Contamination Control is the technology of conditioning the environment of manufacturing areas producing contamination-sensitive materials such as electronic devices (i.e., integrated circuits and disk drives), pharmaceuticals, aerospace parts, assemblies, and vehicles, food products, and medical devices. The cleanliness of the facilities, tooling, production and adjunct materials must be at least as clean as the devices being produced.
Initially, only particles and microorganisms were measured. Steps were taken to eliminate or reduce their numbers. Since then the issues of films, outgassing, sorption, extractables - ionic and organic are considered in building and operating cleanrooms.
There are two main aspects of Contamination Control Technology. The first is the technology itself, i.e., cleanroom design, construction, and operation, construction, cleaning, clothing, storage, and packaging materials, cleaning chemicals, filtration, tooling. etc. Cleanrooms, their classification, design, construction, and operation will be discussed in future articles.
The second aspect is discipline which deals with the activities of cleanroom personnel. This includes gowning protocols, personnel work rules, introduction of materials into the cleanroom, cleaning procedures, packaging, and other issues associated with production. Each production process will have its unique rules for establishing and maintaining cleanliness. General cleanroom discipline applies to all phases of cleanroom activities and to all who enter the cleanroom. Specifics of cleanroom discipline will be discussed in future articles.
Contamination Control is multiphasic and very demanding of the individuals who work in cleanrooms. As the features of integrated circuits get smaller and smaller and on other devices such as disk drives, the demands of contamination control increase. Cleanroom disposables must be cleaner. Other measures such as minienvironments may be used to reduce the exposure of contamination-sensitive pieces within a small area. Cleanroom disposables, cleanrooms and minienvironments will be discussed in future articles.