For vacuum applications, e.g. in various thin film coating processes, an additional positive shut-off is required in order to maintain vacuum process stability and avoid target poisoning.
Axetris mass flow controllers are now available on request with an integrated pneumatic shut-off valve, typically providing leak tightness to 10-10 mbar l/sec He. The integrated solutions can be made available with all standard connections such as VCO/VCR.
The integrated solution simplifies design-in into existing systems for OEMs worldwide, who continue to benefit from superior mass flow control performance of Axetris MFCs. The valve offers repetability better than +/- 0.15% O.R. combined with long-term stability to eliminate the need to re-calibrate, and ensure constant thin film properties over time, and reaction time is less than 150ms to a stable state for real-time control of gas flows and tight control of deposition processes. Also, the turndown ratio is better than 1000:1 to achieve instrument flexibility and reduce MFC variants.
