A review of hybrid PVD-PECVD processes is provided in the present paper.Mixing processes to achieve advanced materials can be useful to gain by combination of two techniques.A better control of the growth and then of the structure and properties of thin films can be expected.Combining physical vapour deposition (PVD) and PECVD was successfully applied for the design of hard thin coatings based on metal doped diamond like carbon (DLC) or titanium based multilayers structures.Thin films can be grown by simply introducing methane or a metalorganic compound in a PVD chamber.Industrial applications running in PVD mode can then be easily adapted and at low cost to hybrid processes.However,certain precautions must be taken to take the biggest advantage of the combination of processes.