Issue

NASHUA, NH—CLEANROOMS IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT Michael Levans has stepped in as the magazine's Chief Editor.

CMA adds online consulting; Federal regs on CD-ROM; Product line marks 10th anniversary with record sales; and more.

WOBURN, MA— ONE DOWN, 10 TO go.
That's one way to sum up the draft process for new cleanroom standards that are being hammered out by Technical Committee 209 of the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO; Geneva).

FOSTER CITY, CA—If you thought second-hand equipment used in the semiconductor, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, disk drive and food processing industries would be the last thing you'd find featured in an online auction or marketplace, guess again.

Mount Prospect, IL—Extensive field testing by industry has led the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology's Working Group on cleanroom housekeeping, operating and monitoring procedures to add two alternate methods of mopping walls and floors to its recommended practice (RP) 18.2.

EAST HILLS, NY—Drug manufacturers looking for a way to remove the smallest known viruses from protein-derived products have a new weapon in their arsenal. The latest filter technology from Pall Corp. (East Hills, NY) is fine enough to efficiently remove 20 nanometer (0.02 micron) viruses, while at the same time allowing free flow of liquid protein particles as large as immunoglobulin G, a common antibody.

WASHINGTON, DC?The past keeps needling a defunct manufacturer of protective clothing, and Capitol Hill continues to press the Pentagon, demanding answers as to why it took the military establishment five years to warn the armed forces about potentially defective suits intended to protect soldiers from chemical and biological weapons.

Air cleaner; Face and respiratory mask; Film growth system and method; and more.

In response to Richard Matthews' Debunking the Myth column, "Enhanced clean devices," (Dec. 1999, p. 42) he states "Some would argue ... that there has been nothing new in cleanrooms lately." If 25 years qualifies an item as an antique, there are a couple of antique theories out there that should not be allowed into the current millennium.

My parents recently returned from Europe, heralding its wonders: the Italian hotel in which they stayed, and how the building had to be at least 500 years old; the German village in which my sister lives, and the rarity of the preserved architecture.

Cleaning takes on a whole new meaning in the area of life sciences where the objective in cleaning is to remove potential cross contamination, defined as anything that is not an ingredient in the product.

Every manufacturer has some form of standard operating procedure (SOP) that dictates how his operation will run and the quality level it will produce. Some manufacturers, particularly those in the healthcare field, have to meet stringent regulatory criteria — another form of standards.

The editors at CleanRooms received so many letters in response to Robert P. Donovan's October 1999 Electronics column on page 8 entitled, "The minienvironment mystery," that this month we will publish the letters and author responses in this space.

International harmonization of standards has been ongoing for several years notably in the area of compendial tests and monographs. However, steam sterilization regulations and standards, especially as they affect cycle development and validation, lack consistency and uniformity among the various international regulatory bodies. Very little has been done to reconcile these differences.

The electronics industry is taking a big hit. It is losing billions of dollars annually because electrostatic discharge (ESD) wreaks havoc on delicate circuitry, substrates and disk drive components. As little as 5 volts can damage the smallest and most delicate component and fewer than 100 volts can waste entire lots of electronic circuitry.

Pick a corner of the globe, any corner. Moscow? OK, there you'll find a complete mini-wafer fab that was brought to Russia by Systems Integration Technology AG (SIT; Montlingen, Switzerland) and consists of 15 transportable cleanroom modules.

Fume extraction arm; Ducting; Plastic hose; Automated storage; and more.

Certain critical environments, from pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices to semiconductor and aerospace equipment, require wet cleaning. The most widely used wipers in highly critical areas (ISO Class 5 [Class 100] and cleaner) are those made with fabrics knitted from filament polyester or nylon.