Willis Whitfield
Willis Whitfield (born December 6, 1919 in Rosedale , Oklahoma , † November 12, 2012 in Albuquerque , New Mexico ) was an American physicist and the inventor of the modern cleanroom .
From 1954 until his retirement in 1984, Whitfield worked at Sandia National Laboratories, where he was responsible, among other things, for contamination control in the manufacture of parts for nuclear weapons . Manufacturing processes that were sensitive to dust had already taken place in clean rooms with turbulent dilution ventilation since the 1950s. The air quality that can be achieved with this, measured by the number of dust particles per volume, no longer met the requirements of the advanced technology.
Whitfield's invention of low-turbulence displacement ventilation ("laminar flow") at the beginning of the 1960s made it possible to reduce the density of airborne particles by several orders of magnitude compared to the previously existing clean rooms. This made cleanrooms of cleanroom classes 100 and better (according to the old American standard FS 209E) or class 5 and better (according to ISO standard) possible. Such clean rooms are a prerequisite for all microelectronic products and are also used in the manufacture and filling of medical products and medicines.
Whitfield has received several awards for his invention. He died of prostate cancer on November 12, 2012 in Albuquerque.
Single receipts
- ^ William Yardley: "Willis Whitfield, Inventor of Clean Room That Purges Tiny Particles, Dies at 92" . The New York Times, December 4, 2012
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Whitfield, Willis |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 6, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Rosedale , Oklahoma |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 12, 2012 |
| Place of death | Albuquerque , New Mexico |