Semi-Conductor

This project was two-fold: An expansion of their existing Class 10,000 Clean Room manufacturing area and new construction of Three Class 100 Clean Rooms and Ante room.

Both areas involved having to erect barrier containment /separation wall structures in the existing, working clean rooms to avoid impacting extremely sensitive manufacturing processes, and production was affected only twice during the 4+ month construction period.

The class 10k and Class 100 units are Modular, consisting of 4'-wide panels of FRP laminated over 3'' Styrofoam core.  These panels are supported and interconnected by anodized aluminum studs, which serve the dual function of support and a chase for wiring.  The entire structure is contained inside the warehouse building.  The class 10k expansion is approximately 900 sq', and the Class 100 new construction comprises 3 rooms and an ante room, totaling 1550 sq'.

The conditioned and filtered air is provided by an internally HEPA-filtered roof top water-chilled Air Handler unit, through the warehouse roof penetrations, into ductwork on the corrugated interior roof deck, into the ceiling plenum, a space where conditioned air is supplied below the corrugate decking to Fan-driven HEPA filters which are installed in a suspension grid ceiling below the deck.  The relative humidity of the production rooms is critical, and plenum air is strictly controlled in a very narrow range via a humidifier through electronic HVAC controls.

The manufacture process of components for a radiography manufacturer, a leading-edge producer of X-ray and Mammography systems, is extremely sensitive to static discharge as well as Relative Humidity and particulate pollution.  To counter these effects, Ionic discharge probes are attached to the ceiling grid and work in conjunction with a charge- dissipative, grounded floor surface.

This very complex project is housed in a room designed to meet ISO Class 5, or class 100, criteria.  Subsequent 3rd-Party certification of the rooms confirmed particulate counts very well below ISO 5 standards.
In addition, cleaning procedures and the nature of the chemical elements involved with the manufacturing process required additional design-build assemblies for exhausting effluviums safely.  HWI, through its design engineers and excellent subcontractors, was able to meet these