Using Fastmicro’s Particle Fallout Scanner for lower OPEX, reduced emissions, and better contamination risk management.
Cleanrooms are among the most energy-intensive environments in the world. Whether used in semiconductor manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, or research labs, cleanrooms consume massive amounts of energy simply to maintain the required level of air cleanliness.
While companies invest heavily in training, consumables, monitoring, and procedures, the largest expense is almost always energy. And this presents a major opportunity: by optimizing airflow based on particle data, cleanrooms can significantly reduce energy consumption without compromising product quality or yield.
This article explains the scale of the challenge, why traditional airborne particle counters (APCs) on their own are not enough, and how Fastmicro’s Particle Fallout Scanner enables cleaner, more efficient operations with actionable, surface-level contamination data.
The true cost of clean air in cleanrooms
Cleanrooms consume significantly more energy than a comparably sized office building. This is primarily due to the tremendous amount of filtered, conditioned air that must be continuously circulated to meet cleanliness classifications.
- Cleanrooms may use up to 10–20x more energy per square meter than office environments.
- Cleanroom HVAC systems often account for 50–80% of total facility energy consumption, depending on class and design.
- Air movement fans alone typically represent 30–50% of HVAC electricity use, due to pressure drops over HEPA/ULPA filtration.
- Semiconductor and high-tech cleanrooms can exceed 20,000 kWh/m² per year.
The biggest driver is Air Change Rates (ACRs), hundreds of air changes per hour and sometimes far higher than what is required for actual contamination risk.
This leads directly to:
- Overcleaning
- Oversized HVAC loads
- Excessive operational costs
- Unnecessary carbon footprint
ISO 14644-16:2019 was introduced to help cleanroom owners improve efficiency while maintaining compliance, encouraging data-driven control strategies instead of fixed, always-max airflow settings.
Closed-loop control with Airborne Particle Counters (APCs)
A good starting point, but not the full picture.
Many cleanrooms now use APC data to modulate airflow or Intelligent Fan Units (IFUs). This is often called Demand-Controlled Filtration (DCF).
With APC-based feedback loops, operators can:
- Reduce airflow when contamination is low
- Increase airflow during operator presence
- Validate compliance using continuous or intermittent monitoring
Studies in data centers, pharmaceutical cleanrooms, and microelectronics labs show that APC-driven DCF can significantly reduce HVAC energy consumption while maintaining cleanliness.
However, APCs alone have a critical limitation: they measure airborne particle concentration, not what deposits on the critical surface or product.
This is where Fastmicro’s solution adds critical value.
Introducing particle fallout data: the missing link in cleanroom energy optimization
Fastmicro’s Particle Fallout Scanner measures surface particle deposition with submicron sensitivity, matching airborne particle counter capabilities for correlation and stronger feedback loops.
This is a critical advancement because:
- Particles that matter are the ones that land on critical surfaces or product surfaces.
- APCs monitor room conditions; Fastmicro monitors risk at the
point of impact.
Placing Fallout Scanners at critical locations provides real-time data where contamination affects product quality and yield. - Combining APC + fallout data enables deeper airflow reductions.
If both airborne and surface metrics remain stable, airflow can safely be reduced with much greater confidence. - Localized fallout data provides high-resolution insights into room dynamics, far more actionable than room-level airborne averages.
Thus, the Particle Fallout Scanner becomes a complementary data source providing direct visibility into contamination risk and strengthening the feedback loops needed for energy optimization.
How particle fallout monitoring supports energy savings
1. Avoiding overcleaning using enriched contamination data
APCs alone may suggest safe conditions, but deposition can occur in specific zones.
Fallout data provides the confirmation needed to safely reduce ACRs.
2. Smart scheduling of fan speeds
Cleanroom operators can reduce ACRs when supported by fallout data showing stable conditions.
3. Better IFU/AFU control algorithms
Adding fallout data improves machine-learning or PID-loop-driven airflow management.
4. Improved understanding of cleanroom dynamics
Fallout sensor placement across process steps uncovers:
- Particle spikes during operations
- Ineffective flow zones
- Sources of deposition
- Cleaning effectiveness over time
Business impact: lower OPEX, higher yield, lower carbon footprint
Integrating surface particle monitoring into airflow control strategies yields measurable benefits:
- Reduced HVAC and fan energy
- Reduced cooling load
- Lower environmental footprint
- Better particle contamination risk management
- Higher equipment uptime and improved product quality/yield
Why Fastmicro?
Fastmicro Particle Fallout Scanner:
- Submicron sensitivity, up to large macro particles
- Continuous or intermittent scanning with intervals as low as 10 seconds
- Placed directly at critical surfaces
- High repeatability
- Clean, fast, non-contact measurement on standard 2” silicon wafers (no expensive witness plates/consumables)
- Enables follow-up analysis on witness wafers for root cause investigations (e.g., by SEM-EDX)
By adding surface fallout data to traditional APC-based control, cleanroom operators gain a complete contamination picture, enabling confident reductions in energy usage without compromising product quality or yield.
This creates a powerful synergy:
lower OPEX + reduced emissions + better contamination risk management.
If you're exploring ways to reduce cleanroom energy usage or want to integrate surface particle monitoring into your facility, Fastmicro can help.