Machine elements for use in vacuum conditions and clean rooms

Increasing miniaturisation of manufactured products means that both front-end research and development and downstream production and assembly processes have to be performed under clean room conditions.

A clean room is an environment that has a low level of environmental pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, aerosol particles and chemical vapours. These rooms are normally fitted with sophisticated air conditioning systems, airlock entry and exit  systems for personnel, as well as certified monitoring instruments. Clean rooms are used extensively in semiconductor manufacturing, biotechnology, liquid crystal manufacturing, medical and life sciences, as well as other processes that are sensitive to environmental contamination.

A clean room has a controlled level of contamination that is specified by the number of particles per cubic metre at a specified particle size. For example, the ambient air outside in a typical urban environment may contain as many as 35 million particles per cubic metre, each particle being 0.5µm and larger in diameter, corresponding to an ISO Class 9 clean room.