| 摘要 |
The downtime of a vacuum processing apparatus due to wet cleaning is reduced. In a vacuum processing apparatus that requires aging for its chamber or process container after vacuum evacuation of the apparatus and before actual processing of a workpiece, when the chamber has been opened to atmosphere for the purpose of wet cleaning or component replacement, the apparatus comprises a high precision absolute pressure gauge for use in processing, a wide range gauge capable of measuring a wide range of pressures, and a controller, wherein the controller uses a pressure trend during vacuum evacuation to determine whether the vacuum evacuation is satisfactory, and starts aging upon determining that the vacuum evacuation is satisfactory even if the actual pressure is not below a prescribed value. The controller determines relationship between an apparent flow rate (leak rate) measured by the absolute pressure gauge when the chamber is vacuum sealed, and a chamber pressure measured by the wide range gauge, and then measures only the pressure to determine whether a baseline leak rate is reached.
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