Patent ID: 7763115

Claim:
A vacuum film-forming apparatus comprising: a plurality of substrate stages for placing thereon a substrate and capable of freely moving up and down; a plurality of vacuum chamber-forming containers which are opposed to the plurality of substrate stages and which can freely move up and down; a conveying means for moving the substrate between the plurality of substrate stages; a plurality of gas-introduction means which are separately connected to every vacuum chamber-forming containers; means for moving the respective substrate stages and vacuum chamber-forming containers; and a plurality of exhaust means secured to each respective substrate stage by fixing members, the exhaust means being placed outside each substrate stage, wherein when practicing a film-forming process, at least one of each pair comprising the substrate stage and the vacuum chamber-forming container is moved toward each other to thus bring each exhaust means and an opening of the vacuum chamber-forming container into contact with one another so that a plurality of vacuum chambers can be formed, wherein an exhaust gap having a desired size is defined around the entire periphery of each substrate stage by an inner peripheral face of each vacuum chamber-forming container and an outer peripheral face of each substrate stage, when each exhaust means and the vacuum chamber-forming container are in contact with one another, and wherein each exhaust gap communicates with each exhaust means to form an exhaust path when each exhaust means and each vacuum chamber-forming container are in contact with one another.