Understanding and incorporating cleanroom standards and practices in a cleanroom management program.

The cleanroom industry turns to two main sources for standards and best practices in cleanroom management: the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Since launching its program to develop global cleanroom standards in 1990, ISO has published eight ISO 14644 standards under the auspices of Technical Committee (ISO/TC) 209, Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments. The voting members of ISO/TC 209 represent twenty-two nations. The ISO 14644 cleanroom standards established airborne particulate cleanliness classes for particle sizes ranging from 0.1μm to 5μm.

These international standards have also been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) as American national standards. IEST is Secretariat of ISO/TC 209 and Administrator of the ANSI-accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ISO/TC 209.

IEST also develops recommended practices (RPs) for the contamination control, design, test and evaluation, and product reliability industries. For nearly 60 years, this society has tapped the voluntary commitment of industry professionals to develop these documents based on their industries’ best practices.

Together, these non-profit organizations contribute a vast amount of knowledge and resources to the cleanroom industry. This article will provide an overview and summarize the key points of the full array of contamination control guidance documents produced by IEST and ISO.