Fabtech Cleanrooms

Data centre contamination control · Fabtech

Data centre cleanrooms, built around your cooling, not against it

A data centre does not need a pharma-grade cleanroom. It needs the dust kept off the servers, with air that works alongside your cooling. Fabtech engineers exactly that.

We hold the white space to ISO Class 8 with air filtration and positive pressure. We make the panels, the doors and the filter housings for our pre-engineered modular cleanroom systems in our own facility in India. One team owns the room from the first design conversation to handover.

  • ISO 14644 Class 8
  • Pre-engineered modular
  • New build and live retrofit
  • Since 2004
Talk to the engineers who'll size your white space See what the air actually does

What the room is held to

White space / control set

Four controls, one air system. Nothing here is a cooling target: the cooling design is yours, and the contamination control is engineered to support it.

What a data centre cleanroom is

Ask what your servers need, not what to call the room. They need dust kept out of the air around them, not a pharma-grade cleanroom. The room that does that job is the ISO 8 white space.

It is held to ISO 14644 Class 8, and runs on air filtration, positive pressure and controlled entry. It protects uptime and hardware life, and works with the cooling data centers already run.

Nothing is manufactured inside it. That single fact separates a data centre from every other sector we build for. There is no product to protect and no process to keep sterile. There is a room full of hardware that has to keep running, and air that either helps it or quietly damages it.

Clear the ground first

Three things people confuse, and why it matters

Three terms get used as if they mean the same thing. They do not. Mixing them up is how an owner either overspends or under-protects a facility. It is worth two minutes to pull them apart before anything gets scoped.

Three distinct things, in plain order.

Three different thingsMixing them up costs money in both directions
  • 01A cleanliness standard

    Data-centre contamination control

    • ISO 14644 Class 8
    • Positive pressure
    • Controlled entry

    What it is

    Keeping airborne dust out of the white space, held to ISO Class 8. Air filtration, positive pressure and controlled entry do the work. It protects hardware and uptime, and it is what this page is about.

    What it is not

    It is not a cooling measure and it is not a cleaning contract. It is engineered into the envelope before the racks arrive, or staged into a hall that is already live.

  • 02A regulated process room

    A classified pharma cleanroom

    • EU-GMP Grade A to D
    • Microbial control
    • Gowning cascade

    What it is

    An ISO Class 5 to 8 room built around a GMP process. It runs strict gowning, a pressure cascade and microbial control. A data centre almost never needs one, and specifying it adds cost and fights the cooling.

    What it is not

    It is not a tighter version of the same idea. It answers to a regulator and to a product, neither of which exists in a server hall.

  • 03A thermal measure

    Cold-aisle containment

    • Hot and cold aisle
    • Thermal design
    • No class implied

    What it is

    A cooling-efficiency measure that physically separates hot and cold air around the racks. It is part of the thermal design, not a contamination standard. Contamination control is engineered to support it, never to replace it.

    What it is not

    It is not filtration. A perfectly contained cold aisle circulating dirty air is a very efficient way to deliver particulate to every board in the row.

Get those three straight and the project right-sizes itself. Two more calls follow. First, retrofit or new build: can we add filtration and positive pressure to a live facility without an outage, or is this a greenfield envelope? Second, the colocation and disaster-recovery question. A multi-tenant hall and a DR site each carry their own entry, pressurisation and uptime constraints.

Classification

Classification and standards for data centres

A data centre is classified against the same standard as every other controlled environment, which is what makes the comparison worth drawing. The ladder below is the whole range people specify. A server hall sits on the bottom rung of it.

A server hall sits on the bottom rung.
A pharma aseptic core sits on the top one.
They are three orders of magnitude apart.

ISO 14644-1 classesAt 0.5 micron and largerISO Class 53,520particles per m³EU-GMP Grade AGrade B at restAseptic core, fill and finish, LAF zones0.36 to 0.54 m/s, unidirectionalISO Class 635,200particles per m³No direct equivalentBuffer to an ISO 5 zoneSterile and semiconductor support areas90 to 180 ACPHISO Class 7352,000particles per m³EU-GMP Grade B in operationGrade C at restPharma processing, gowning to the aseptic core30 to 60 ACPHISO Class 83,520,000particles per m³EU-GMP Grade C in operationGrade D at restGeneral GMP, secondary packing, warehouse interface20 to 40 ACPH10³10⁴10⁵10⁶10⁷Particles per m³ISO 14644-1:2015

FIG. 01ISO 14644-1:2015 airborne particulate classes and their EU-GMP equivalents. Each figure is the maximum permitted concentration of particles 0.5 µm and larger per cubic metre, and each step down the ladder is a factor of ten. Air change rates and face velocities are typical design ranges rather than values the standard sets, and the density swatch is indicative, not to scale.

Where each cleanliness level fits inside a data centre
ISO 14644-1 classTHIS PAGEWhere it fits in a data centreControl approach
ISO Class 8White space / server halls, critical equipment and network roomsAir filtration (HEPA/fine), positive pressure, gasketed surfaces, controlled entry
Controlled (non-classified)Staging, build, burn-in and entry areasCoarse filtration, pressure offset, entry discipline
Legacy "Class 100,000"Federal Standard 209EOld specs and tenders still quoting the pre-2001 nomenclatureSuperseded by ISO 14644 in 2001; maps onto ISO Class 8 today

FIG. 02

The server halls and the critical rooms get the real contamination control. The build, staging and entry areas around them are kept tidy, but they do not need to be classified. A data centre rarely needs anything tighter than that. Reaching for a pharma-grade class wastes money and works against the cooling.

If a tender still quotes the old "Class 100,000" number, it maps cleanly onto the current classes, so nobody is guessing at handover and no legacy specification has to be rewritten before a project can start.

Cleanroom classification overview

Three parts of the standard do the work, and each one answers a different question.

ISO 14644-1
The classes themselves, and how a room is classified against them
ISO 14644-2
The monitoring that keeps a room inside its class after handover
ISO 14644-3
The test methods used to prove both
The stakes

The stakes: clean air protects uptime, not a lab process

A data centre lives or dies on uptime. Dust is a quiet, avoidable threat to it. Particulate that drifts into the white space settles on boards and fouls connectors. It makes the filters and the cooling work harder, which burns energy and shortens hardware life. The risk spikes during construction, during a retrofit, and any time the envelope is opened.

Here is the part nobody tells an owner clearly. Clean rooms for datacenters are not the same animal as a pharmaceutical cleanroom. You are not protecting a sterile process from a person. You are keeping fine dust out of a hot, high-airflow room without choking the cooling that keeps it alive.

So the target is ISO Class 8 particulate control, not a lab class. Fine air filtration keeps dust out, with HEPA where the spec calls for it. Positive pressure holds the envelope.

Surfaces are gasketed and cleanable, finishes are ESD-aware, and entry is controlled for people and equipment alike. Each of those is designed into the cooling and the hot/cold-aisle containment you already run.

What it must deliver

What data-centre contamination control must deliver

Strip the jargon and the room has four jobs. Keep the dust out. Clean the air without fighting the cooling. Control what comes through the door. Build it so it can be cleaned, and so it stays clean at three in the morning. The table is those same four jobs with the engineering attached.

What data-centre contamination control must deliver
The jobWhy you careWhat it means in the roomTHIS PAGE
ISO 8 white-space controlDust stays out of the server hallsISO Class 8 per ISO 14644-1, air filtration, positive pressure, gasketed and cleanable surfaces
Air filtration that helps the coolingClean air without choking the cold aisleHEPA and fine air filtration for data centers, coordinated with the cooling and cold-aisle containment, so filter and cooling load fall instead of rising
Entry and material controlContamination arrives with people and kitGowning and entry protocols, pass-through and staging control, low-particle and ESD-aware finishes
Cleanable, durable buildSurfaces that stay clean in a 24/7 facilityPre-engineered modular panels, sealed joints, seamless flooring

FIG. 03

Data-centre cleanroom HVAC

The second contaminant

Creep corrosion: the failure you find months later

Particulate is the contamination you can see coming. There is a second kind you cannot. Traces of sulphur-bearing gas in outside air reach the silver and the copper on a board, react with them, and grow a corrosion product that creeps across the surface between two contacts. Nothing trips while that is happening. The card keeps working. Then one day the gap closes, a board fails, and the fault log says nothing about air.

That is the whole reason this page argues on a time axis instead of a floor plan. By the time a data centre sees the fault, the room has been breathing the wrong air for the better part of a year, and nobody has a reason to connect the two.

Section on a time axisIllustrative sequence, not to scale
The same two boards in portrait, with elapsed months running down the page. Sulphur-bearing gas reaches the unprotected pads at month 1, the corrosion product creeps down the gap between them, the joint bridges at month 14 and the fault is found at month 16. The filtered and pressurised board holds the same gap open for the full eighteen months.01 UNPROTECTED02 PROTECTEDUNFILTERED AIRFILTERED AIRMONTHS0369121518GAS ARRIVESMONTH 1JOINT BRIDGESMONTH 14FAULT FOUNDMONTH 1615 MONTHS OF WRONG AIRBEFORE THE FAULT IS FOUNDHEPA IS RATED ON PARTICLES, NOT GAS
  • Filtered air
  • Sulphur-bearing gas
  • Corrosion product

FIG. 04Creep corrosion across a pad pair on an immersion-silver finish, drawn against elapsed months. Gas reaches the surface early, the sulphide creeps across the gap, and the joint bridges long after. The protected board runs the same eighteen months untouched.

Creep corrosion is a materials problem rather than a particle problem. Sulphur-bearing gases, mainly hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide, react with exposed copper and with immersion-silver finishes to form a sulphide that migrates across the solder mask and bridges adjacent pads. Particulate filtration does not stop it. HEPA H13 at 99.95 percent and H14 at 99.995 percent against MPPS, the grades set by EN 1822, are rated on particles, and a gas molecule is orders of magnitude smaller than the most penetrating particle size.

Gaseous contamination is taken out by chemical filtration media in the make-up air path, and it is held out by positive pressure at the envelope. ISA 71.04 grades how corrosive an environment is by how fast a copper or a silver coupon corrodes in it, and published data-centre guidance sits at severity level G1.

Particulate control and gaseous control are two different jobs on the same air. We size the particulate side against the room and its heat load, and we specify and integrate gas-phase media in the make-up air path where a site's reactivity monitoring calls for it.

HEPA filtration, grades and testing Cleanroom HVAC and make-up air

Gaseous severity levels, ISA 71.04

G1

MildCopper reactivity below 300 angstroms per month

Corrosion is not a factor in equipment reliability. This is the level data-centre guidance targets.

G2

ModerateBelow 1,000 angstroms per month

Corrosion is measurable and may become a factor in equipment reliability.

G3

HarshBelow 2,000 angstroms per month

A high probability that corrosive attack will occur.

GX

Severe2,000 angstroms per month and above

Only specially designed and packaged equipment is expected to survive.

Severity classification per ISA 71.04. Reactivity is measured on copper and silver coupons exposed in the room, not calculated from the air handling design.

The other decision

New-build or retrofit: the data-centre decision

Most data-centre contamination work is not a fresh white box. It is either built into a new facility before the racks arrive, or added to a hall that is already live and cannot go down. Those two paths are engineered very differently. The difference is uptime.

Path A

New build

Greenfield envelope, no live load

Path B

Live retrofit

Running hall, no outage available

When the class target is set
Advantage. Day one, alongside the cooling design and the containment strategy
After the fact, against a hall whose airflow is already committed
How the envelope arrives
Advantage. Pre-engineered modular panels, erected before the racks land
Advantage. The same pre-engineered panels, erected around racks that are already earning
Pressure and filtration
Designed into the make-up air path and the pressure cascade from the start
Staged upgrades to filtration and positive pressure, sequenced hall by hall
The constraint that governs
Programme and coordination with the cooling contractor
The live load. Nothing may drop the cold aisle at any point
When work happens
Normal construction hours, ahead of energisation
Planned maintenance windows, with the hall running either side of them
What is proved at the end
Advantage. Particle counts, pressure map and recovery, to ISO 14644-1
Advantage. The same particle counts, pressure map and recovery, to ISO 14644-1

FIG. 05Both paths land on the same class target. What changes is the sequence, the access and who is on site while it happens.

Path A, new build

On a new build, the class target, the pressure cascade and entry control are designed into the envelope and the cooling from day one.

Path B, live retrofit

On a retrofit, the live load sets the constraint. We stage filtration and positive-pressure upgrades around a running hall. Pre-engineered modular panels, sealed doors and terminal filter housings do that work. They go in during planned maintenance windows, without dropping the cold aisle.

Either way the room types are the same as the list above, and each one is integrated with the cooling and the cold-aisle containment.

The air

Data-centre cleanroom HVAC and air filtration

Ask anyone who runs a data centre what moves the most air in the building and the answer is the cooling. Contamination control is not a second system competing with that. It is the work of making that air clean and keeping dirty air out. Done properly, cold-aisle containment and cooling efficiency get easier, not harder.

Air handling unit loopISO 16890 stagesFresh make up air10 to 20 %Air handling unit1Mixing box, freshand return air2Pre filterISO 16890 ePM103Fine filterISO 16890 ePM14Cooling coiland drain pan5Reheat coilHumidity control6Supply fanPlug typeSupply to the ceiling plenumData hall, ISO 8Terminal HEPA H14Low level returnReturn, 80 to 90 %Exhaust bleed

FIG. 06Recirculation loop for a data-centre white space: make-up air and filter bank on the left, the hall on the right, supply high and return low. ACPH is set by the heat load, not by a lab number.

We also build the room itself from pre-engineered modular panels. In a live facility that matters more than it sounds. The parts arrive ready to assemble, so the white space goes up around running racks with very little disruption.

That is why a data-centre cleanroom HVAC design sizes the filtration against two things, not one. Fine filtration handles the everyday particulate, with HEPA where the spec calls for it. Positive pressure then holds the line at the envelope and at every entry point.

Air changes per hour (ACPH) follow the room's heat load, not a lab number. The pressure cascade is set to hold ISO Class 8 across the white space. The result is cleaner air in the server halls, and a lower filter and cooling load. The strategy behind it is validated on site, not assumed.

The air handling units that carry that filtration are built in our own facility, alongside the terminal HEPA housings and the fan filter units that sit in the ceiling. One engineering team sizes the air system, manufactures it and proves it on site.

Cleanroom HVAC services

Applications

Data-centre applications we engineer for

Here is where cleanrooms for data centers actually get built inside a facility. Some of these rooms are classified. Others are simply controlled. All of them protect the same thing, which is uptime.

01

White-space and server-hall contamination control

ISO 8 particulate control across the main racks.

02

Critical equipment and network rooms

Tighter entry and pressurisation around the gear that cannot go down.

03

Colocation and cloud infrastructure

Multi-tenant halls with controlled, auditable entry per customer cage.

04

New-build and retrofit data centres

Greenfield envelopes, or filtration and positive pressure added to a live facility.

05

Disaster-recovery and backup sites

DR rooms held to the same uptime-protecting standard as the primary.

06

Build, staging and burn-in rooms

Controlled, non-classified areas for receiving, configuring and soak-testing hardware.

07

Controlled entry and material-transfer areas

Gowning, pass-through and staging that stop contamination at the door.

Each one carries its own contamination, pressurisation and entry-control needs. So a data centre is rarely a single cleanroom. It is a set of spaces, each held to the level it actually needs.

For electronics and battery production cleanrooms, see Electronics manufacturing cleanrooms .

How we deliver

How we deliver

A data-centre cleanroom starts from the cooling design and the uptime constraint, not the floor plan. We capture what you need. Then we turn filtration, pressure and entry control into a design that supports your containment strategy. From there it is one accountable team and six stages.

The acronyms in the table put a lot of people off, so the last line of each stage translates them. The point behind all of them is the same. At every stage you hold evidence, not assurances.

  1. 01

    URS and class target

    White-space, critical-room and entry constraints set the brief, alongside the cooling and containment design.

    URS is your requirement in writing

  2. 02

    Design and DQ

    Air filtration, pressure cascade and entry control coordinated with the cooling and cold-aisle containment.

    DQ proves the design meets that requirement

  3. 03

    In-house manufacture and FAT

    Pre-engineered modular envelope and equipment built in our own facility.

    FAT tests the equipment before it ships (equipment only)

  4. 04

    Installation and IQ

    Envelope, filtration, flooring and services installed and inspected, around live racks where needed.

    IQ checks the installed room against the design

  5. 05

    Commission, OQ and PQ

    HEPA integrity (PAO/DOP), pressure-differential mapping, recovery and particle-count verification to ISO 14644-1.

    OQ and PQ prove the finished room actually performs

  6. 06

    Handover

    As-builts, validation dossier and equipment AMC issued.

    Ongoing facility maintenance stays client-managed

Full delivery process Installation on a live site

Validation

Validation, documentation and compliance

Every white space we hand over comes with the paperwork that proves it performs. Your facilities and operations teams inherit test results, not a finished-looking room and a promise.

The room is qualified and validated, not "certified". It is built to hold its class in 24/7 operation, and the evidence for that arrives as one documented package.

What gets proven before a white space is handed over
What gets provenHowWhat you receiveTHIS PAGE
Filter integrityHEPA integrity testing (PAO/DOP)Test record for every filter
Pressure regimePressure-differential mapping across the white space and entry pointsPressure map and agreed set-points
Air cleanlinessParticle-count and recovery verification to ISO 14644-1Classification report against ISO Class 8
The qualification fileDQ/IQ/OQ/PQ, built up through design, manufacture, installation and commissioningComplete validation dossier

FIG. 07

Validation services

Why Fabtech

Why Fabtech for a data centre cleanroom

With Fabtech, one team stays with the room from the first design conversation to handover. The engineers who size the air system are the ones who build it, install it and prove it works. There is no gap for a problem to fall into.

We have delivered 2,000+ controlled environments since 2004, across every industry that needs controlled air. A data centre is a new setting for that work, not a new discipline.

So what you get is a room that holds ISO Class 8 without fighting your cold-aisle containment. The panels and the entry equipment are pre-engineered modular cleanroom systems we make in-house. The same team engineers the air filtration and the positive pressure, then hands you the documents that prove the room performs. It is sized to protect uptime, not to over-build a lab.

In-house

What we manufacture in-house

We manufacture pre-engineered modular cleanroom systems for data centres in our own facility. That covers modular wall and ceiling panels with PUF and Rockwool infill, sealed doors and view panels, terminal HEPA housings and FFUs, air handling units, pass-throughs and entry-control equipment. Honeycomb-infill panels are supplied and integrated when a project calls for them.

Pre-engineered means the white space arrives as ready-to-assemble parts. That is exactly why it suits a data centre. The room goes up fast. It goes up around running hardware, with minimal disruption to racks that are already earning money. One engineering team owns the room and the equipment, so the design that holds the class is the design that gets installed.

Section viewNot to scale
The same white-space envelope in portrait: ceiling plenum with terminal HEPA housings and fan filter units at the top, modular wall panels either side, two rack rows with a contained cold aisle, a seamless floor, a sealed door with a view panel, and the air handling unit and filter bank below, ducted up the outside of the left wall.SECTION, PRE-ENGINEERED ENVELOPEBACEILING PLENUMRACKSRACKSCOLD AISLECDAHU + FILTER BANK
  • Filtered supply air
  • Built envelope

FIG. 08Section through a pre-engineered white-space envelope. The parts marked in azure are manufactured in our own facility and arrive ready to assemble.

A

Ceiling grid, terminal HEPA housings and FFUs

Terminal housings and fan filter units built in-house, carrying HEPA H13 or H14 media where the spec calls for it.

Full detail

B

Modular wall panels, PUF and Rockwool infill

Flush, gasketed and cleanable. Honeycomb infill is supplied and integrated where a project calls for it.

Full detail

C

Sealed doors, view panels and entry control

Cleanroom doors and entry equipment made in-house, so the envelope holds its pressure at every opening.

Full detail

D

Air handling units and the make-up air path

AHUs built in our own facility, sized on the heat load, with the filter bank and gas-phase media the site calls for.

Full detail

FAQ

Data-centre cleanrooms, common questions

Talk to a data-centre cleanroom engineer

It is a contamination-controlled white space, usually held to ISO 14644 Class 8. It keeps airborne dust away from servers and network gear, which protects uptime and hardware life. It runs on air filtration, positive pressure and controlled entry, engineered to support the cooling.

Dust is why a data centre needs a clean room at all. Particulate fouls connectors and boards, and loads the filters and the cooling. Controlling it protects uptime, hardware life and energy cost. The need is sharpest during construction, during a retrofit, and any time the white space is opened.

Proof

Proof

Data centre and connectivity clients are on our delivered list, alongside the pharma, biotech and electronics facilities where the same contamination control was delivered and validated to ISO 14644.

What each of those scopes covered sits under that client's disclosure permissions, so the names are here and the detail is on request. What we bring to a white space or a retrofit is the same team and the same design, build and validate method.

See the delivery record

Reference work
FABCLEAN / DELIVERED RECORD
  • NTT DATAData centre client. Scope on request.
  • QualcommData centre client. Scope on request.
  • CtrlSData centre client. Scope on request.
  • Nxtra DataData centre client. Scope on request.
  • West Coast OptilinksOptical fibre and cable manufacturer. Scope on request.
  • Bosch NashikElectronics facility with an ESD floor. Scope on request.
Request a quote

Protecting a data-centre build or retrofit?

Tell us the white-space area and the critical rooms. Our engineers respond with a scoped proposal.

Based in Andheri (West), Mumbai
Delivering cleanroom projects across India.

We use the details you enter here only to answer your enquiry and prepare a scoped response. You can withdraw consent or ask us to erase them at any time, and you may complain to the Data Protection Board of India. See our Privacy Policy.