The Sphere fixture system offers the best economy and the highest quality for all products, which are basically stressed at the tip, like drills, mills and punches. By placing the functional faces towards the evaporators, the film thickness distribution can be optimized according to the application. Additionally no other system will fit as many tools into one chamber (beside of the Nova system).
The Sphere fixture in combination with its sleeves and the whirl built one unit. Adjusting the drive spring (e.g. a kicker finger) is not necessary anymore. Placing the whirl, which is used as a third rational axel, inside of the fixture has several advantages which led to higher reliability and durability. It is protected from plasma and coating material. Even though in PVD constructions with a greater height, all the drive springs are precisely positioned.
One sleeve mostly fits to multiple plate sizes. The smallest wall thickness for these sphere sleeves is about 1mm thin. Because of that, the sleeve only needs to be 2mm bigger in diameter then the shaft of the substrate. If the shaft is thinner in diameter then sleeve, is it possible to use a reduction sleeve.
For Sphere Fixtures the planetry axle may not rotate. Becaus of this for all machine types special adaptors are needed. The Sphere adaptor fits to the planetary positions of your substrate table. It will provide the non rotating axle for the Sphere plates. The complete tower may be carried and stored on the Sphere adaptor.
End tubes are the last part for the completion of every Sphere tower. They create the same amount of shadowing as another fixture. It also protects the mechanic parts inside of the upper Sphere fixture from coatings.
These whirls drive the Sphere sleeves from the inside of the fixture. A whirl spring is included in each ordered Sphere Plate.