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Best Motors for Cleanroom HVAC Systems

Smaller, smarter, and more efficient motors can transform the future of cleanroom air handling.

Cleanrooms are among the most precision-regulated spaces on the planet. Whether in semiconductor fabs, pharmaceutical production, or biotech labs, every part of the system must work in harmony to preserve sterility, prevent contamination, and control airflow at a level that meets ISO 14644-1 standards.

As cleanroom environments evolve, so too must the components that support them, including the motors driving airflow. At ECM, we believe it’s time to rethink the motor.

The Cleanroom Challenge

Maintaining cleanroom conditions isn’t just about filtration. It’s about constant, controlled airflow delivered with minimal energy waste, minimal heat output, and zero mechanical failure. Standard motors, especially constant-speed machines, often fall short.

Let’s break down the key problems:

Airflow consistency: ISO 14644-1 calls for a specific air velocity (typically 0.45 m/s) at the face of the cleanroom filter. As filters clog over time, a constant-speed motor won’t adapt. That means you either oversize the system from the start, or accept performance degradation and compliance risk.

Thermal load: Heat generated inside the cleanroom by motors, HVAC components, and other equipment adds strain to both the supply-side and exhaust-side HVAC systems. Reducing internal heat output is critical to minimizing energy use and maintaining system efficiency.

Space and form factor: At $1,000 per square foot on average, space inside a cleanroom is at a premium. Fan filter units (FFUs) are typically ceiling mounted and planar, reducing internal headroom and space for critical equipment.

Reliability: Even a brief drop in cleanroom airflow can cause contamination, risking entire product batches or halting production. That’s why dependable motors are essential.

The ECMpowered Solution

ECM’s axial-flux PCB Stator motors can be designed to address these exact challenges. ECM designed motors are already in use across high-reliability applications, with more than 60,000 units in the field. Cleanrooms are a natural fit for this platform.

1. Built-In Variable Speed Control

ECMpowered motors can be optimized for variable speed performance, meaning they can adjust in real time to maintain air velocity across filter fouling or load shifts. Unlike traditional motors, they maintain high efficiency and low noise even when turned down. Integrated controllers can be tuned to manage localized feedback loops—ideal for smart Fan Filter Units (FFUs) and zoned systems.

2. Optimized System Efficiency

Typical motors may reach 93 percent efficiency at best, but only at their rated point. ECMpowered motors can be co-designed with the FFU to remain efficient across a range of filter conditions and loads. ECM’s PrintStator software allows each motor to be optimized for its actual operating environment, improving total system performance.

3. Thermal Management by Design

Encapsulated PCB windings and planar construction ensure efficient heat transfer out of the stator. This reduces the need for active cooling and eliminates common thermal failure points. In cleanrooms, less heat from the motor means lower overall energy demand across both primary and secondary HVAC systems.

4. Compact and Planar Form Factor

ECM designed motors are thin and lightweight, often a third of the mass of a comparable radial flux machine. They integrate easily into FFU housings and are easier to install and retrofit, even in ceiling-mounted arrays. This not only improves airflow design but helps save space, reduce material costs, and ease maintenance.

5. Designed for Long-Term Reliability

ECM PCB Stator motors deliver smooth, ripple-free torque that reduces vibration and acoustic noise—two key contributors to mechanical fatigue. With planar windings encapsulated in FR4, stress is distributed in the stator’s strongest direction, minimizing wear over time. Combined with real-time parameter monitoring, ECM motors support predictive maintenance strategies that improve cleanroom uptime and reduce failure risk.

ECM PCB Stator features planar windings encapsulated in FR4.

Best Motors for Cleanroom HVAC Systems

The demands of the cleanroom are too high to settle for one-size-fits-all motor systems. With ECM’s software-defined motor design and ultra-reliable PCB Stator platform, engineers can now build motors that are lighter, smarter, quieter, and purpose-built for cleanroom compliance.

Whether you’re manufacturing modular FFUs, designing airflow-critical HVAC systems, or upgrading legacy infrastructure, ECM offers a new approach to motion that is cleaner in every sense.

Want to explore what an ECMpowered FFU could look like?
Let’s start a conversation. Contact our team

ECM Engineer designing PCB Stator motor with PrintStator

How Electric Motors Could Solve the Data Center Energy Crisis | ECM CEO on Bloomberg

Smarter Motors for Cooler Data Centers

Data centers are the backbone of the digital economy, but their growth comes with a challenge: heat.

Cooling systems account for 37% of data center energy. Improving the motorized fans of a data center is one of the most effective ways to reduce energy use, cut costs, and improve reliability.

At ECM, we believe the motor is more than a component, it’s a lever for efficiency, sustainability, and resilience.

Why Motors Matter in Data Center Cooling

Motors power the fans and pumps that drive every cooling system: computer room air conditioning (CRAC), computer room air-handling (CRAH), chillers, condensers, fan arrays, and even rack-level units. Their design has a direct impact on cost, performance, and uptime.

Efficiency: Every percentage point counts. More efficient motors reduce wasted energy and shrink overall cooling demand.

Turn-down efficiency: Beyond peak performance, motors must operate efficiently at partial loads. This is often the case when a data center is not yet fully commissioned or is running under design capacity. Maintaining efficiency under these conditions is critical to overall wire-to-air performance — how effectively a motor and fan system moves air at a given flow rate and static pressure.

Reliability: Thousands of motors in the same environment can fail in correlated patterns. Reliability must be built into the design.

Weight and form factor: Lighter motors reduce rooftop and rack load, simplify installation, and can cut structural costs.

Controllability and quality of motion: Controllability and quality of motion are essential in modern HVAC systems, particularly in data center cooling. Variable-speed operation must be smooth to avoid problems; poor quality of motion can excite mechanical modes in support structures, leading to material fatigue and premature failure. Strong controllability is also critical for turn-down performance and for coordinating fan arrays, where effective load-sharing helps avoid correlated failure modes.

How ECM’s PCB Stator Technology Delivers

Higher System Efficiency

Conventional motors may achieve 92–93% efficiency at a single point, but that’s under ideal rated conditions. In real-world use, they are often oversized, less efficient when paired with a specific fan, and lose performance at partial loads.

ECM’s PCB Stator technology improves system-level wire-to-air efficiency in three ways:

Optimized across the fan curve: Motors are designed for the actual operating environment, including turn-down conditions, rather than for a generic load.
Integration with fan geometry: ECM designs can free up space for airflow, improving the efficiency of the overall air-handling system.
Broad efficiency range: The loss mechanisms in PCB Stator motors allow them to maintain high performance across a wide range of loads, not just at a single peak point. This was expanded upon in a recent case study.

The green highlight shows ECM PCB Stator motor performance gain over the operating range vs a conventional radial flux machine.

This combination delivers wire-to-air efficiency gains that go far beyond the 1–2% marginal improvements offered by conventional “high efficiency” motors.

Reliability by Design

In data centers, installing thousands of motors under identical conditions can make failures highly correlated — so reliability must be built in from the start.

ECM’s motors have been rigorously tested in realistic use cases and proven in the field, with more than 60,000 units deployed worldwide. Our model-based design process ensures that every motor characteristic is accurately predicted, and our controllers continuously estimate parameters during operation. This enables not only diagnostics and condition-based maintenance, but also smarter coordination of fan arrays to balance load and avoid correlated failures.

The construction of an ECM PCB Stator motor also contributes to its reliability. Windings are fully encapsulated, and the parts of the motor that generate heat have a short, highly conductive path to ambient, keeping temperatures under control. Together, these design choices deliver robust performance and extended motor life in demanding data center environments.

Lightweight, Flexible Form Factors

ECM designed PCB Stator motors can weigh as little as half to a third of conventional machines, such as radial flux permanent magnet or PM-assisted synchronous reluctance motors. This reduction in mass not only lowers structural load requirements but also makes installation and maintenance easier, in many cases light enough for a single worker to handle without lift equipment.

Equally important is the planar geometry of ECM’s axial flux design. Unlike bulkier radial flux machines, PCB Stator motors fit naturally into the constrained, planar spaces of HVAC systems and fan arrays. By taking up less room, they simplify integration and can even free up additional airflow paths that improve overall cooling system efficiency.

Smooth, Quiet Motion

ECM designed PCB Stator motors and controls deliver ripple-free torque characteristics under all load conditions, translating to lower acoustic noise, reduced vibration, and greater reliability. Unlike conventional machines, where stresses fall on conductors, insulation, and magnetic structures, ECM motors confine stress to the stator plane — the strongest axis of the material. This structural advantage helps extend motor life and reduce fatigue in fan arrays.

ECM controllers also rely on inductors for filtering rather than using the motor itself, a design choice that significantly reduces EMI and ensures stable operation in sensitive data center environments. While ECM does not currently offer a three-phase unity power-factor solution, we anticipate that direct DC bus supply will become increasingly important in the fan applications where our technology delivers the most value.

Designing Motors for Next-Generation Data Centers

ECM’s PrintStator Motor CAD platform enables partners to design optimized data center cooling motors in hours, not months. Motors can be mass-produced through PCB fabrication worldwide, or integrated directly into OEM fan and pump production lines.

When co-designed with fans or pumps, ECM motors help OEMs deliver cooling systems that are more efficient, more reliable, quieter, and easier to install than legacy designs.

We believe PCB Stator technology offers data centers a sustained competitive advantage, delivering lower costs, higher efficiency, and improved sustainability at scale.

To discuss your next HVAC project, contact us today.

PCB Stator designed with PrintStator Motor CAD

Motors with Flat Efficiency Curves: How PCB Stator Technology Maintains Peak Performance Across Load Conditions

In electric motor design, efficiency is often highest at a single load point and quickly drops off as conditions change. This leads many OEMs to build and stock multiple motor SKUs to cover a wide range of operating scenarios. But that paradigm is shifting. Thanks to PCB Stator motors and ECM’s PrintStator software, engineers can now build motors with flat efficiency curves that maintain high performance across a broader range of torque and speed.

This isn’t just a technical advantage. It’s a complete rethink of how motors are designed, deployed, and scaled across industries like HVAC and pumps.

PCB Stator motors, designed using ECM’s PrintStator platform, break that pattern. By combining a coreless architecture with precision-designed copper traces, these motors maintain high efficiency across a broad operating range — not just at peak load.

ECM’s PCB Stator motor has a coreless architecture with precision-designed copper traces

The Problem with Efficiency Peaks

In radial flux motors with iron cores, efficiency tends to peak at a specific operating point and drop off steeply at lower speeds or varying loads. This is due to increased core losses and magnetic hysteresis. As a result, HVAC and pump systems often experience higher energy consumption, excess heat, and reduced performance during off-peak operation.

This not only affects energy efficiency but can also increase total cost of ownership, as systems must be over-engineered or carefully tuned around the motor’s limitations, reducing flexibility in dynamic environments.

What Is a Flat Efficiency Curve?

A “flat efficiency curve” means that a motor maintains consistently high efficiency across a wide range of operating conditions. Instead of peaking at one torque point and rapidly declining, the motor delivers strong performance throughout its working range. This leads to better energy usage, less heat generation, and more design flexibility.

Why Do PCB Stator Motors Deliver Flatter Efficiency Curves?

Coreless Design Eliminates Magnetic Losses
No iron core means no hysteresis loss and minimal eddy current losses. PCB stator motors avoid the sharp efficiency drop-off seen in traditional motors.

Precision Etched Copper Traces
Instead of wound coils, copper traces are patterned on a PCB for consistent and repeatable geometry. This design flexibility allows engineers to optimize conductor width, thickness, and routing to match the power and size demands of the application.

Notably, copper traces can be widened at end turns where resistance is typically highest, reducing localized heating and overall, I²R losses. This intelligent geometry is one reason PCB stator motors maintain high efficiency across a wide range of load points and speeds.

ECM’s PCB Stator contains etched copper traces

Flat Efficiency Curves, Tuned for the Application
With PrintStator, engineers can design custom motors around multiple operating points, setting efficiency targets at each one to achieve a flat, high-efficiency torque-speed curve. Motors are tailored to the system’s load profile from the start, not retrofitted to match it.

Thermal and Control Optimization
ECM incorporates inactive copper traces specifically designed to draw heat away from critical areas. This built-in thermal pathway reduces hot spots and helps the motor maintain consistent performance under varying load and temperature conditions. When paired with integrated drive electronics, this approach ensures stable, high-efficiency operation across the full duty cycle.

The Real-World Impact of Flatter Efficiency Curves

What does this mean in practice? It enables ECM partners to streamline their motor lineups while delivering better performance.

ECM has helped multiple partners streamline their supply chains by reducing the number of unique motors needed across product lines. Each motor is optimized for multiple load points, allowing for broader use with fewer designs.

Example: North American Pump Manufacturer

ECM enabled a partner to vertically integrate motor production at their facility in Europe, supporting the development of a new line of ultra-thin, IE5-efficient industrial pumps.
The number of motor SKUs was reduced from 12 to just 4, all from a single motor technology.
Motor power ranged from 200W to 1.5kW, with each unit optimized for up to 12 distinct operating points.
Designs were tailored to environmental temperature ranges and application-specific torque-speed demands.
Common case designs were used across two of the four motor SKUs to further simplify manufacturing and supply chain management.
The partner is now working with ECM to integrate PCB Stator motors into additional product lines beyond industrial pumps.

In data center cooling systems, ECM motors achieved greater than 90% efficiency not only at peak load, but also across low-speed, off-peak cycles, saving energy without compromising control.

What the Data Shows

The image below illustrates the difference. The ECM PCB Stator motor maintains high efficiency (above 85%) across a broad torque range, while a traditional radial flux motor peaks in a narrow band and drops off steeply. The green area represents the efficiency advantage that ECM motors deliver in real-world conditions.

Figure: ECM PCB Stator Axial Flux vs. Radial Flux Efficiency Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a flat efficiency curve in electric motors?

A flat efficiency curve refers to a motor’s ability to maintain high efficiency across a broad range of torque and speed, rather than just at a single operating point.

Why are PCB Stator motors more efficient across load conditions?

They use a coreless architecture and precision copper traces, eliminating core losses and optimizing current flow, even at partial load.

How can I reduce motor SKUs in HVAC or pump systems?

By designing motors with flat efficiency curves tailored to multiple operating points, ECM helps OEMs consolidate motor SKUs and simplify inventory.

Ready to Optimize Your Motor Lineup?

Motors designed with ECM’s PrintStator platform deliver consistently high efficiency under real-world operating conditions. This is made possible by the coreless design, custom trace geometry, and software-led optimization that traditional motor designs can’t replicate.

For OEMs building HVAC systems, fluid handling products, or robotic platforms, this means less waste, better performance, and more control.

Start Your Motor Project

Optimizing Data Center Cooling with ECM-Enabled Pump Design

As data centers race to support AI, High Performance Computing (HPC), and ever-denser compute environments, liquid cooling is fast becoming a necessity. Whether used in direct-to-chip systems, immersion tanks, or rear-door heat exchangers, pumps are the unsung heroes of these thermal systems, maintaining coolant flow, managing temperature, and enabling energy-efficient operation.

But traditional pump motors haven’t kept up. They’re often oversized, inefficient under partial loads, and prone to mechanical wear. In dynamic environments like modern data centers, these shortcomings add up to higher energy costs, system instability, and increased risk of downtime.

That’s where pumps powered by ECM’s patented PCB Stator motor platform offer a new path forward.

ECM PCB Stator Data Center Pumps — PCB Stator Circulator Pump (L) vs Conventional AC Induction Pump (R)

Challenge: Cooling Systems Are Only as Smart as Their Pumps

In high-performance data centers, liquid cooling pumps are expected to do more than just move fluid. They must operate quietly, respond to constantly changing loads, and deliver optimal efficiency — all while fitting into increasingly compact infrastructure.

But legacy systems fall short:

Overpowered pumps waste energy, especially at partial load
Oversized pumps take away space from servers and server racks
Mechanical seals wear out or fail due to dry running
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) complicates integration with sensitive control systems
Single-speed motors lack responsiveness to fluctuating thermal demands
Many conventional motors are not fully submersible and can struggle in immersion or high-moisture environments, limiting their use in advanced liquid cooling systems

These limitations not only increase cooling costs but also create design and maintenance headaches for facility teams.

Solution: ECM’s PCB Stator Motor Platform for Liquid Cooling Pumps

Motors developed using ECM’s patented axial flux PCB Stator technology and engineered with the PrintStator Motor CAD platform address these challenges at the source.

They’re compact, precise, and built to operate efficiently across load ranges and cooling architectures.

Here’s how motors built with ECM software and technology improve pump performance:

High Efficiency Across Load Range: Thanks to their inherently flat efficiency curve, motors designed with ECM’s platform maintain high operating efficiency across a wide range of load conditions. Whether running at full capacity or during light-load conditions, they consistently minimize energy waste — a major advantage in dynamic thermal environments.
Compact Form Factor: The axial flux design enables lightweight, low-profile motors ideal for tight pump enclosures and space-constrained cooling modules.

Compact 1hp PCB Stator motor integration next to legacy pump motor

Fully Submersible: Motors built with ECM’s PCB Stator design can be configured for full submersion in dielectric or water-based cooling environments, making them well-suited for immersion cooling tanks or sealed coolant distribution units (CDUs) where fluid exposure is constant.
Quiet, Low-Vibration Operation: The cog-free, direct-drive nature of PCB Stator motors results in ultra-smooth motion and reduced wear — perfect for 24/7 uptime environments.
Exceptionally Low EMI: With sinusoidal stator windings, sinusoidal back-EMF, and no iron core, motors engineered using ECM’s technology emit minimal electromagnetic interference (EMI). This ensures reliable operation even when co-located with sensitive electronics and high-frequency equipment.
Seal-Free Compatibility: Motors designed through ECM’s platform support magnetic drive pumps, eliminating the failure-prone seals used in traditional designs and reducing leak risk.

Result: A Smarter, More Sustainable Cooling Loop

Integrating motors developed with ECM’s software and PCB Stator architecture into pump systems — from coolant distribution units (CDUs) to direct-to-chip and immersion loops — enables measurable improvements in performance, reliability, and cost control:

Cut cooling energy consumption by 20–30%
Improved responsiveness to real-time thermal loads
Cleaner system integration with lower EMI
Compliance with global IE5+ motor efficiency standards

Whether you’re optimizing a legacy retrofit or designing next-gen cooling from scratch, ECM’s motor platform helps data centers unlock better performance with fewer trade-offs.

Looking Ahead: Software-Defined Pump Design

With ECM’s PrintStator CAD platform, OEMs and operators can design motor solutions tailored to specific pump requirements — from torque and speed to form factor and thermal load — in hours and days, not months.

In an industry where cooling is now mission-critical, ECM is enabling smarter, faster, and more sustainable solutions from the motor up.

High-Precision Delta Robot Demo Showcases the Real-World Advantages of ECM’s Servo Evaluation Motors

Designed for Demanding Robotic Applications

The delta robot demo highlights not just the capabilities of ECM’s 2Nm servo evaluation motors, but the broader advantages of PCB Stator architecture in high-performance motion control. From mechanical simplicity to electrical precision, every design choice supports accuracy, reliability, and system integration.

Challenge

In modern robotics, especially in dynamic and multi-axis systems, engineers are constrained by several persistent challenges:

Precision & Responsiveness: Coordinating multiple axes in real time demands high-resolution feedback and seamless motion.
Noise & Vibration: Many traditional motors introduce cogging, acoustic noise, and unwanted mechanical vibrations, which can be problematic in haptic or precision environments.
System Footprint: In space-constrained robotic architectures, motor size and complexity can limit integration options.
Electromagnetic Interference (EMI): EMI can disrupt control systems and create noise in sensitive environments, particularly when controllers are located far from the motor.

ECM’s Solution

At Automate 2025, ECM showcased a delta robot, whose mechanical arms were actuated by three (3) PCB Stator servo motors from the newly unveiled shelf-stock line. This demo highlighted how ECM’s technology overcomes the challenges above through several key innovations:

Direct Drive, Zero Cogging Torque: Thanks to ECM’s patented PCB Stator axial flux design, the motors offer smooth, cog-free operation, eliminating vibration and improving motion quality. Also, this direct drive approach simplifies system architecture, reduces the bill of materials (BOM), and mechanical backlash.
Integrated Absolute Encoders for Real-Time Coordination: Integrated within each motor is an optical absolute encoder, enabling precise, closed-loop control of position and speed. The delta robot leverages this to maintain tight synchronization across all axes—crucial for rapid pick-and-place tasks and high-precision movements
Compact Form Factor for Better Integration: The axial flux architecture results in a slim, low-profile motor design, ideal for compact robotic arms like delta systems. ECM’s 2Nm servo motors integrate cleanly into the delta robot’s joints, preserving torque output and motion precision without adding bulk. This compactness simplifies system layout and allows tighter packaging in space-constrained environments.
Exceptionally Quiet Operation: The motor is mechanically quieter thanks to direct drive, eliminating belts, gears, and backlash. ECM’s PCB Stator design further reduces acoustic noise through structural innovation. Unlike traditional motors with iron cores and exposed windings, ECM’s stators feature fully encapsulated copper coils within a composite structure. This construction dampens mechanical vibrations and isolates external forces, leading to significantly lower noise during operation. The result is a motor that’s exceptionally quiet, ideal for haptic robotics, cleanroom environments, and other sensitive or public-facing applications.
Lower EMI for Cleaner System Design: Because ECM’s servo motors include onboard integrated controllers, the signal path between the drive electronics and the motor windings is

“Integrating ECM’s 2Nm servo motors into the delta robot allowed us to achieve exceptionally smooth, quiet, and precise motion, all within a compact and elegant form factor. The combination of PCB Stator technology and integrated controls streamlined both the mechanical and electrical design, enabling real-time multi-axis coordination with minimal EMI and impressive repeatability. It’s a motor platform that simplifies complexity.”
Dr. Eric Ponce, PhD. ECM Director of Research and Development

Outcome

The delta robot demo demonstrates how ECM’s servo motors can unlock higher performance in compact robotics platforms, offering OEMs a plug-and-play solution for fast prototyping and deployment.