Close-Down Process Scheduling of Wafer Residence Time-Constrained Multi-Cluster Tools

Qinghua Zhu1, Mengchu Zhou2, Yan Qiao3, Naiqi Wu4

  • 1GuangDong University of Technology
  • 2NJIT
  • 3Macau University of Science and Technology
  • 4Guangdong University of Technology

Details

10:00 - 10:05 | Tue 30 May | Room 4813/4913 | TUA11.2

Session: Intelligent and Flexible Automation

Abstract

Semiconductor manufacturing industry has adopted multi-cluster tools as wafer fabrication equipment that is extraordinarily pricey but highly attractive owing to their higher productivity than single cluster tools can achieve. A challenging issue is how to schedule these tools. It is especially difficult to schedule their frequently occurring close-down processes subject to wafer residency constraints. Such processes appear frequently as caused by wafer lot switches and preventive and emergency maintenances. They are dynamical and non-cyclic. We analyze the synchronization conditions for multiple robots to perform concurrent activities. Upon these conditions, for the situations that an optimal schedule can be found in the steady state, a linear program model is proposed to find a feasible and optimal schedule for close-down processes. An example shows the application and efficiency of our proposed method.