Double floor in the cleanroom – what’s the use of it?

People like to say “without a safety net and false floor” when something is carelessly or not sufficiently secured. In cleanrooms, on the other hand, nothing is left to chance. There are hardly any spatial environments that are subject to more stringent legal regulations and monitoring mechanisms. With good reason: Anything that is produced, processed, prepared, or packaged in cleanrooms must not be contaminated by particles in any way.

However, there is an actual false floor in cleanrooms. This special form of ventilation concept is used primarily in microelectronics.

How does it work? The air flowing down from the ceiling is sucked in through holes in the floor and fed back into the plenum using an air recirculation system.

What is the advantage? The removal of air through the openings prevents cross-distribution of contamination on the floor. In other words: The particles cannot escape to the left or right on the floor and spread uncontrollably around the room. In addition, the supply and disposal lines in the raised floor are easily accessible for maintenance.

Raised access floors are used in cleanrooms, particularly in microelectronics and flat screen production, where high cleanliness classes are required.

Incidentally, the photo was taken in the research cleanroom (ISO class 1) at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany

Published: August 2023