Nanoparticle monitoring in ultra-clean manufacturing environments

Abstract

With its 10 nm sensitivity, the Nano-ID^® NPC10 NanoParticle Counter bridges the gap between conventional aerosol optical particle counting at 0.1 μm (100 nm) and sub-nm scale airborne molecular contamination. Experimental and field data demonstrate that ISO Class 1 and 2 environments, which have very low concentrations of particles greater than 100 nm, can possess much higher concentrations of nanoparticles. This suggests that the current ISO classification system may be insufficient to properly describe the cleanliness of the high-purity environments required for advanced electronics manufacturing. This application note presents comparison data from a Nano-ID NPC10 NanoParticle Counter and a traditional optical particle counter across ISO Class 1–4 environments, the challenges associated with testing at these particle concentration levels, and a side-by-side comparison of two Nano-ID NPC10 NanoParticle Counters.

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