of the plasma 141 as mentioned above the substrate 180 is a coiled material with a specific width in the embodiment structure of the present invention the effective area of the substrate 180 for coating is about 1 3 1 6 u03c0dw in which the d is the distance between the individual first roller 150 and the arc discharge plasma source 140 equal substantially to the distance between the arc discharge plasma source 140 and the substrate 180 and the w is the width of the substrate 180 in the embodiment of fig1 if it is needed to coat more than two layers of films onto the substrate 180 a backward forward control upon the substrate 180 inside the chamber 110 can do this job the determination of the speeds of the first rollers 150 and the second rollers 160 if not free rotation the tension of the substrate 180 and the related parameters are up to the selection of the material of the substrate 180 and the requirement of the coating referring now to fig3 a schematic view of another embodiment of the vacuum coating apparatus in accordance with the present invention is shown the major difference between this embodiment to the aforesaid embodiment of fig1 is that this embodiment includes a plurality of chambers 110 a u02dc 110 c each of which has an individual arc discharge plasma source 140 a u02dc 140 c similar to the aforesaid embodiment the vacuum coating apparatus of fig3 also.