A short introduction to cleanliness technology: Meeting the future challenges

For semiconductor components, the demand to improve performance and velocity as well as energy consumption is met through miniaturization. The continuing trend to miniaturize semiconductor structures can be observed since several decades and requires, among other things, sophisticated cleanliness technology. Cleanliness technology in this context is to be understood as the chain of all activities taken to control and reduce all contamination harmful to the product. Because of the very challenging particulate and outgassing contamination levels, semiconductor industry still claims technological and economic leadership in terms of cleanliness technology. But no longer only semiconductor industry is relying on cleanliness technology as the following case studies graphically demonstrate: In life science industries, mainly microbiological contamination is controlled to prevent users and patients from severe health issues caused by poor hygiene or cleanliness of the highly effective pharmaceuticals or very innovative medical devices. Space exploration combines nowadays the challenging cleanliness requirements of semiconductor and pharmaceutical industry to be in compliance with the planetary protection program, the guiding principle to preserve planetary and terrestrial conditions for future generations. And even automotive industry discovered the benefit of cleanliness technology almost ten years ago: Metallic micro sized particles (>50µm) were identified as critical contamination because they can cause malfunctions in fluidic and electronic vehicle systems such as antiblocking systems. By having a closer look on these three case studies, the increasing importance and on-going diversification of cleanliness technology can be shown and also the challenging future requirements of cleanliness technology over the next few years can be derived.