1987-04-21
1989-06-13
Joyce, Harold
55385A, 553852, F24F 7007
Patent
active
048381500
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a clean room used for maintaining ultra high cleanliness of a manufacturing environment in the field of manufacturing semiconductor, such as VLSIs and ICs.
BACKGROUND ART
Conventionally, a clean room of partial laminar flow type is known as a clean room in which ultra high cleanliness is maintained inside the room.
In the clean room of this type, outlet ports of air supply ducts are provided to almost the entire surface of the ceiling of the room. Air with ultra high cleanliness is blown off from these outlet ports into the room, flows downward toward the floor of the room in one direction in an almost laminar state, is exhausted into air inlet ports provided to almost the entire surface of the floor, and is circulated to the air outlet ports. Generally, the floor is a porous one made of a grating or a punching metal, and a number of pores of this porous floor serve as air inlet ports. In addition, the air outlet ports are provided with a high performance dust filter such as a ULPA filter.
Since the above conventional clean room blows off air from the entire surface of the ceiling, it requires a large absolute supply amount of air, resulting in increase in a running cost for a blower or the like, and hence in a high energy consumption type clean room. In addition, since the air blown off from the ceiling flows toward the floor only in one direction, dust generated in a passage or the like may be undesirably diffused by movement of a worker into a region requiring ultra high cleanliness, e.g., an installation region of a semiconductor manufacturing system in the clean room.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an energy-saving clean room.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a clean room wherein the amount of dust entering the installation region of the semiconductor manufacturing system is reduced to increase the yield of products.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a clean room wherein vibrations of a floor of a passage are suppressed when a worker walks along the passage so that the vibrations are not easily transmitted to the semiconductor manufacturing system or the like.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a clean room wherein maintenance of the semiconductor manufacturing system or the like installed inside the room or carrying in and out of a material with respect to the installation region can be easily performed.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
In order to achieve the above objects, the present invention provides a clean room comprising a ceiling, a floor, an indoor space between the ceiling and the floor, an air supply means for supplying an air with ultra high cleanliness to the indoor space, and an air exhausting means for exhausting the air supplied to the indoor space. The indoor space is divided into a first region (e.g., a passage region) requiring high cleanliness and a second region (e.g., an installation region of a semiconductor system) adjacent to the first region and requiring ultra high cleanliness higher than that of the first region. The air supply means includes an air outlet port, arranged on the ceiling of the second region, for blowing off the air downward, and the air exhausting means includes a first air inlet port, arranged on the ceiling of the first region, for exhausting the air upward. That is, with this arrangement, an air stream having a large speed component in a transverse direction is generated to flow from the second to first region to prevent introduction of dust from the first to second region. It is well known to provide an air inlet port to a ceiling of a passage region of a clean room of a type wherein the passage region and the system installation region are divided by a panel. However, no transverse air stream is generated in this arrangement because of the panel. In addition, a vortex is generated on the surface of the panel at the passage region so that cleanliness of the passage region tends to be degraded.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4267769 (1981-05-01), Davis et al.
Manabe Mitsufusa
Suzuki Yoshinobu
Joyce Harold
Shimizu Construction Co. Ltd.
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