CleanRooms Asia 2001

06/01/2001

CONFERENCE TO FOCUS ON MICROELECTRONICS AND LIFE SCIENCES CONTAMINATION CONTROL

Meg Villeneuve

SINGAPORE—For the first time at CleanRooms Asia (July 25-27), representatives from IDC will offer advice on how to construct a life sciences cleanroom, while BELFOR-Relectronic will discuss minimizing your downtime after a cleanroom disaster.

"The microelectronics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are making greater use of cleanroom environments for the manufacturing and packing of products whose viability relies upon stringent contamination control," notes Rick Grout of IDC, an architectural and engineering company based in Portland, OR.

The presentation will compare strategies for cleanroom pressurization and control; control of contamination at the particle, viral, bacterial and molecular levels; the continuing emergence of ultraclean minienvironment processing enclosures; and approaches for preventing 'killer defects' that reduce yield, in electronics, pharmaceutical and biotechnical cleanrooms."

Both large- and small-scale disasters keep occurring in semiconductor cleanrooms, which usually result in decreased production and increased expenses.

"Despite advances in technology, wider adoption of risk management and business continuity practices within the industry, and greater management focus on production downtime, incidents occur on a regular basis," says presenter Bruce Swales. "Often times, these incidents are handled in a manner that does not minimize downtime. This presentation explores such incidents in terms of risk, consequence, mitigation, industry trends and new approaches to dealing with both major and minor disasters," he says.

Kicking off the show on Wednesday, July 25, the Electrostatic Discharge Association (ESDA) will offer a full-day session that will focus on audits and measuring along with implementing "ANSI/ESD S20.20: Development of an Electrostatic Discharge Control Program," which is proving to be a critical document in global electronics manufacturing.

The show runs from July 25-27, 2001, and will be held in Singapore at Raffles City Convention Centre, which is located in the Westin Hotel. Attendees—cleanroom technology users in the semiconductor, microelectronics, life sciences markets—will rub elbows with more than 70 exhibiting cleanroom technology suppliers keyed into the Asian market.

To find out more about CleanRooms Asia , visit www. cleanrooms.com.