Of Clean Rooms, driving on the pavement & climbing Lian Hua Shan.

I think the highlight of my internship so far, is the chance to go to a clean room. Which, I think it's super cool. Really didn't expect to actually go in there for a visit. By the way, in case you don't what in the world is a clean room. I went to wikipedia it, and there you go....

A clean room is...
A work area in which the air quality, temperature and humidity are highly regulated in order to protect sensitive equipment from contamination. Clean rooms are important features in the production of silicon chips, hard disk drives and other technologies such as satellites. The air in a clean room is repeatedly filtered to remove dust particles and other impurities that can damage the production of highly sensitive technologies.

The measure of the air quality of a clean room is described in Federal Standard 209. Clean rooms are rated as "Class 10,000," where there exists no more than 10,000 particles larger than 0.5 microns in any given cubic foot of air; "Class 1000," where there exists no more than 1000 particles; and "Class 100," where there exists no more than 100 particles. Hard disk drive fabrication requires a Class 100 clean room. (by the way, the company I'm interning for, specialises in the manufacturing of hard disk drive components. Hence their cleaning rooms are certified class 100)

People who work in clean rooms must wear special protective clothing called "bunny suits" that do not give off lint particles and prevent human skin and hair particles from entering the room's atmosphere.


Oh, ah now I get it, the space suit I was wearing is called, a bunny suit. Hmm, weird name. I guess its because of the colour of the suit. It's pure white in color all the way from the head mask to the boots. It looks more like a space suit actually. damn interesting. even the air in there smells funny. I can't even have make up on any part of my face even the eyes. Thats how strict the regulations are. Absolutely minimal dust particles. After wearing the suit, We even had to pass through an air blast upon entering, to ensure all dust particles were sucked up by the vacuum in order to maintain minimal contamination in the clean room.

Darn, too bad, I cant bring cammie to the site, or else I can take a picture of myself wrapped up in the 'bunny' suit.

I really cannot imagine working as an operator at the assembly line all day long in the clean room. Imagine wearing the heavy space suit, piecing hard disk head stack components most part of the day.

Well, this post is just to ward off boredom of reading industry reports. Its as if Im doing a market research project all over again.... Gimme the clean room anytime....

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Ok, my friends and I conclude the drivers here, do not give two hoots about driving laws. We took a black market cabbie today, meaning that those cabs which are not registered as legal cabs and they just charge a flat fee according to the length of the journey. Oh anyway, back to their 'unorthodox' driving methods; we were at first driving on this mini road that is damn hard to navigate through plus there are like alot of cars on the roads. So, you know what did the driver do? He started driving on the pavement, pavement as in where the pedestrians (normal people like us) are walking on. And there were people walking on the pavement. He went right behind them and honked to get them out of the way. You should see that shocked look on my face. The 'I can't believe this guy' kinda look was really written on my face lah.

Im getting kinda lazy and drowsy to continue updating on Lian hua shan climb. To cut the story short, we walked up the nearest mountain (or rather hill) around our apartment. A good way to 'burn' fats according to Qiu Xin (she's labeled as our goddess of vict, which I think its lame but funny at the same time).

This bunch of friends are really awesome folks to hang out with. =)