What to Know About Cleanrooms Applied in Electronics Across 3 Major Industries

The demand for cleanrooms applied in electronics is steadily increasing as more investors are drawn into expanding the industry. However, the manufacturing process and assembly of electronic components is highly complex, necessitating cleanrooms to be designed to the right standards, meet stringent environmental conditions.

So what roles and requirements do cleanrooms in electronics entail? The following article will delve deeper into the applications of cleanrooms in three major groups within electronic manufacturing.

Semiconductor Cleanrooms

Semiconductor cleanrooms are designed to ensure tight control over size and dust content during the production of electronic products, particularly semiconductor components and devices. Maintaining an environment free of dust, bacteria, and other small particles is crucial, as these issues can lead to product defects, impacting their safety and effectiveness, especially when dealing with highly precise connections.

Semiconductor cleanrooms typically meet Class 10 or Class 100 cleanliness standards, along with strict temperature and humidity conditions. Their distinctive features include:

  • Amber-coloured lighting
  • Raised floors
  • Specialized HVAC systems with both heating and cooling elements

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Below are the three main risk factors for semiconductor production operations:

Static Electricity

Static electricity can cause fine dust particles to be attracted and adhere to the product surface, leading to product defects and potential safety hazards for workers.

To prevent this, effective cleanroom designs use conductive materials to direct electrons away from accumulation areas and connect to a grounding system to ensure safety for both personnel and products.

Humidity

Relative humidity (RH) in semiconductor cleanrooms must be maintained at 30-50% at temperatures ranging from 20-24°C. However, fluctuations in humidity within this range can still affect product performance.

Using a suitable HVAC system dedicated to cleanrooms can control temperature and humidity and minimize negative impacts on products.

Contaminants

These include dust, viruses, bacteria, and the most difficult to control – human contamination. Situations such as shedding dead skin cells, broken fingernails, or coughing can disrupt semiconductor manufacturing processes.

To prevent these, cleanroom personnel need to wear proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and pass through air showers. Additionally, high-efficiency filtration systems should be installed to continuously remove hazardous particles from the cleanroom environment.

Electronics Component Manufacturing and Assembly Cleanrooms

Electronic components and circuit boards are manufactured on extremely advanced and intricate production lines. Therefore, even a small amount of dust or moisture deviation from the standard during production can cause defects and render the products unfit for approval before shipment.

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In electronic component and circuit board manufacturing plants, production processes are often divided into separate areas. Due to the significant investment required for cleanrooms, manufacturing areas are equipped with cleanrooms only if cleanliness requirements are met.

Temperature

The standard temperature in cleanrooms for electronic manufacturing and circuit boards usually ranges from 20 to 26°C.

This range is considered ideal for protecting electronic devices, circuit boards, and components, ensuring stability in battery operation and preventing solder joints or connections from melting.

Humidity

Average humidity in cleanrooms for electronic manufacturing and circuit boards usually fluctuates between 40% and 60%.

However, appropriate humidity adjustment depends on the specific electronic components and circuit boards, as well as the intervention of engineers to ensure that the products achieve the ideal humidity level.

Excessive humidity can cause water ingress into components, significantly affecting the production process and increasing costs.

Dust and Microbial Standards

This criterion is usually kept to the lowest level or none in cleanrooms to ensure maximum efficiency in electronic product manufacturing processes.

Pressure

Standard pressure in cleanrooms usually fluctuates from 15 to 45 PA.

SMT Cleanrooms

Surface Mount Technology (SMT) plays a crucial role in assembling printed circuit boards (PCBs) with high precision and efficiency, using small and miniature components. In SMT, even the smallest dust particles can cause errors, affecting the overall quality of electronic devices. Therefore, cleanrooms are the first requirement to ensure manufacturing quality and achieve high productivity.

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Standards

From ISO Class 8 (Class 100,000) to Class 7 (Class 10,000)

Temperature and humidity control

  • The HVAC system maintains a stable temperature of 21°C ± 3°C (18°C – 24°C) and a relative humidity of 40% – 60%.
  • Low humidity causes static electricity, while high humidity affects solder quality.

Cleanroom design

Unidirectional personnel and material flow, separate zones for each production stage (storage, preparation, assembly, testing).

Cleanroom attire

  • Personnel wear electrostatic discharge (ESD) protective clothing, including smocks, gloves, shoe covers, and hair caps.
  • Strict cleanroom process training and maintenance.

Professional Cleanroom Design and Construction Capacity in Electronics Manufacturing

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The electronics industry is rapidly evolving towards becoming more compact, automated, and sophisticated. Consequently, requirements for manufacturing and assembling equipment have become stricter. To execute cleanroom construction projects that meet current performance and product quality conditions, contractors must not only understand the field and manufacturing processes of customers but also grasp new industry standards.

INTECH has many years of experience in comprehensive factory construction, providing customers with One-Stop-Service from design, construction, M&E construction, cleanrooms, and firefighting systems.

Particularly, we specialize in cleanroom construction with comprehensive experience in designing and implementing large-scale, high-cleanliness cleanrooms and advanced auxiliary systems. We apply the ISO 9001:2015 quality management system according to TUV Nord standards of Germany along with a systematic construction process from project planning (2D, 3D, video, images…) to acceptance testing (through checklists, images, videos, experiments…) to ensure that projects are completed with the highest quality.

INTECH is the first company in Vietnam to successfully design and implement Class 1 cleanrooms certified by N.E.B.B of the United States. Partnering with ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers), we continuously update new knowledge and emphasize the creative process in each project to provide customers with optimal solutions.

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