Most people see that garden shed as little more than a place to store some gardening tools in, but if you’re like [Dr. Semiconductor], then what you see is a potential cleanroom for semiconductor manufacturing. As ridiculous as this may sound, the basic steps behind the different levels of cleanrooms work just as well for a multi-million dollar fab as they do for for a basic shed.
Key to everything is HEPA filtration along with positive pressure, to constantly push clean air into the cleanroom, while preventing dirty air from flowing in. The shed was also split into two sections, the first room once you enter it being the the gowning room. This is where you change into cleanroom gear before you transition into the cleanroom.
In addition to the flame-resistant drywalls, a water-based epoxy coating was applied to the insides of the cleanroom walls to make it smooth and free of debris. The HEPA filtration system constantly filters the shed’s air along with some fresh outside air, while an airconditioning unit ensures that the temperature remains constant.
The measured >0.5 µm particle contamination inside the shed turned out to be enough for a FED STD 209E equivalent of Class 100, which is ISO 5 class with a maximum of 3,520 particles/m3. For comparison, room air is ISO 9 with max 35,200,000 particles/m3. At ISO 5 it’s good enough to do some semiconductor R&D laboratory things, which is what [Dr. Semiconductor]’s channel is – shockingly – about.
Thanks to [Thayer] for the tip.
3,520 particles/m^3 seems like an awfully specific number…
Oh. It’s 100 particles per cubic foot.
ISO? WTF?
With the money you spent on the shed you could have just bought the IC, and still have money in your pocket for the next 20 years. Not to mention you store the clean suits in the walk in area all bunched up in a bin. you dont even have a air curtain to blow you off as you walk in. So there is no way your are anywhere near the level of SMSC.
As long as their particle meter is giving an acceptable reading theyre doing okay. Sure improvements could be made, but if what they have is allowing them to push forward with their experimentation, its a win.
You should consider migrating to reddit if “you could have just bought” is your mindset. Thats not what this site is about.
the ” coulda just bought one” comment doesnt work around here. guy wanted to make one.
Defeatist losers like yourself are rightfully forgotten by everyone.
What is wrong with you?
It’s somehow reassuring that no matter how long I go without reading this site, I always come back to find people missing the point of a hobby project.
Is youtube broken (again) and in a completely unique way specifically only for me (again!) or does that channel only have one video? One video and 29K subscribers. And a Patreon pitch (of course, though I suppose that’s mandatory now).
youtube is broken, i uploaded an animation to mypage and youtube added frames via Ai and distroyed the timming for higher frame rates. new grounds for animation it is.
I am impressed. Having worked in clean rooms at the reported level it’s not something I would want to do at home. Every time you have to pee you have to do a 15min suit down in an airlock and a suit back up. I am skeptical this design is as stringent as the rooms I worked in because the air lock has a flappy door. We also were more suited up believe it or not. 2 layers of everything. Had to get blasted with air before entering and even leaving. My guess is those measurements are close to the best case, ex room hasn’t been disturbed for half an hour. Regardless I am impressed both by the build but also the desire to have something like that at home.
Among the list of things I don’t want to do one is getting back into a clean room. For reference items I put close to that would be things like getting recruited for offense work(hence my constant negative posts, etc). Fresh air, freedom to eat biscuits with crumbs everywhere, ability to sneeze, not have armed people at entrances. Whew. The toys were really cool though
Unlike to comment above, I am super happy the person did this! Like many of the projects posted here, it makes me so happy what is possible and available to private people at our current times. And even more so, that people are willing to do it!
Sam Zeloof’s home IC lab. No new content for four years, but impressive results in his last video – 1000 transistor IC:
https://www.youtube.com/@SamZeloof/videos
heh i don’t even have a room in my house that is remotely clean enough to install a screen protector