Patent ID: 7347656

Claim:
A vacuum processing apparatus comprising: a plurality of vacuum processing blocks and a cassette support means arranged at a front part of said plurality of vacuum processing blocks, wherein said cassette support means is capable of mounting a plurality of cassettes storing samples to be processed, each cassette functionally associated with a vacuum processing block, a first sample transfer robot for transferring a sample from a cassette on said cassette support means in an atmosphere, each of said plurality of vacuum processing blocks contains a load lock chamber, a vacuum processing chamber for processing samples independently and a second sample transfer robot for transferring a sample between said vacuum processing chamber and said load lock chamber, said first sample transfer robot being a common transfer robot capable of transferring a sample between its position in any one of the plurality of cassettes and the load lock chamber of any one of the plurality of vacuum processing blocks, wherein a sample from each of said plurality of cassettes is capable of being independently transferred by said first sample transfer robot into the load lock chamber of the vacuum processing block functionally associated with the cassette, and processed samples from the load lock chamber of each of said vacuum processing blocks are capable of being returned back to their original positions of their original cassettes by said first sample transfer robot.