FABμBOX

My goal is to make cleanroom space more accessible. Cleanroom space is required for most micro- and nanofabrication used in the semiconductor industry (e.g. solar cells, LEDs, computer chips) and any sort of microscale patterning (e.g. metasurfaces, flexible electronics, wearable sensors, etc). While cleanroom space is such a key requirement in developing new electronics, it is not readily available to most makers and inventors in the world due to the immense cost of constructing, operating, or even using external cleanroom space. This will change with the introduction of Fabubox, a portable and modular clean box system that allows integration of basic microfabrication processes such as sample cleaning and resist development, spin coating, mask aligner, and etching in a small enclosed clean environment without the necessity to maintain an entire cleanroom facility.

1. Overview of Current Clean Space Solutions
2. Laminar flow box technology background
3. Fabubox Components
3.1 Box Components
3.2 Required materials
4. Electronics
5. Mechanical Parts and Assembly

Overview of Current Clean Space Solutions

MIT.nano building: Cost of construction about 400 million USD. 12,000 sqft Class 100 cleanroom, 9,000 sqft Class 1000 cleanroom and underground vibration-free facilities for high-sensitivity imaging. Reference here.

MIT Media Lab Yellowbox owned Canan Dagdeviren's Conformable Decoders Group. Cost of construction: 5 million USD plus (facility excluding equipment). Images from here.

Dedicated photolithography cleanroom-in-a-glovebox system at Boston College. Estimated cost of glovebox setup >100,000 USD

Laminar flow box technology background

Typical components of a laminar flowbox:

Pre-filter to take load from HEPA-filter system
Top compartment for air filtering separated from main box and comprising:

Impeller/fan system sucking in air from environment and distributing it in filter compartment
High-performance particulate filter layer (typically HEPA) separating main box compartment and top compartment
Flow-rectification layer combined with particulate filter layer

Main box compartment with laminar downwards flow of filtered air
Air exit depending on box either open front/back sections or perforated bottom with box fully enclosed