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Gennum Corporation
Gennum is a Canadian high-technology company that designs, manufactures and markets electronic
components, primarily silicon integrated circuits and thick-film hybrid circuits for the hearing aid, video
and broadcast industries.
The Millennium Project involved the expansion of Gennum’s facilities in Burlington, Ontario, which included
a new 95,000-square-foot building with production clean rooms, laboratory, office, finished goods storage,
chemical storage and building support services. Most of the facility's space was for specialized production
areas to provide suitable environmental and containment conditions for the manufacturing processes. The
production areas consisted of Class 100 and Class 1,000 clean room spaces, and Class 100,000 laboratory
space. The layout was designed to separate these critical areas with architectural features, areas for
personnel and material product flow, and HVAC.
Production was to take place in several isolated suites. Personnel flow and gowning requirements were
established to ensure the purity and integrity of the product. Multiple HVAC systems allowed for individualized
suite control, and suitable levels of filtration and pressurization.
Directional airflows isolated contaminants to guarantee cleanliness in critical areas. Air locks were used to
maintain required levels of pressurization for the segregation of operating areas, and for the gowning of
personnel. In the clean rooms, the air supply was introduced through HEPA terminal diffusers at 90 fpm, and
return-air provision was made low on the wall or through perforated flooring.
The rooms were to be kept at
a higher level of pressurization (approximately +0.5" WG) than the
adjacent corridor areas.
As Gennum was uncertain about its potential business needs, building
systems were designed to accommodate all types of changes in the
future. Great care was taken in the detailed design phase to balance
construction costs with redundancy and flexibility requirements.
Project Value: $23M CDN
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