[labnetwork] Cleanroom structure

[Wing Leong CHUNG]

Fouad,

Many thanks to your input and sharing, we will put all those consideration into account in our planning. Will update to you the latest progress when we have final consensus. My initial thinking prefers vertical design, but budget also is our concern (additional cost for vibration control, some equipment require VC-C and VC-D).

I also want to make use of this opportunity to appreciate the seminar which you conduct to HKUST community a few years ago about the etching process.

Thank You
Jeff
________________________________
From: Fouad Karouta <f.karouta at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 7, 2020 4:04 PM
To: Wing Leong CHUNG <mfcchung at ust.hk>
Cc: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [labnetwork] Cleanroom structure

Dear Wing Leong,
It is a sensitive topic and here are some comments based on my personal experience and it reflects my personal opinion.
First I like to say that I did experience two clean rooms, one having a chase layout with CR and service areas in U form and one vertical structure with a ballroom and subfab.

Pros Ballroom/Subfab:
1- better and efficient use of surface area where total ballroom area is used for placing the tools.
2- It allows clustering the tools by functionality and possibly simplifies the installation of services like gaslines.
3- It allows the dirty services to be installed in the subfab and not influence the CR area (think pumps, heater/chillers, power supplies, etc which generate particles, heat, etc).
4- Subfab can be engineered to receive a good portion of the clean air from the ballroom which allows you to install dirty processes in the subfab and still enjoy a certain cleanliness of the environment. Think CMP and some wet etching processes.
5- It allows installation of high resolution EBL and SEM in the ballroom area with the stabilizing scaffold on ground level.

Cons Ballroom/Subfab:
1- Long distance between tools and primary pumps which can be overcome by oversizing slightly the pumps (more cost).
2- Possibly you may need to go to the subfab to check things if a process fails.

There are possibly other cons and hopefully other reactions will come.

To be more concrete I am personally a fervent supporter of the vertical structure. In my time at Eindhoven University of Technology, we had first a small 150m2 clean room (chase layout) at level 8 of our building. Later a bigger clean room was built early 2000's with an 800m2 foot-print in a vertical structure (ballroom and subfab). The ballroom hosted a 100kV EBL and a high resolution SEM.
At ANU we are in the process of constructing a new building with a 650m2 clean room in vertical structure.
On another note I had the opportunity to visit the HKUST NFF but the subfab was engineered differently than the one I described above.

Hope this helps and best regards,
Fouad
Ex-Manager ANFF ACT Node at the Australian National University

On Sat, Sep 5, 2020 at 2:00 AM Wing Leong CHUNG <mfcchung at ust.hk<mailto:mfcchung at ust.hk>> wrote:
Dear all,

NFF of HKUST are planning to build a new cleanroom research facility. We want to know the pros and cons of a vertical structure (cleanroom with sub-fab)? Hope can give us some valuable suggestion.

May I have some examples of cleanroom with vertical structure as well.

Many Thank.
Jeff Chung

Senior Manager, NFF, HKUST
www.nff.ust.hk<http://www.nff.ust.hk>
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