Design Methods and Recommended Practices for Developing a Minienvironment System

Due to the high level of cleanliness required during production in the pharmaceutical, micro-mechanics and micro-electronics industries and in medical technology, the field of semiconductors within the cleanroom industry has undergone a huge development. For the highest requirements for "clean products", not only the cleanroom techniques but also the whole production area must be considered in order to either prevent contamination or to lower it to acceptable levels so that the required improvements in quality can be achieved. The production environment is composed of the cleanliness-relevant functional units of buildings, cleanroom techniques, the supply and removal of process media, production equipment, productional and operational organization and the personnel employed. Up to now, the reduction of particle contamination in production has only been achieved by optimizing individual functional units such as the use of acceptably clean production equipment and costly cleanroom techni ques. In this way the necessary consideration of all the influential functional units as a system has not been carried out. This paper will demonstrate the development of a procedure for planning ultra-clean production by using such systems. It has been obtained from the analysis of the deficits of existing clean production systems.