Cleanroom

A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space that maintains a very low concentration of airborne <a href="/facts/Particulates/RleGr5E6">particulates</a>. It is well-isolated, well-controlled from <a href="/facts/Contamination/RC0L7KRy">contamination</a>, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientific research and in industrial production for all nanoscale processes, such as <a href="/facts/Semiconductor_device_fabrication/Jd23Mu1z">semiconductor device manufacturing</a>. A cleanroom is designed to keep everything from dust to airborne organisms or vaporised particles away from it, and so from whatever material is being handled inside it.
A cleanroom can also prevent the escape of materials. This is often the primary aim in hazardous <a href="/facts/Biological_engineering/N8WPz0P7">biology</a>, <a href="/facts/Nuclear_engineering/wu26D25C">nuclear work</a>, <a href="/facts/Pharmaceutical_industry/5mCITYys">pharmaceutics</a>, and <a href="/facts/Virology/doDESmsB">virology</a>.
Cleanrooms typically come with a cleanliness level quantified by the number of particles per cubic meter at a predetermined molecule measure. The ambient outdoor air in a typical urban area contains 35,000,000 particles for each cubic meter in the size range 0.5 μm and bigger, equivalent to an ISO 9 certified cleanroom. By comparison, an <a href="/facts/ISO_14644/S7JgJcEV">ISO 14644</a>-1 level 1 certified cleanroom permits no particles in that size range, and just 12 particles for each cubic meter of 0.3 μm and smaller. Semiconductor facilities often get by with level 7 or 5, while level 1 facilities are exceedingly rare.

Cleanroom open-in-new

Cleanroom