as they are to evoke images of actual rooms and equipment. As important as all of the constituent equipment in a clean room is, the protective clothing often worn by users of clean rooms is just as important as much of the actual clean room equipment. This is true for a number of reasons. One of the principal purposes that clean rooms serve is air contaminant control. Humans are a primary source of air contaminants. They generate and shed dead skin cells, which contribute in very Continue reading →

Clean Room Companies: Equipment and Systems

Posted on October 31, 2011 by micheals

There are two kinds of buyers when it comes to clean rooms: equipment buyers and unit buyers (to learn more about clean rooms, see the brief informational video above). Equipment buyers are companies or representatives of companies who procure parts for existing clean rooms. Some of these parts can include work benches, fans, lighting systems and even larger, more complicated equipment such as air showers and replacement wall paneling. Unit buyers are buyers who buy entire clean room systems, either for the creation of a new clean room environment Continue reading →

ISO Clean Room Guidelines

Posted on October 18, 2011 by micheals

If you were to take special instrumentation and collect a sample of the air that you’re breathing at this moment, you’d be likely to find, once you brought the air to a laboratory, that it contains a certain level of contamination. The list of the contaminants you would probably find is likely to include particles of organic origin such as dead skin and dander as well as contaminants from non-animal sources; pollen is an example of such a contaminant. Depending on the context, the presence of these and other contaminants in sufficient quantities can be disruptive. This can be Continue reading →

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