With the notable exception of cryopumps, the high‐vacuum pumps used today are the same as those used 20 years ago, but with the new requirements of some important users it may be that we are entering a new area in pump evolution. The user demand for industrial types of application can be summarized as follows: increased reliability, reduced hazards when pumping dangerous gases, reduced pollution caused by oil backstreaming, reduced costs in the use of expensive fluids (perfluoropolyether), easy maintenance, and very low level of vibration. These requirements force the pump manufacturers to change the characteristics of their products: (i) rotary pumps with improved tightness, and corrosion proofing, (ii) dry pumps renewal, and (iii) specialized turbomolecular pumps. The high‐vacuum pumps we will use three to five years from now will be more or less the same as those used today but will tend to be more specialized and devoted to a specific application. Over the past ten years, there has been little significant invention in the field of high‐vacuum production, apart from the breakthrough of the cryopumps (which were more an evolution of something known than a real new product generated by a new concept). Like all industries, the creative activity in the vacuum industry is cyclical but, contrary to the semiconductor industry, for instance, the periods of its cycles are quite long (about 25 years) and we are presently leaving the plateau probably of a period of consolidation, to enter a new period of excitement and blossoming innovation, I hope. Indeed we may consider the early sixties as the last ‘‘regeneration’’ era of the high‐vacuum production technology; this period witnessed the birth of ultrahigh vacuum, the direct drive pumps, the ion getter pump, and the turbomolecular pump; it is time now for a new one ! Somebody said that ‘‘...forecasting is something difficult and risky, especially if the forecast concerns the future...’’ but risk is part of life.

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