Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) is a low pressure deposition process that uses plasma as an assisting means to produce solid films onto a substrate from a gas or vapor source. Plasma is used to generate the radicals that participate in the film growth and allows for a “low” temperature process when compared to standard CVD processes.

MVSystems uses a capacitive configuration (i.e. parallel plates) to generate the plasma. The substrate is connected to a ground electrode while the other plate (electrode) is powered by a DC, RF or VHF source. RF (13.56MHz) is the most commonly used type of excitation.

Among other innovations, MVSystems developed the pulsed PECVD (P-PECVD) technique which uses a modulation frequency in the 1-100kHz range to improve deposition rate of high quality film materials. The introduction of a periodic OFF time during the process is the key to allowing higher power input without deleterious effects on the properties of the film.