New draft of ISO 14644-9 - Classification of Surface Cleanliness


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The  Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology announced that ISO 14644-9 "Cleanrooms and associated controlled environments—Part 9: Classification of surface cleanliness by particle contamination" is now a Final Draft International Standard (FDIS).

This revision of the document should make it easy to understand for the user. It describes the classification of particle contamination levels on solid surfaces in cleanrooms and associated controlled environment applications and should build the new standard in this field.
Part 9 provides a classification for the determination and designation of surface cleanliness levels based on particle concentrations and it also lists some methods of testing, as well as procedure(s) for determining the concentration of particles on surfaces. This part of ISO 14644 applies to all solid surfaces in cleanrooms and associated controlled environments such as walls, ceilings, floors, working environments, tools, equipment and products. The surface particle cleanliness (SPC) classification is limited to particles between 0.05 μm and 500 μm.
Surface cleanliness depends on material and design characteristics, stress loads (complexity of loads acting on a surface), and prevailing environmental conditions, along with other factors. Measurement methods of the classification should be adapted for surface characteristics (such as porosity, roughness, electrostatic charge, and surface energy). Recommendations on testing and measuring methods as well as information about surface characteristics are given in informative annexes.
It does not cover issues like requirements for the cleanliness and suitability of surfaces for specific processes, procedures for the cleaning of surfaces, material characteristics; references to interactive bonding forces or generation processes that are usually time-dependent process-dependent; selection and use of statistical methods for classification and testing; other characteristics of particles, such as electrostatic charge, ionic charges and microbiological state.
From: IEST