Analyzing T640 Data for Real-Time Cleanroom Air Quality Management

Cleanrooms are engineered spaces, which maintain a very low concentration of airborne particulates. They play a critical role in the semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries to guarantee high-quality products. This research introduces the Teledyne T640, a real-time, continuous particulate matter (PM) mass monitor, to explore cleanroom standards and air quality. The T640 monitor provides PM mass concentration after converting particle counting (counts per cubic meter) into mass concentration. This instrument is used currently by most of the U.S. state environmental agencies to monitor PM2.5. This research aims to create an application that takes de original particle counting capabilities of the instrument and use it to classify a research room in accordance with ISO cleanroom standards. This knowledge of particle counting using the T640 will improve student learning experiences to classify cleanrooms. The primary data collection involves particle count analysis across 256 size channels. A desktop application was created to communicate to the T640 and extract particle data continuously for over 200 minutes. The gathered data gave a total of 1,502,012 particulates per cubic meter of air in the research room, with 99% below PM2.5. Through analyzing the data, it was determined that the research room was classified as a class 7 cleanroom. Cleanrooms in the semiconductor industry usually operate at class 5 and below, which has less concentration of particles in the air. Future experiments could compare the T640’s data to that of a dedicated cleanroom particle counter. This project serves as a steppingstone for optimizing cleanroom classification methods using versatile air monitoring devices like the T640.