Scheduling a Single-Arm Two-Cluster Tool With a Process Module Failure Subject to Wafer Residency Time Constraints

• Published in: IEEE transactions on automation science and engineering Vol. 22; pp. 667 - 679
• Main Authors: Zhu, Qinghua, Yuan, Jun, Wang, Genghong, Hou, Yan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2025
• Subjects: Cluster tool; Job shop scheduling; module failure; Optimal scheduling; Robots; Schedules; scheduling; Semiconductor device modeling; Task analysis; Time factors; wafer fabrication

Multi-cluster tools are widely adopted in semiconductor manufacturing. When a process module (PM) at a step fails, a multi-cluster tool cannot complete the process recipe of work-in-process wafers and must be forced to enter a closedown process to be empty. To increase the throughput of a wafer fab,...