The Plasmatherm 790 is a dual chamber parallel plate tool. The left chamber is configured for [[Category:RIE|reactive ion etching (RIE) ]] while the right chamber is configured for [[Category:PECVD|plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD)]]. The RIE chamber is one of the significantly slower then other etchers available in the lab, especially compared to the [[P5000 RIE]]. The main advantage is that there are almost no material restrictions, so a wide variety of materials can be processedallowing greater depth control on thin films. The PECVD chamber is also much slower compared designed to deposit at a lower rate then the [[GSI PECVD]] and [[P5000 PECVD]]; this can actually be advantageous as - the smaller building blocks can helps improve a films film quality. This tool has almost no material restrictions, allowing a wide variety of processing.