Cleanroom
Nitrile Gloves
A Popular Choice in Highly ESD Sensitive
Critical Environment Manufacturing
Steve Fowler, Fowler Associates, Inc.
sfowler@sfowler.com
May 13, 2004
When
choosing gloves for use in ESD and Cleanroom work, many parameters must
be considered. The most important of which are:
1.
Resistance of the glove from the object being held to the operator's
hand
2. Triboelectric generation Propensity Against Materials of Concern
3. Contamination
4. Personnel Sensitivity to Glove Materials
The ESD Association
is presently writing a test method to assist in determining the ESD
properties of gloves. The test methods now being considered are for
resistance testing of all gloves including Nitrile. Old test methods,
which only measured the resistance of gloves not being worn, did not
give the true capabilities of gloves such as Nitrile to be effective
after they hydrated on an operator's hand. The ESD
Journal has a full test method available for wide spread
use now. It also tests the triboelectric propensity of gloves being
used against any material being handled. Go to http://www.esdjournal.com/test/glove.htm
for a review of the ESD Journal's test method.
Cleanroom
Nitrile gloves possess superior intrinsic ESD property. They outperform
many other gloves for both critical ESD properties. The use of nitrile
gloves provide an effective tool to:
1.
Reduce the generation of static charges when worn by a production operator
in a properly grounded ESD worker at a properly grounded ESD workstation.
2. Drain away static charges when placed in contact with any charged
dissipative or conductive object.
Example: At one aerospace supplier visited on a particularly
difficult to find ESD problem, I found the operator at the tinning station
was using latex gloves to hold an epoxy integrated circuit as it was
being positioned to be tinned in a grounded solder pot. As the operator
spun the IC around in her hand and then dipped one side of its leads
into the molten solder, she tribocharged the epoxy and caused a Charged
Device Model discharge into the solder. This caused 5 failures in a
one year. By just changing the glove material to Nitrile, the problem
was eliminated. The Nitrile charged less against the epoxy than the
Latex thus reducing the CDM for the tinning process.
The moderate static dissipation of Nitrile gloves not only effectively
protect today's highly ESD Sensitive Devices from ESD damage, they also
offer a contamination-free solution in a cleanroom with its ultra low
ionic contamination property. Also, the sensitivity of some personnel
to Latex gloves is not a problem with Nitrile.
There is no doubt that the demand of Cleanroom Nitrile Gloves will continue
to expand into the future due to:
1.The miniaturization trend of electronic devices and equipment will
guarantee greater need of ESD protection (Refer to White Paper "ESD
Phenomena & the Reliability for Microelectronics" published
by ESD Association, USA, go here for a free download: http://www.esda.org/documents/WHITEPAPER_000.pdf
).
2.The rapid growth of IT & electronic industries that guarantee
the greater use of increasingly ESD-Sensitive microchips.
3.The
growing need of more stringent cleanrooms that are free from static
charge & micro particles especially in ultra clean manufacturing
environment.
Therefore,
nitrile gloves promise an interesting growth and bright future in the
ESD Sensitive and Cleanroom Critical Environment Manufacturing for many
years to come. For a good look at the requirements of cleanrooms and
comparison of glove materials, go to: http://www.esdjournal.com/techpapr/esdclean/esdcln.pdf
Some of the
manufacturers of Cleanroom Nitrile Gloves are: Ansell Healthcare, Safeskin
and
Cardinal (formerly Allegiance).
Nitrile,
the time has come!
