Optimal integrated schedule of entire process of dual-blade multi-cluster tools from start-up to close-down

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2019

Abstract

Multi-cluster tools are widely used in majority of wafer fabrication processes in semiconductor industry. Smaller lot production, thinner circuit width in wafers, larger wafer size, and maintenance have resulted in a large quantity of their start-up and close-down transient periods. Yet, most of existing efforts have been concentrated on scheduling their steady states. Different from such efforts, this work schedules their transient and steady-state periods subject to wafer residency constraints. It gives the schedulability conditions for the steady-state scheduling of dual-blade robotic multi-cluster tools and a corresponding algorithm for finding an optimal schedule. Based on the robot synchronization conditions, a linear program is proposed to figure out an optimal schedule for a start-up period, which ensures a tool to enter the desired optimal steady state. Another linear program is proposed to find an optimal schedule for a close-down period that evolves from the steady state period. Finally, industrial cases are presented to illustrate how the provided method outperforms the existing approach in terms of system throughput improvement.

Identifier

85062827711 (Scopus)

Publication Title

IEEE Caa Journal of Automatica Sinica

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1109/JAS.2019.1911411

e-ISSN

23299274

ISSN

23299266

First Page

553

Last Page

565

Issue

2

Volume

6

Grant

61673123

Fund Ref

National Natural Science Foundation of China

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