Industry Standards

Sterile Environment Technologies practices proper procedures to Decontaminate your Data

Center or similar mission critical indoor environment.

ISO 14644 Standards can be found through IEST, the Secretariat of ISO/TC209.

ASHRAE STANDARD: Particulate and Gaseous Contamination Guidelines for Data Centers

“It is incumbent on data center managers to do their part in maintaining hardware reliability by
monitoring and controlling the dust and gaseous contamination in their data centers. Data centers
must be kept clean to Class 8 of ISO 14644-1, Cleanrooms and Associated Controlled
Environments—Part 1: Classification of Air Cleanliness
(ISO 1999).”

Sources of dust inside data centers should be reduced. Every effort should be made to filter out
dust that has deliquescent relative humidity less than the maximum allowable relative humidity
in the data center. The gaseous contamination should be within the modified severity level G1 of
ANSI/ISA-71.04-1985, Environmental Conditions for Process Measurement and Control
Systems: Airborne Contaminants (ISA 1985), which meets:

1. A copper reactivity rate of less than 300 Å/month and

2. A silver reactivity rate of less than 300 Å/month.

Above Referenced From: ASHRAE – Particulate and Gaseous Contamination Guidelines for
Data Centers.
Free 13-Page PDF can be found here.

General Data Center Cabling/Space Standards

Telcordia GR-3160, “NEBS Requirements for Telecommunications Data Center Equipment and
Spaces” (available for purchase, primarily used by Telco’s)

ISO/IEC 24764, “Information technology – Generic cabling systems for data centres” (available
for purchase, similar to the cabling content of TIA-942 but written for the international market)

ASHRAE TC9.9 and TGG publications are excellent guidelines.

ANSI/TIA-942-A
ANSI/TIA-942-A is the Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers and was
approved this year August_2012. There is also the ANSI/Bicsi-002_2011 Data Center Design
and Implementation Best Practices that was approved in January 2011. Both documents are very
helpful to Data Center Owners/Operators, Telcomm/IT Consultants and PMs along with
telcomm/IT installers. Both Documents are for design/build/operation of physical
layer systems for data centers.

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is the accrediting agency who recognizes TIA,
Bicsi and many other technology associations for their “openness, balance, consensus and due
process” when developing industry standards.

What is Federal Standard 209e for Data Centers?

The outmoded (replaced by ISO 14644) benchmark for optimum and safe operating levels is
compared to Federal Standard 209e for Data Centers at 100,000 particles at .5 microns per cubic
foot of air space. Optimum levels for temperature should normally be 70 to 72 degrees
Fahrenheit, with humidity levels at 50%.

Please note: equipment manufacturers have varying optimum operating levels.

Notice:
Federal Standard 209E has been replaced with ISO Standard 14644. The first subsection in ISO
14644 (ISO STND. 14644-1) has some unique changes from the old Federal Standard – however
they are very similar. This standard is now in effect for critical environments (Cleanrooms, Data
Centers, etc.) worldwide. Some companies have been successful with the federal Standard 209E,
and may not have switched over yet. It is important for these companies to know the main
differences are easy to implement and may not be a costly change.
The main differences between Federal Standard 209E and ISO 14644-1 (Testing Standards) are:

 ISO Establishes 0.1um as the “Standard” Diameter

 ISO Creates 3 New Cleanliness Classes-
 2 “Cleaner” classes (ISO class 1 and ISO class 2) than Federal Standard 209E
 1 “Dirtier” Class (ISO Class 9) which is allows more particulate than Fed Standard 209E
class 100,000
 Allows for discarding of “Outliers” – Federal Standard 209E did not.

International Standards for Cleanrooms and Critical Environments

International Cleanroom Standards:

ISO/TC209 has proposed ten (10) documents which will make up the cleanroom standards.
These documents are in their final voting stages and can be legally used in trade. The tables and
sections below outline the first seven of these documents in order.
ISO-14644-1 Classification of Air Cleanliness
Cleanliness class designations and quantity have changed from FS209E (see Table 1). Along
with the obvious change to metric measure of air volume, ISO 14644-1 adds three additional
classes.

(Table 1) Airborne Particulate Cleanliness Classes (same as table

above)
Number of Particles per Cubic Meter by Micrometer Size
Class
0.1 um 0.2 um 0.3 um 0.5 um 1 um 5 um
ISO
10 2
1
ISO
100 24 10 4
2
ISO
1,000 237 102 35 8
3
ISO
10,000 2,370 1,020 352 83
4
ISO
100,000 23,700 10,200 3,520 832 29
5
ISO
1,000,000 237,000 102,000 35,200 8,320 293
6
ISO
352,000 83,200 2,930
7
ISO
3,520,000 832,000 29,300
8
ISO
35,200,000 8,320,000 293,000
9
(Table 2) Comparing FED STD 209E to the new ISO 14644-1.
ISO 14644-1 FED STD 209E
1
2
3 1 M1.5
Airborne Particulate 4 10 M2.5
Cleanliness Class
Comparison 5 100 M3.5
6 1,000 M4.5
7 10,000 M5.5
8 100,000 M6.5
9
ISO-14644-2 Cleanroom Testing for Compliance
This document determines the type and frequency of testing required to conform with the
standard.

Strategic Testing: (Table 1) Schedule of Tests to Demonstrate

Continuing Compliance.
Maximum Test
Test Parameter Class
Time Interval Procedure
< or = ISO 5 6 Months ISO 14644-1
Particle Count Test
> ISO 5 12 Months Annex A
Air Pressure ISO 14644-1
All Classes 12 Months
Difference Annex B5
ISO 14644-1
Airflow All Classes 12 Months
Annex B4

Strategic Testing: (Table 2) Schedule of Additional Optional

Tests.
Maximum
Test
Test Parameter Class Time
Procedure
Interval
Installed Filter ISO 14644-3
All Classes 24 Months
Leakage Annex B6
Containment ISO 14644-3
All Classes 24 Months
Leakage Annex B4
ISO 14644-3
Recovery All Classes 24 Months
Annex B13
ISO 14644-3
Airflow Visualization All Classes 24 Months
Annex B7

ISO-14644-4 Cleanroom Design & Construction

This document will be a primer on the design and construction of cleanrooms. It will cover all
aspects of the process from design development to startup and commissioning.

ISO-14644-5 Cleanroom Operations

This document will be an introduction on cleanroom operation. It will cover all aspects of the
operation of a cleanroom including entry and exit procedures for equipment and personnel,
education and training, cleanroom apparel, and facility issues such as maintenance,
housekeeping, monitoring, system failure, etc.
ISO-14644-6 Terms, Definitions & Units
This document will provide a consistent reference for all terms, definitions and units discussed
across all ISO cleanroom standards.

ISO-14644-7 Minienvironments & Isolators

This document will focus on specialized stand-alone clean spaces including their design,
construction, and operations.