Abstract: An operation method for cleaning a vacuum processing apparatus includes feeding a cleaning gas into a film deposition chamber of the vacuum processing apparatus when a predetermined number of batches of film deposition process is finished. The predetermined number of batch of film deposition processes is calculated based on a film deposition-related operating time (a film deposition time and a film deposition preparation time) and a cleaning-related operating time (a cleaning procedure time, a cleaning procedure preparation time, and a pre-deposition film deposition time).

Abstract: It is an object of the invention to provide a vacuum processing apparatus that enables setting a timing interval between self-cleaning procedures simply and so as to have general-use, enables significantly lengthening this timing interval, and improves the production efficiency. In a plasma CVD apparatus (100) that carries out self-cleaning procedure by feeding a cleaning gas into a film deposition chamber (1) in which film deposition processing is carried out on a substrate (4), the timing interval between self-cleaning procedures is set in a range in which a film deposition operating time ratio (Ps) is converged with respect to an increase in a film deposition process amount, where the film deposition operating time ratio (Ps) is represented by the proportion of a film deposition-related operating time (Tt) in the sum of the film deposition-related operating time (Tt) and a cleaning-related operating time (Tc).