W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. (Newark, DE) recently donated a supply of cleanroom garments to be used in the semiconductor research space of the Birck Nanotechnology Center’s Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory, an ISO Class 3 (Class 1) facility at Purdue University.
John Weaver, facility manager of the center, said in a recent press release, “I have used GORE Cleanroom Garments since they were first designed. When I heard about this donation, I was thrilled because these are state-of-the-art garments that will help us to achieve the maximum level of cleanliness in the cleanroom.”
GORE™ Cleanroom Garments are made with a proprietary expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) membrane laminated to a 100 percent polyester knit. The ePTFE membrane does not allow particulates to pass through, making it an ideal protective barrier in a cleanroom garment. This membrane provides filtration efficiency of 99.9999 percent or better for particles measuring 0.12 μm or greater. However, the microporous structure of the membrane allows air to flow freely through the garment so that the wearer does not retain so much heat. The garments are non-shedding, and flame- and chemical-resistant. During testing, the garments dissipated static in less than 0.1 second at 500 to 5,000 volts when the wearer was making contact with grounded or antistatic flooring.
W. L. Gore has nearly 50 years of research experience in the field of fluoropolymers, enabling the company to engineer the types of products needed in a cleanroom environment. “During the 20 years I have worked with Gore engineers,” Weaver said, “I have found them to be very strong technically and extremely responsive to ideas about their products. They have worked closely with me in every cleanroom project I have managed to make sure that we had the best production or research facility possible.”