Economics and design aspects for continuous PVD coating systems which provide high throughput

It has been shown that, above a critical production volume, it is more economically viable to utilize PAPVD techniques to coat low-cost components found in high volume industries by continuous production systems as opposed to batch processing [1]. Here we show a prediction for the number of a selected component a typical batch production system can process in a given time, the costs associated with that system and a comparison of the same estimations for a continuous system having the same size of process chamber. A breakdown of costs is given for manufacture and running of both batch and continuous systems. The predictions assume that the systems are reliable enough to ensure that all maintenance can be carried out during predetermined shut down periods, i.e. a preventative maintenance model is used. It is then shown how this model can be expanded to incorporate reliability data. Each component for a continuous system design is assessed in terms of its reliability by specifying either the probability of failure or mean time to failure and mean time to repair. The sub-reliability models for each component are then used to create an overall model for the system from which the order of component criticality, probable times and points of failure over a set period and overall down-time are predicted. The effects of this downtime on the cost per component are then given. Also shown are concept designs that reduce the manufacturing costs for the coating equipment.