A vacuum processing apparatus and method wherein a plurality of processing units are for conducting processing, a transfer processing unit is connected with the plurality of processing units for carrying wafers to the processing units, a transfer device is disposed in the transfer processing unit and carries the wafers and cassettes for containing the wafers, and a control unit is provided for conducting transfer control for transferring the wafers from respective cassettes to the transfer processing unit. The wafers are processed by using the plural processing units, and at least two of the cassettes are used. Parallel processing is conducted of applying same processing to the wafers contained on each of the cassettes by applying the same recipe and the wafers, after applying the parallel processing, are returned to the original cassette.