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What is Cleanroom?

Cleanroom is an enclosed area utilized to manufacture electronics, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, solar panels or life science products. It is designed to maintain low levels of particulates, such as dust, airborne organisms, or vaporized particles. The air entering the cleanroom is filtered to exclude dust and any particles and the air inside is constantly circulated through high efficiency filters to remove any internally generated particles.

A cleanroom is an area or enclosure in which the air has to be cleaned to a defined particle limits. Particle limits are defined in “particles per cubic foot”. In the United States most cleanrooms are discussed in terms of Classification Limits. For example, a “Class 1000” cleanroom means that a maximum of only 1000 particles that are 0.5 microns in size would be allowed in a cubic foot of air. A micron is equivalent to one millionth of a meter.

A typical office building air contains from 500,000 to 1,000,000 particles (0.5 microns or larger) per cubic foot of air. A Class 100 cleanroom is designed to never allow more than 100 particles (0.5 microns or larger) per cubic foot of air. Class 1000 and Class 10,000 cleanrooms are designed to limit particles to 1000 and 10,000 respectively as described in the following table.
 

ISO 14644-1 cleanroom standards

Class Maximum Particles/m³ FED STD 209E Equivalent
≥0.1 µm ≥0.2 µm ≥0.3 µm ≥0.5 µm ≥1 µm ≥5 µm
ISO 1 10 2.37 1.02 0.35 0.083 0.0029
ISO 2 100 23.7 10.2 3.5 0.83 0.029
ISO 3 1,000 237 102 35 8.3 0.29 Class 1
ISO 4 10,000 2,370 1,020 352 83 2.9 Class 10
ISO 5 100,000 23,700 10,200 3,520 832 29 Class 100
ISO 6 1.0×106 237,000 102,000 35,200 8,320 293 Class 1,000
ISO 7 1.0×107 2.37×106 1,020,000 352,000 83,200 2,930 Class 10,000
ISO 8 1.0×108 2.37×107 1.02×107 3,520,000 832,000 29,300 Class 100,000
ISO 9 1.0×109 2.37×108 1.02×108 35,200,000 8,320,000 293,000 Room air