The Vacuum Business
Varian, Inc. provides products and applied solutions that are used
to create, contain, maintain, and measure ultra-clean environments
called “vacuum.” Vacuum is necessary for performing
complex processes and conducting research experiments. Varian, Inc.'s
key vacuum products are:
- ultra-high vacuum pumps
- high-vacuum pumps
- primary pumps
- mass spectrometer leak detectors, and
- instrumentation and specialty components critical to building
and controlling vacuum environments.
What is Vacuum?
 The
word vacuum comes from Latin and means “empty."
Actually, vacuum is only partially empty space. In a vacuum,
most of the gases (like air) have been removed from a contained
volume or work chamber. It separates the vacuum from the outside
world. Thus, a vacuum is what exists in any contained volume
where there is less gas than there is in the surrounding atmosphere:
at primary vacuum, up to 99.999% of the gas is removed; at
high vacuum, up to 99.99999999%. Beyond that is ultra-high
vacuum.
A vacuum is made by removing air and other gases from the
work chamber, a specialized leak-tight chamber where a manufacturing
process occurs, such as depositing a film of material on a
substrate. The gases are removed by using special pumps, called
vacuum pumps. There are many different kinds of vacuum pumps,
each operating in a prescribed range of vacuum. Basically,
a vacuum pump's job is to take as many gases out of circulation
as necessary for the application at hand. There are three
major kinds of pumps: primary, high-vacuum, and ultra-high
vacuum. Varian, Inc. produces all of these kinds of pumps. |
 New
uses and needs for vacuum are under constantly emerging since new
processes that require vacuum are developed daily. As these and
older processes become refined, the quality of the vacuum employed
is a major ingredient in improving accuracy, repeatability, and
productivity while, at the same time, conserving materials consumed
and significantly reducing environmental impacts.
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