Equipment
The Leaning of Thermal Validation
By Kevin Bull
Validation professionals spend extensive time validating temperature to ensure the integrity of controlled environments and to fulfill compliance requirements.
The Evolution of Airborne Particle Counters
By Michael Clouse
The new ISO standard increases the repeatability between units as a whole for all manufacturers.
Trapping Airborne Molecules: Molecular Filters, Gas Purifiers - Part 1
By Barbara Kanegsberg, Ed Kanegsberg
“AMC filters don’t work.” “We don’t need to trap AMC’s.” These facile sentiments impede progress in critical applications.
Airborne Particle Monitoring: Satisfying The Changing Demands in Regulations and Methods
By Joe Gecsey
Today’s user is often faced with the challenge of meeting several international standards and regulatory guidances as well as performing sampling for airborne particles in a consistent and reproducible manner.
Airborne Molecular Contamination Part 3 - Head It Off
By Barbara Kanegsberg, Ed Kanegsberg
AMC can be a “silent poisoner” of your process. Poisons sap strength — including product quality and profits.
When Good Gas Goes Bad: Gas Purifiers At Work
By Maggie Y. M. Lee, Lita Shon-Roy
Once obsessed with metallic impurity levels, reducing variations in the delivered gas purity has become the primary focus of contamination control engineers managing gas distributions systems. When used correctly at bulk sources or at the point-of-use, gas purifiers can remove harmful impurities down to the ppt range.
Air Sampler Qualification According to ISO 14698 NORM
By S. Hamdi, Q. Desjonquères
In November 2007, the ISO TC/209 working group decided to revise the current version of the ISO 14698 norm (Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments – Biocontamination Control).
Putting Paper in the Past
By Michael Clouse
An environmental sampling process that employs technology, ensures cleanroom efficiency and security.
Spots Before Your Eyes
By Barbara Kanegsberg, Ed Kanegsberg
Particles on your critical components can impact performance of the final product or the next step in the build process.
Getting More From Your Pneumatic Devices
By Philipp Klaschka
An air audit can save money through better performance and air consumption reduction.
Establishing and Implementing an Environmental Monitoring Program for Non-Sterile Operations
By Jan Eudy
I must establish and implement an environmental monitoring program for our new ISO Class 6 cleanroom that packages medical devices for terminal sterilization by gamma radiation. What do I need to know in order to do this correctly?
Tracking Ammonia, HF, H2S, HCI, and Other Trace Gases
By Aaron Van Pelt
Industries as diverse as semiconductor fabrication and aluminum smelting can benefit from the simplicity and ppt sensitivity of Wavelength-Scanned Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy.
Relative Humidity, Dewpoint, Mixing Ratio...The Many Faces of Water Vapor
By Paivi T. Laitinen, Juhana Hakkanen
Water is known by different names in different states. It can be measured in many ways and described with various terms. The following article explains the behavior of water vapor in air and clarifies the terminology used to describe it.
Yield Enhancement with Diffuser Technology
By Marshall Randolph, Chris Vroman, Chris Quartaro
Advanced diffuser technology helps reduce vent-up times while maintaining wafer integrity on vacuum tools loadlock chambers.
Catching The Drift
By Kevin Bull
Knowing what to look for in product specifications can initiate incisive questioning of manufacturers about the effectiveness of their humidity measuring systems.
How Low?
By Barbara Kanegsberg, Ed Kanegsberg
Understanding and respecting the lower limits of the method is essential for regulatory compliance as well as to evaluate, validate, and monitor critical cleaning and contamination control protocols.
Eight Great Things Manufacturing Engineers Must Know About Leak Testing Equipment
By David Rizzo, D.P.M.
Must quality engineers and product managers always be at odds? The former seeks perfection while the latter pushes for greater throughput.
Environmental Monitoring – Particle Counts are Easy
By Scott E. Mackler
The manufacture of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products requires that the appropriate level of quality be designed and constructed into the facility and systems that support the production process.
Efficient Cleaning Of Silicon Wafers Using Ultrasonic Technology
By Rugved Nakade, Anthony Sayka, Dhiraj K. Sardar, Ph.D.,, Raylon M. Yow
The surface contamination of wafers, especially by particle contaminants, has been one of the major problems in the semiconductor industry. It is imperative to find an effective way to remove particles from wafers with efficiency and without damage to the wafers.
Chemical Filtration Strategies For The Control of Airborne Molecular Contamination, Part 3
By Christopher Muller, Brad Stanley
Manufacturers have a better general understanding of where AMC control should be applied and why, and as their knowledge of AMC-related problems have increased, so too have their expectations for an AMC control system.
Chemical Filtration Strategies For The Control of Airborne Molecular Contamination, Part 2
By Christopher Muller, Brad Stanley
It is well known that a single chemical filter medium may not adequately control multiple contaminants or all classes of AMC. The types and numbers of AMC that one would encounter make it likely that air-cleaning systems need to be equipped with multiple stages of specialized chemical filter media.
Extractive or Direct Surface Analysis?
By Barbara Kanegsberg, Ed Kanegsberg
Trade-offs include speed, cost, disruption of product flow, and whether the analysis is for general process control or to investigate a specific product performance problem.
Chemical Filtration Strategies For The Control of Airborne Molecular Contamination, Part 1
By Christopher Muller, Brad Stanley
AMC continues to grow as a major contamination control issue for microelectronics manufacturers. Because of this, chemical filter manufacturers are offering a large number of AMC control options from which the contamination control engineer must determine which is the best solution.
Particle Monitoring: The Bugs You Can't See
By Jason Kelly
How automated monitoring systems can increase contamination protection and save you time and money.
Managing Product and Environmental Microorganisms In Your Facility
By Gregg Mosley
A view of the ongoing effort, means and challenges, detecting, identifying, and controlling bioburden in laboratories, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing, and the environment.