In the past six months, this project was focused on more fundamental studies of the coating properties. The properties of each individual coating TiB{sub 2}, TiBC as well as the alternating TiB{sub 2}/TiBC laminates were studied. These properties include residual stress, surface morphology and topography, adhesion and wear rate. The coatings were deposited using dc magnetron reactive sputtering process. Deposition of the films was carried out in a production-scale, three-chamber-in-line coating system, consisting of a load-lock chamber, and two deposition chambers. The substrates were cleaned and mounted on a rack before going into the chamber. A computerized conveyor system transported the rack into the load-lock chamber, where the pressure was pumped down to around 2E-5 torr. The substrates were then preheated by an infrared heater to about 100 C. After preheating, the substrates were transported into the first deposition chamber through a gate valve. The base pressure of the deposition chambers is 2E-6 torr. A layer of Ti was deposited on the substrates using two 5 inch x 20 inch Ti targets in the first deposition chamber as the adhesion layer. The substrates were then transported to the second deposition chamber for the TiB{sub 2} and Ti-B-C-N depositions. In the …