Applied Materials Gmbh & Co Kg

Applied Materials, Inc.

Ralph Lindenberg

Stefan Bangert

Tobias Stolley

Andreas Lopp

Uwe Schüssler

Oliver Heimel

Marcus Bender

Markus Hanika

Fabio Pieralisi

Frank Fuchs

Uwe Schuessler

Evelyn Scheer

Erkan Koparal

Michael Konig

Guido Mahnke

Harald Wurster

Thomas Berger

Jian Liu

Konrad Schwanitz

Claus Zengel

This invention relates to a coater for the coating, in particular, of large-area substrates by means of cathode sputtering, the coater having a coating chamber and, provided therein, a cathode assembly () where the material to be sputtered is located on a target () with a curved surface, the material to be sputtered being located, in particular, on the lateral surface of a cylinder, there being in a single coating chamber for a coherent coating zone at least three, preferably more, cathode assemblies () with rotatable, curved targets () positioned one beside the other.

Coater with a large-area assembly of rotatable magnetrons

An arrangement for transporting a flat substrate through a coating installation, wherein the coating installation comprises, e.g., several and different sputter cathodes, to which the flat substrate, for example a glass pane, is transported one after the other in vacuo. So that no abrasion is generated between glass pane and contact, the glass pane is kept spaced apart from the contact by means of gas pressure. The gas pressure is herein built up through relatively few and small holes in a gas channel. Since during flooding of the coating installation to atmospheric pressure or during evacuation, due to the small holes, no fast pressure equalization between gas channel and the remaining coating installation is possible, the gas channel is decoupled in terms of gas from the remaining coating installation and provided with a separate gas line, via which gas can be introduced into the gas channel or pumped out of it.

Arrangement for transporting a flat substrate in a vacuum chamber

The invention relates to a drive mechanism for a vacuum treatment apparatus by which substrate holders can be transported around an axis (A&#x2014;A) from an entrance airlock to an exit airlock. A stationary supporting column () is disposed in the center and on it a rotatory drive chamber () is borne which has control rods () for a rotation and a radial displacement of the substrate holders. In the rotatory drive chamber (), a motor () and rotatory displacement drives for the control rods () are arranged on the supporting column (), the control rods being in active connection each with a corresponding substrate holder. To solve the problem of carrying substrates through the vacuum treatment apparatus, even substrates of great area, smoothly, at a slight angle to the vertical, not fastened to the substrate holders, it is provided that a) the motor () is joined to a stationary bearing carrier () in which a rotatory star-shaped array of cantilevers () is mounted, b) the cantilevers () are articulated at one end to bell-crank levers (), each of which has a pivot pin (), c) the other end of each of the bell-crank levers () is articulated to one of the control rods (), and that d) the pivot pins () of the bell-crank levers () are guided in a first stationary radial cam () whose shape determines the radial movements of the control rods (). A periodic, variable superposition of the radial movements is performed by variable tangential movements produced by a second stationary radial cam () with a bell-crank lever which is joined by a link () to the drive chamber ().

Drive mechanism for a vacuum treatment apparatus

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Büdingen, Germany

Ralph Lindenberg