Clean shoes year round

In order to develop and produce sensitive standard sensors and sensor solutions like First Sensor does, certain prerequisites are necessary. After all, it is a matter of ensuring the high quality and accuracy of the products. Production under clean room conditions is crucial.

Why do we actually need a clean room? Let us explain:

• In our surrounding air there are particles buzzing around which we cannot see (for example the smallest dust particles and skin flakes).
• In a large German city, there can be between 300 and 500 million particles in just 10 litres of air.
• At the North Pole, it's about 3 million.
• In our clean room production in Berlin-Oberschöneweide, where our silicon-based sensor chips are produced, there are only 100 particles in 10 litres of air.

Our semiconductor production takes place in a clean room so that such particles do not interfere with the structuring of integrated circuits in the micrometer range. This is achieved by an ingenious air filter system as well as special clothing and behavioral rules.

Colleagues, for example, prevent dirt and dust particles from entering the cleanroom from outside before they even step in it. That's why the first precautions are taken as soon as they come into the building. This is where our production experts change their shoes in order to reduce the amount of dirt even before they enter the changing rooms. There, the cleanroom suits and new shoes follow. After changing, only a narrow strip around the eyes is uncovered. From the changing rooms they go through an airlock into the clean room to their respective workstation.