CLEANROOMS

Cleanroom Certification Requirements

Don Shuck, TBE
Technical Air Balance, Inc.

ertification of a cleanroom calls

for specialized equipment, primarily a
particle counter, an electronic micromanometer with hood kit, special particulate challenge generators, aerosol
photometer, sound and vibration
meters, and light level meters. The
Cleanroom Certification Engineer will
need to be familiar with cleanroom
protocol and have the patience to
follow these procedures. All equipment must be wiped down prior to
bringing it into the cleanroom, and
the certification technician will also be
required to gown up per the particular cleanroom requirements, which
are usually specific to each cleanroom
owner.

USER OPTIONAL TESTS are secondary tests that involve air movement and particle migration. They are:
(a) airflow parallelism, which is to be
performed only cleanrooms with unidirectional airflow; (b) enclosure
integrity testing; (c) recovery testing;
and (d) particle fallout count.
USER OPTIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TESTS are not directly related to
air movement. They are: (a) lighting
level tests; (b) noise level tests; (c)
temperature and moisture uniformity
tests; and (d) vibration tests.
Air flow may be tested by using a
capture hood. This capture hood is
usually a custom size flowhood that

fits the frame of the filter along with a

hood stand that consists of a bracket
to support the hood base attached to
a telescoping movie light stand. The
stand is also greatly helpful during the
balance of the filters. The Shortridge
Velgrid and Shortridge Air Data meter
may also be used to determine the
velocity of the air from the HEPA
filter face. Since the velocity pressure
at 90 FPM is .0005 wc, any foot
traffic in the area causes turbulence
that may cause errors in readings
using the Velgrid. Three readings with
the Velgrid are usually taken across
the face of the HEPA and averaged.
The Velgrid method for testing and
setup of the filters is tedious and can

Cleanroom certification can be performed in the cleanroom during the

as-built, at-rest, and operational
phases. There can be up to 12 certification tests performed to ascertain
that a cleanroom meets the design
intent, and those 12 tests fall into
three categories:
PRIMARY TESTS are closely related
to classification of airborne particle
cleanliness per Federal Standard 209.
They are (a) airflow volume or velocity and uniformity test; (b) HEPA or
ULPA filter installation leak test; (c)
airborne particle count; and (d) room
pressurization tests to be performed
in cleanrooms of any class and at any
phase.

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take much longer, although many

certification companies choose this
method of testing and certification.
Particle counting in the cleanroom
should be performed per IES-RPCC006.2 and FED.STD 209E. Particle
count locations vary from 10 x 10
foot areas for lower class cleanroom
(100,000) to 2 x 2 foot areas for
higher class cleanrooms (100 & up).
Particle counting equipment can
also be used for the filter leak and
enclosure integrity testing by scanning
the filter face and all seams in the
enclosure. Filter installation leak
testing is performed with a challenge
introduced into the supply air for the
HEPA, this challenge may be DOP or
PSL. When DOP challenge is used,
an aerosol photometer instead of a
particle counter will be needed to
measure the leakage. Enclosure
integrity testing is performed using
ambient particles (no challenge). Even
in a positive pressurized enclosure,
particles can infiltrate through seams
that are not properly sealed and
conduit penetrations.

Laminarity of airflow in a clean zone

is performed by either smoke generation or the use of flow-viz (wooly
nylon nonshedding thread). The flow
viz method utilizes these threads when
attached to the ceiling and then measuring the offset from vertical. From
this we can determine the angle of airflow from vertical. This method is also
used to check for air egress in or out
of a clean zone to a corridor. A 10
foot streamer in a 12 foot high environment with a deflection of 18 inches
is 9 degrees of deflection from vertical.
The variation tolerance in parallelism
in a clean zone is usually +/- 10
degrees. Therefore, a 9 degree deflection would be acceptable.
Noise and light level testing will normally be performed at locations
selected by the owner.
Temperature and moisture uniformity
tests should be performed in the cleanroom under operation conditions.
Since some manufacturers are now
setting the cleanzone flow rate to 80
FPM in work areas and 60 FPM in

corridors, turbulence from movement

caused by occupants has become a
greater problem. It follows that fewer
ballroom style cleanrooms will be
built and more cleanrooms with
microenvironments will be constructed to lessen human contamination. Now a cleanroom may be a
Class 1000 in the open area (that area
which is occupied by the specialized
tool) and the microenvironments (the
area inside the tool) could be a class 1
or better. Intel is currently utilizing
technology that is even better than
Class 1. They are operating at a single
particle of .125 micron size.
This is incredible when you think that
just 20 to 25 years ago a surgery
room was about the cleanest room
known to the average person. Now
however technology has taken us far
beyond that level of cleanliness. With
this advancement in technology, we
are able to have a small notebook
computer that once took a city block
and more to house and duplicate.

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