Standards for air purity

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Because it is essential to maintain atmospheric purity and the most appropriate parameters for human health as well as suitable conditions for expensive and critical manufacturing operations, standards have been developed with regard to what constitutes the most appropriate level of purity. In the United States of America, standards related to clean air may be found as a set of Federal standards such as the Federal 209E standard for clean rooms, while in the European as well as the international setting, the International Standards Organization or ISO standards such as the ISO 14644-1 to 14644-8 for clean rooms serve as a guide for engineers, designers and operators of office complexes, high rise buildings, manufacturing facilities etc in their effort to maintain the most appropriate atmospheric air conditions. Hazards associated with ventilation and air quality should be identified and controlled in accordance with standards such as ASHRAE 62-1989 related to ventilation for acceptable air quality and the World Health Organization standards for clean air.

A well planned ventilation system is essential because little can immediately be done quickly and easily to improve air quality in a building after its construction. Poor air quality can be a disaster for the work environment and scare away the workers as well as the customers very quickly (David, 2002). As an example of the application of standards, the level of air purity in the clean rooms for industrial and semiconductor manufacturing may be considered. The level of air purity in a clean room environment is described by indicating the class of the clean room for the ISO standard. which can range from ISO Class 1 to ISO Class 9 in 1/10th increments for the ISO standard or Class 1 to 100000 in the US 209E standard. The ISO standard considers the prevalence of air born particles in the 0.1 micron to 5 micron range. An ISO Class 1 clean room will only have a maximum of 10 particles of the 0.1micron and 2 particles of 0.2 micron size per cubic meter of air, while a Class 100 clean room of the Federal 209E standard will only be allowed to have 100 particles of 0.5 micron size per cubic foot. Thus, an ISO Class 7.4 is likely to have a maximum of 1,760,000 particles 0.5 micrometer and larger per cubic meter. The wafer fabrication process in the semiconductor manufacturing requires an ISO Class 1 to ISO Class 3 clean room, while the assembly of the wafer will require less stringent standards of environmental purity with a requirement for ISO Class 5 or 6 clean room. Testing and post-encapsulation processes will require even lesser stringent standards of ISO Class 7 to 9 clean rooms (Nelson Labs, 2004).

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