Physical vapor deposition

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is a technique in semiconductor device fabrication used to deposit thin films of various materials onto various surfaces (e.g., of semiconductor wafers) by physical means, as compared to chemical vapor deposition.

Variants of PVD include

• Evaporative deposition
• Sputtering
• Pulsed laser deposition

See thin-film deposition for a more general discussion of this class of manufacturing technique.