Patent ID: 7886686

Claim:
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.