Installation for the vacuum treatment in particular of substrates
AssigneeTecmachine
InventorsGilles Fourezon, Jean-Marc Poirson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Installation for vacuum treatment, particularly of substrates, includes several identical independent and aligned modules. Each module is provided with a vacuum treatment chamber and a transfer chamber having a mechanism for transferring a substrate within one of the different chambers or from one chamber to another, the second chamber being located downstream or upstream from, directly next to, or separated by at least one module from the first chamber. A substrate can be transferred into one chamber in order to undergo a treatment while another substrate is placed in a different chamber for a specific treatment.
Claims11
An installation for vacuum treatment of substrates including
- a plurality of aligned independent modules, each independent module of the plurality comprising a vacuum treatment chamber and a transfer chamber,
- each transfer chamber of an independent module including
- first transfer means for transferring a substrate bi-directionally vertically between the transfer chamber and the vacuum chamber of the module, and
- second transfer means for transferring the substrate bi-directionally horizontally from the transfer station of the module to a transfer station of a different module,
- wherein, in each independent module, the first transfer means is configured to permit transfer of a second substrate by the second transfer means of the module when the first transfer means has transferred the substrate to the vacuum treatment chamber of the module, and
- wherein the second transfer means of each independent module is adapted to be operated independent of second transfer means of other modules of the plurality,
- a controller for operating the second transfer means of the plurality of independent modules to selectively transfer the substrate from an independent module in a downstream direction or an upstream direction to an adjacent module or to a remote module of the plurality in a single transfer step in accordance with a predetermined processing schedule;
- and
- wherein the vacuum treatment chamber of each independent module is vertically spaced from, and vertically aligned relative to, the transfer chamber of each independent module.
An installation for vacuum treatment of substrates including
- a plurality of aligned independent modules, each independent module of the plurality comprising a vacuum treatment chamber and a transfer chamber,
- each transfer chamber of an independent module including
- first transfer means for transferring a substrate bi-directionally vertically between the transfer chamber and the vacuum chamber of the module, and
- second transfer means for transferring the substrate bi-directionally horizontally from the transfer station of the module to a transfer station of a different module,
- wherein, in each independent module, the first transfer means is configured to permit transfer of a second substrate by the second transfer means of the module when the first transfer means has transferred the substrate to the vacuum treatment chamber of the module, and
- wherein the second transfer means of each independent module is adapted to be operated independent of second transfer means of other modules of the plurality,
- a controller for operating the second transfer means of the plurality of independent modules to selectively transfer the substrate from an independent module in a downstream direction or an upstream direction to an adjacent module or to a remote module of the plurality in a single transfer step in accordance with a predetermined processing schedule;
- and
- wherein the vacuum treatment chamber of each independent module is located on top of, and vertically aligned relative to, the transfer chamber of each independent module.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.