Clean Room Terminology

Clean Room Terminology

What is a Cleanroom?

An enclosed area that’s controlled environmentally over atmospheric contamination, temperature, pressure and, often, humidity.

What is a Cleanroom Air Lock:

A room attached to the Cleanroom. This room has interlocking doors and its function is to act as a buffer zone between the cleanroom and the outside atmosphere, during the transfer of material or personnel. It helps keep the cleanroom pressurized and free from infiltrating dirt.

What is a Cleanroom Air Shower:

An enclosed chamber designed to clean personnel and their garments of contamination, prior to entering the cleanroom, by means of high velocity of air jets.

Cleanroom Garments:

These are garments made of synthetic fabrics such as Nylon, Dacron, Tyvek and others. They are lint free and limit contamination from personnel.

Cleanroom HEPA filter:

High Efficiency Particulate Air filter, capable of filtering out 0.3 micron particles or larger with 99.99% efficiency

What is a Laminar Flow:

The flow of air in parallel planes (unidirectional).

Micron:

A unit of measurement equal to one-millionth of a meter: 0.00003937 inches.

Particle Size:

Particle size is the maximum dimension of the particle. Linear measure used for fibrous particles and diameter used for spherical particles.

Cleanroom Pass Thru:

A small enclosure that mounted through the cleanroom wall and allows product to be passed through efficiently. Pass thru’s cut down on personnel traffic, hence reducing contamination.

Sticky Mat:

Located at the cleanroom or airshower entrance, sticky mats are multiple layers of treated film with adhesive to clean shoe bottoms and sides before entering the room.

ULPA filter:

Ultra Low Particulate Air filter, capable of filtering out 0.12 micron particles or larger. ULPA’s operate with 99.9999% efficiency.