Method for operating a vacuum pump system

A method for operating a vacuum pump system for evacuating a chamber connected to a processing chamber,

• wherein said vacuum pump system comprises vacuum pump equipment including at least one vacuum pump, a valve device arranged between said vacuum pump equipment and said chamber, and a controller, wherein the method comprises:
• determining at least one cyclically occurring operating parameter of said vacuum pump system via said controller, and
• reducing temporally a rotational speed of the at least one vacuum pump of said vacuum pump equipment before said valve device is opened via said controller,
• wherein a cycle length is determined by said controller as a period of time between two identical changes of the at least one cyclically occurring operating parameter, such that said controller is self-learning so as to automatically determine, even in the case of changing processes, a new cycle length,
• wherein, on a basis of the at least one cyclically occurring operating parameter, a load duration is determined during which the chamber is evacuated to a predetermined vacuum,
• wherein, at a point in time after the load duration and before an end of the cycle length, the rotational speed of the at least one vacuum pump is reduced via said controller, and the rotational speed remains reduced for a remaining cycle length, and
• wherein between the load duration and the point in time after the load duration, the rotational speed of the at least one vacuum pump of said vacuum pump equipment is not reduced.