Performance Evaluation of Cleanroom Environmental Systems

This paper presents in-situ measurement results for energy and environmental performance of 13 cleanroom systems located in the United States, including key metrics for evaluating cleanroom air system performance and overall electric power intensity. Comparisons with IEST Recommended Practice IEST-RP-CC012.1: Considerations in Cleanroom Design are made to examine the performance of cleanroom air systems. Based on the results, the paper discusses likely opportunities for improving cleanroom energy efficiency while maintaining effective contamination control. The paper concludes that there are wide variations in energy performance of cleanroom environmental systems, and that performance benchmarking can serve as a vehicle to identify energy efficient cleanroom design practices and to highlight important issues in cleanroom operation and maintenance.