My cousin is anti-vax, and apparently anti-mask. He heard that surgical masks “don’t do anything”, meaning they don’t even filter the droplets in our breath—the droplets pass right through the filter element. I know this to be false, because I worked in a wafer fab, where masks have to work or the droplets from breathing can cause shorts in the microscopic circuitry. The circuits are for pacemakers, so it matters, a lot.
But I’ve been wondering how much it matters when the reliability of the IC isn’t so critical. Are the lower-integration IC chips in simpler devices also dependent on masks? What about the ICs in my $30 toaster, for example?
And how dependent are we on masks? If they all magically stopped working, or we threw them all away, what would be the result?
I’ve never been in a clean room that didn’t require a mask, hairnet, and clean suit, but these were places that manufactured CPUs and memory components. Are there fabs that don’t require masks? I suppose that’s possible, but if all masks disappeared for some reason, I think the semiconductor industry would shut down unless the fabs were so automated they didn’t require any humans to ever be in the room.
Or there be a booming business in fume hoods and glove boxes.
Yes. OP is a strange question. Is the hypothetical that the laws of physics change such that there is no way to place a physical barrier where appropriate?
Yeah, I’m not sure how to phrase my questions. I guess I’m just trying to imagine what modern conveniences I’d lose if I removed all the ones that used masked production workers to produce.
Surgical-type masks are not respirators—that is, they do not force incoming air to be drawn through the filter element the way a face-sealing N95 mask does—but it does, as the o.p. notes, prevents large droplets from being directly expelled. The meltblown non-woving polyester fiber attacks any charged particles and sticks them to the fabric until they desiccate, preventing them from flowing freely in air, and every 10000K or better cleanroom I’ve been in is a positive-pressure environment meaning that clean air is constantly piped in, forcing older air out on a continuous basis which limits the accumulation of incidental droplets or particles small enough to be suspended in air.
Without surgical masks it would not be possible to maintain a truly sterile environment, which in modern ICs is crucial to fabrication quality. Ditto for modern lithium ion and lithium polymer batteries and other devices that make use of high purity nanoscale materials because even very small amounts of contamination can affect the reliability and functionality of these devices. Other materials besides melt-blown polyester could be used but no other material has a demonstrated capability of filtering particles down to the small sizes as this fabric.
Or people could just learn to hold their breath for many hours.
Stranger
I believe masks are overrated. My doubt comes from using surgical mask in a hospital while changing fiber glass filters in a building. I ended up spitting up blood for a few days. If the mask that doctors use in surgery cannot stop fibers how effective are they in stopping microscopic particles. From that time forward until I retired 30 years later, I never wore a mask when changing filters, I wore a respirator that I had been fitted for. Now before everyone goes off on me, yes, I think they may help a little. 2 weeks before my two surgeries whenever I went out in public, I wore a mask. I wanted that little bit of extra protection, I did not want to come down with Covid and have the surgeries canceled.
I assume we’re talking about the rectangular surgical mask, usually light blue. They have an imperfect seal around the edges. I suspect that’s how the fibers got into your lungs. They’re not designed to prevent this. If you read Stranger’s post, you know that they’re primarily meant to stop droplets from being expelled.
And they work. Hundreds of manufacturers of electronic components use them. They require employees to wear them, they discipline employees who wear them improperly, they test the masks on a regular basis to confirm filtration, and if the masks didn’t work, this would be detected in the rise product scrap rate. When scrap rate goes up, production stops and a lot of $$$ is lost until the cause is found. The masks work.
As above, they’re not supposed to. They’re supposed to work the same way sneeze guards on salad bars work - by directly stopping the bigger droplets and restricting what goes directly in front.
If a surgeon has me on a table and opened up, you better believe I want that doctor masked up and not expelling spittle directly into me. Ditto my dentist. Some of them had similar objections (back in the 90s?) when it finally became common for them to mask and glove up while working on patients. I can’t believe it took so long, to be honest.
I’m sure all those anti-vax, anti-mask folks would be perfectly willing to have a doctor work on them without any barrier guards. Right? The occasional cough or sneeze is just incidental, right?
But we are being told that to wear mask to protect yourself along with protecting others. I have found the whole mask thing kind of silly. I see people going for a walk wearing a mask. Driving their car wearing a mask. I have also seen a lot of maskers claiming that they will protected completely wearing a mask. As I said I think they are being overrated. But I do not believe they are completely useless. I wore mine when I was around any group of people before surgery.
So there’s a range of behaviors. Are you really seeing that sort of behavior as the norm or the average? Unless you are outside the US, I’d be shocked if you did. I’m seeing more of the reverse - non-use even in cases where it makes sense.
Also, there seems to be a bit of projection. I have, on occasion, used a mask walking outdoors (it does help during allergy season) or short drives (too much a bother to take it off if the trip is short). Does that mean I’m overdoing it or making choices that don’t make sense for my context?
The FQ answer is, we actually are fairly dependent on them for a variety of use cases and the guidance given for mask use is appropriate. Whether or not people use them too much or too little has a subjective component that lies beyond the OP.
Well yes. Masks are “overrated” in the sense that people don’t seem to understand what they are actually rated for.
And then people seem to extrapolate that because masks are not effective for things that they were never designed to be effective for, they are not effective at the thing for which they are designed to be effective.
Kind of like saying it’s stupid to wear a helmet around a construction site because it won’t protect you from falling off a 30 story building.
Surgical masks are made of nonwoven electrostatic polymers. The material would stop the fiberglass particles. The problem is the lack of a tight seal around your face. That’s why health officials were suggesting that people wear a tighter cloth mask over the surgical mask. Otherwise, wear a respirator.
As others have already mentioned, surgical masks work just fine for stopping your germs from getting out.
I wear a mask outdoors, when I mow the lawn. I’m sure I still inhale some dust that gets around the edges of the mask, but even so, my allergic reaction from mowing is less severe than it is when I forget to mask.
The masks work.
No way that anyone in a modern IC cleanroom is depending on surgical masks. You aren’t going in without a full balaclava head cover and goggles, not to mention other layers. The actual fab proper is going to be class 1 or better. Not 1K. Just “1”. And probably better than that.
Batteries, etc. can surely get away with somewhat dirtier environments.
The fab I worked in was mostly Class 100, but had Class 10 areas and a class 1 room. The air was handled differently but all areas used the same clothing. We wore bunny suits, head cover, hair cover, goggles, and a surgical mask.