Scheduling Single-Arm Multicluster Tools for Two-Type Wafers With Lower-Bound Cycle Time

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2023

Abstract

In today's semiconductor manufacturing industry, wafer foundries often face the challenge of producing a variety of integrated circuit chip products using a single manufacturing line. To address this, multicluster tools have become a popular choice for processing multiple wafer types simultaneously. Operating such tools involves coordinating the robots in adjacent individual tools to transport multitype wafers through a shared buffer. This study aims to develop a scheduling method for the concurrent fabrication processes of two wafer types, performed by a multicluster tool with wafer residency time constraints. The proposed approach presents a two-backward sequence, based on a backward strategy of a single wafer type, to convert a one-wafer cyclic schedule into a one-wafer-per-type cyclic schedule while revealing its temporal properties. To ensure a smooth operation of a single-arm multicluster tool system and synchronize multiple robots, several necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the first time. Two efficient algorithms are then proposed to determine the feasibility of a periodic schedule and obtain a schedule that achieves the lower-bound cycle time under a two-backward strategy, maximizing the productivity of such a multicluster tool. Finally, numerical simulations and two practical examples are presented to demonstrate the applications and performance of the proposed approach.

Identifier

85165334773 (Scopus)

Publication Title

IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Systems

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1109/TSMC.2023.3280207

e-ISSN

21682232

ISSN

21682216

First Page

6658

Last Page

6671

Issue

11

Volume

53

Grant

2020B1212030010

Fund Ref

Science and Technology Development Fund

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