Since 1986, Kobe Steel has been designing, manufacturing and supplying Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) systems for coating products, such as cutting tools, molds, and mechanical / automotive parts. The company has the largest market share of the systems sold in Japan. Kobe Steel also developed a production coating system, particularly designed for piston rings, and started its delivery around 15 years ago. Kobe Steel now has the largest market share of the piston-ring coating system in the world. This paper presents Kobe Steel's PVD systems for coating hard thin films and describes the future developments of PVD equipment.