Semiconductor Clean Rooms

[Sue Dupre <dupre@Princeton.EDU>]

RADSAFErs,

My office has just completed a safety review of our Electrical
Engineering Department in which we visited some representative labs and
facilities.  This department is interested in materials engineering and
semiconductor development in a big way and have an extensive
semiconductor clean room suite.  There are SEMs and quite a number of
devices that generate RF plasmas (and evidently some UV also) and
something called a mask aligner with a UV-generating super high pressure
Hg lamp. Old familiar SEMs I'm comfortable with and I understand their
hazards, but I feel uncertain about what the hazards are and what the
degree of hazard of many of the other devices is.  Do any of you have
experience with these kinds of operations?  Can you suggest issues to
keep an eye out for and specific kinds of equipment you typically find
in semiconductor operations that will present health physics concerns? 
We've got IHs here and a general safety guy and I'll let them worry
about the non-HP stuff, but I'd be glad for any advice and comments you
can offer about HP stuff (including the nonionizing side of things). 
Thanks in advance for your help.

Sue Dupre

=======================================================
Sue M. Dupre, Health Physicist

Environmental Health and Safety Office      
262 Alexander Street    
Princeton University                           
Princeton, NJ  08544

E-mail: dupre@princeton.edu
Phone:  (609) 258-6252
Fax:    (609) 258-1804

Visit the EHS Web site at http://www.princeton.edu/~ehs
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