Monthly Archives: January 2020

Valve design plays a huge role in the functioning of a vacuum system. Many factors need to be weighed when choosing the best type, including:

• Leak rate
• Conductance
• Application compatibility
• Expected service life
• Ease of maintenance
• Size
• Price

Ball valves, poppet valves, and gate valves all have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to these different factors; this 3 part blog will discuss each type so you can choose the best one for your application.

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Gate Valves

Doug Pelleymounter, a Senior Applications Engineer with Advanced Energy ("AE") who focused mostly on high power PVD applications, has just announced his well-earned retirement after 22 years of service. This is a (mostly verbatim) re-post of Doug's story, from which a lot of practical knowledge can gained by anyone involved in vacuum thin film coating.

From Doug:

I’ve been asked to put not just 22 but over 40 years in the thin film industry into perspective, point out what I think have been significant innovations as well as steady drivers of development, and maybe even pass on a little advice.

Drastically Ramping Up Productivity

To start, let’s turn the clock back to the 1980s, when I was first getting involved with sputter deposition, coating processes, and process