Controlling contamination

The origins of clean room technology

Bibliographic Data

ID14800620
AuthorsDaniel Holbrook (Missouri Valley College, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume25
Issue3
Pages173-191
Publication date2009-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Technology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0734-1512 • E-ISSN: 1477-2620
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07341510903083203
OpenAlexW2039866243
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited25

Cleanroom technology is central to high tech manufacturing. Its development stems from the convergence of needs in several fields of manufacturing, health care, and military requirements. Small‐sized mechanical and electro‐mechanical devices brought problems with dirt and dust to the forefront, particularly during World War II. High efficiency air filters developed during that conflict rapidly commercialized after the war, and found broader applications. As electronics became a military and commercial staple, filtered and conditioned air, controlled procedures and behaviors, employee training, special uniforms, carefully selected construction design and materials, and physical isolation from other parts of the manufacturing facilities came together in the earliest clean rooms. Diversity in practices drove the demand for standards and fostered further developments. By the 1960s contamination control emerged as a distinct field, with clean room technology at its core. Thus established, the benefits of clean manufacturing spread to other fields and industries. The convergence of needs which underlay earlier developments remained an important developmental dynamic in contamination control. Keywords: cleanroomcontamination controlfiltrationstandardsminiaturizationconvergence Notes 1. ISO standard 14644–1. See www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=25052 (accessed 14 July 2008). 2. See, for example, Whyte, Cleanroom Technology, 9–15. 3. King, ‘History of Clean Rooms,’ 299. 4. Rosenberg, Perspectives, 14. 5. ‘Miniaturization Speeds Aircraft.’ 6. ‘How to Grow Bigger by Growing Smaller.’ 7. Cooper, Air Conditioning. 8. Cooper, Air Conditioning, 8–28. 9. Gilbert, ‘Miniaturization as a Concept,’ 2, traces miniaturization back to thirteenth century watchmakers; Bedini, ‘Role of Automata,’ focuses on small, high‐precision machines of a later era. 10. O'Malley, Keeping Watch, 172–3; Shugart and Engle, Complete Guide, 22–3; Moore, Timing a Century. 11. Moore, Timing a Century, 11. 12. Marsh, Watches, outlines the development by various mechanics of the fantastic and complex machinery that made the mass production of watches possible. Marsh himself designed many of the machines. 13. The description on an engraving of the American Waltham Watch Factory, Lowell and Co., ca 1888, commented first on the carefully manicured lawns and then further that ‘cleanliness and neatness everywhere appear.’ See also American Watch Co., Waltham, Mass. Incorporated 1854. 14. A picture postcard published around 1907 clearly shows the roof rafters in assembly operation room. 15. Landes, Revolution in Time, 315, sites tolerances of ‘one five‐thousandth of an inch’ and notes that ‘machine tools of that day were simply not prepared to meet such tolerances.’ 16. Austin and Timmerman, Design and Operation, 2. 17. Geary, Instrument Ball Bearings, 3, claims that a Swiss firm, Roulements Miniatures S.A. of Bienne, began manufacturing very small ball bearings in 1936; Hill, Beanstalk, 22, gives that same year for Pierce making his first miniature ball bearing, and going into manufacture the following year. There is no established distinction between instrument ball bearings and miniature ball bearings; instrument ball bearings, as the name implies, are small bearings of high precision used in scientific and other instruments; Geary defines miniature ball bearings as those of less than 0.375 inch outside diameter (OD), though this is not a universal definition. 18. Patent #1,498,748, filed 19 November 1921, issued 24 June 1924. In 1924 Pierce made his first small bearing (ca 1⁄4 inch OD) for an automobile oil pump, starting his movement down the path of small size. Hill, Beanstalk, 15. 19. Hill, Beanstalk, 18. 20. Pardini, Legendary Norden. 21. Hill, Beanstalk, 34; Searle, ‘Bombsight War.’ 22. Hill, Beanstalk, 34. 23. Hill, Beanstalk, 61. 24. Hill, Beanstalk, 58. 25. ‘No Competition.’ Air conditioning of manufacturing facilities was more usually focused on humidity control alone; see Cooper, Air Conditioning America, 8–28. 26. Hill, Beanstalk, 53, shows production operations, and there is dirt clearly visible around bench legs. 27. Hill, Beanstalk, 59. 28. Geary, Instrument Ball Bearings, 3–4. See also Pruitt, Timken. 29. Geary, Instrument Ball Bearings, 5–6. The companies included Barden Corporation, Fafnir Bearing, Marlin‐Rockwell, Microtech Corp., MPB, New Departure, New Hampshire Ball Bearings, Reed Instrument Bearings, and Split Ballbearing. 30. Hill, Beanstalk, 105. 31. Hill, Beanstalk, 105. 32. Gill, ‘Very Tiny.’ 33. Morris, ‘How to be Really Clean.’ 34. Starr, Social Transformation, 156. 35. Miller, Rahimi, and Lee, ‘History of Infection Control.’ 36. Clemons, ‘First Modern Operating Room.’ 37. Austin and Timmerman, Design and Operation, 3–4; Whyte, Cleanroom Technology, 9–15. Note, though, that microorganisms share with industrial dirt the definition of matter which frustrates order. 38. Whyte, Cleanroom Technology, 12–13. 39. Approximately 5% of patients who stay in hospitals pick up an infection there; several thousand deaths per year in the USA are caused by such infections. See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4908a1.htm which states that some 2 million people in the USA get infected at hospitals. 40. Bourdillon and Colebrook, ‘Air Hygiene.’ 41. Bourdillon and Colebrook, ‘Air Hygiene,’ 604. 42. Blowers and Crew, ‘Ventilation in Operating‐Theatres.’ 43. Charnley, ‘Sterile‐Air,’ 195. 44. Charnley, ‘Sterile‐Air,’ 198. 45. Whyte, Cleanroom Technology, 14–15. 46. Food processing in factories and restaurants adopted many of the same construction materials and techniques as operating rooms, as well as emphasizing employee discipline and cleanliness procedures. See Jakle and Sculle, Fast Food, 96–97; Langdon, Orange Roofs, 18–20; ‘New Marvels of Food Factories’; and Parker, Food‐Plant Sanitation, passim. 47. Palazzo, Seeking Victory. 48. Brophy, ‘Origin of the Chemical Corps.’ 49. Kahn, Problem Solvers, 29. 50. Kahn, Problem Solvers, 55. See also Brophy, ‘Origin of the Chemical Corps.’ 51. Jacox, ‘HEPA Filters.’ 52. Burchsted, Kahn and Fuller, Nuclear Air Cleaning; 1–1. Esparto grass (Lygeum spartum and Stipa tenacissima) has long been used for paper and other fibrous craft uses. It grows in Northern Africa and Southern Spain. Gas masks tried to protect against both particulate (e.g. smoke) and gas weapons. The most advanced gas masks used in World War I combined filter paper for particulates and charcoal canisters for gasses. Asbestos fibers have an inherently large length to width ratio (their ‘aspect ratio’), can achieve tiny diameters and hence large relative surface area (up to 30,000 cm2/gm), are prone to large ionic charges, and can even have substantial gas‐absorptive properties, all of which make them eminently suitable for particulate filters. See Hodgson, ‘Chemistry and Physics of Asbestos’; Skinner, Ross and Frondel, Asbestos and other Fibrous Materials, particularly 11–16; and Ensor and Donovan, ‘Aerosol Filtration Technology,’ which outlines the mechanisms by which fibrous filters work. 53. Arthur D. Little's former business partner, William Walker, had left the company to return to MIT, and recruited Little's firm for help on this research. Kahn, Problem Solvers, 55. Hollingsworth and Vose Company, East Walpole, MA, established in 1843, continues to manufacture HEPA and other filter media. http://www.hollingsworth-vose.com/about/index.htm (accessed 8 June 2008). 54. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–1. See also Langmuir, Report on Smoke and Filters. 55. Tolliver, Handbook of Contamination Control, 8. 56. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–2. 57. Jacox, ‘HEPA Filters,’ 892. 58. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–2–1–3. 59. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–2–1–3. See also Arthur D. Little, Inc., Development of a High‐Temperature, High‐Efficiency Air Filter. 60. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–4; Kahn, Problem Solvers, 111–12. Kahn's book refers to this company as the ‘Cambridge Corporation’ and relates its formation to the manufacture of ‘dewars’ to transport liquid hydrogen for nuclear weapons research and manufacture. A.D. Little apparently sold its share of Cambridge Filter when it ‘decided to restrict [its] efforts to research.’ 61. Burchsted et al., Nuclear Air Cleaning, 1–4. An almost complete run (1951–present) of the proceedings of the Nuclear Air Cleaning Conferences can be found at http://www.hss.energy.gov/CSA/CSP/hepa/conference.html. 62. King, ‘The History of Clean Rooms.’ 63. Klocke and Whyte, ‘High Efficiency Air Filtration.’ 64. http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/tat-1.html (accessed 24 June 2008). 65. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes’; some work continued during the war, including ‘life tests’ of components already under way when the war began. See also Smits, History of Engineering, 184. 66. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes,’ 167. 67. At least two sources seem to place the date even earlier. Fouchard, ‘Historical Overview,’ 31, writes: ‘The first link [of the telephone cable] was laid in 1951 between Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba.’ Smits, History of Engineering, 183, cites 1950 as the date of the first link of the Florida–Cuba line. 68. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes,’ 164. 69. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes,’ 164. 70. Wooley, ‘Components,’ 35: ‘This approach is both reactionary and restrictive in that it rules out a number of promising types as well as materials and processes simply because they are new. It does, however, provide a firm background on which, with extra care in design and manufacture, an extremely reliable series of components could be based.’ 71. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes,’ 177. 72. McNally et al., ‘Electron Tubes,’ 177. See also Morton and Gabriel, Electronics, 40: ‘The tubes themselves were assembled at Bell Laboratories, rather than AT&T's regular manufacturing arm, Western Electric. After being assembled in “clean room” conditions by workers in smocks and gloves, the tubes were tested in circuit for 5,000 hours before being selected for use.’ 73. Smits, History of Engineering, 186. 74. http://www.ieee.org/web/aboutus/history_center/tat-1.html (accessed 24 June 2008). 75. Wooley, ‘Components,’ 40. 76. Lamb and Heffner, ‘Repeater Production,’ 105. 77. Wooley, ‘Components,’ 40. 78. Lamb and Heffner, ‘Repeater Production,’ 112. 79. Smits, History of Engineering, 187. 80. Smits, History of Engineering, 187. 81. Galatowitsch, ‘Something Old,’ 22. 82. Whyte, ‘History of Cleanrooms,’ 16. 83. Galatowitsch, ‘Something Old,’ 22. The article more than likely was ‘Western Electric Develops Dust‐Control to “nth‐Degree”.’ Industrial Laboratories Magazine, December Citation1955. 84. Gilbert, Miniaturization, 2. 85. Peck, ‘History and Present Status,’ 58. 86. Peck, ‘History and Present Status,’ 59. 87. Peck, ‘History and Present Status,’ 58. 88. Peck, ‘History and Present Status,’ 59. 89. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 15. 90. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 15. ‘Laminar Flow’ was the name given to Willis Whitfield's innovative use of unidirectional air flow. In fluid dynamics, this term refers to layers of moving air (or other fluids) running in parallel with no disruptions between them; strictly speaking Whitfield's airflow system did not produce ‘laminar flow.’ Whitfield himself discounts the term ‘laminar flow’ as just ‘a catchy name’ and a ‘marketing term.’ Singer, ‘Sandia Engineer,’ 7. He very carefully puts ‘laminar flow’ in quotation marks when outlining the innovation, and refers instead to ‘unidirectional air flow.’ Whitfield traces the application of the name to his innovation to the meetings of the group that devised Standard 209. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 16. 91. See US Patent 3,158,457, issued 24 November 1964. 92. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 15. 93. Karter, ‘Whitfield Opens Door.’ 94. ‘Mr. Clean.’ 95. Whitcomb et al., ‘Ultra‐Clean.’ 96. Cavanaugh, Hartman and Ziffren, ‘Applying Industrial’; Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 15–16. 97. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 15. 98. Peck, ‘History and Present Status,’ 60. 99. Whyte, ‘Introduction to Design,’ 7; Möller, ‘International Standards,’ 23. 100. Möller, ‘International Standards,’ 23. 101. Powers, ‘Microbiological Burden,’ 1045. 102. Preliminary Apollo Maintenance Plan, 4–5. 103. NASA, Handbook for Contamination Control. Federal Standard 209 was modified several times during the following years, first in 1966, then again in 1973. By the end of the 1980s the earlier problem of standards proliferation repeated itself on an international basis, and the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology proposed that international standards be devised to take the place of the array of standards then regnant. The ultimate result was ISO 14644–1, which, with modifications, is the most widely acceptable clean room standard at present. 104. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 16; Smith, ‘Aerospace Clean Rooms’; Halbrook, ‘Picture‐Tube Improvement,’ 29–30. 105. Schmeck, ‘Air System’; Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 16. 106. Wright, ‘MIT Graduate.’ 107. Whitfield, ‘Brief History,’ 17. 108. Whyte, ‘Design of Clean,’ 1. 109. Handbook for Contamination Control, 4–3, cites the example of a Chrysler transmission plant that ‘found most failures ... resulted from minute quantities of dust picked up during assembly.’ Clean room assembly areas ‘facilitated a 50,000 mile warranty on their current generation of automatic transmissions.’ 110. Mowery and Rosenberg, Paths of Innovation, 7–8. See also Holbrook, ‘Government Support’ for examples from the semiconductor industry

Architectural engineering · Cleanroom · Contamination · Contamination control · Manufacturing engineering · Nanotechnology · Operations management · Telecommunications · Engineering · Facilities and Workplace Management

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