A CLUSTER TOOL APPARATUS AND A METHOD OF CONTROLLING A CLUSTER TOOL APPARATUS

• Main Authors: QIAO, Yan, ZHU, QingHua, ZHOU, Mengchu, LI, Zhiwu, WU, Naiqi
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 20.10.2016
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; CONTROL OR REGULATING SYSTEMS IN GENERAL; CONTROLLING; ELECTRIC SOLID STATE DEVICES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; FUNCTIONAL ELEMENTS OF SUCH SYSTEMS; MONITORING OR TESTING ARRANGEMENTS FOR SUCH SYSTEMS ORELEMENTS; PHYSICS; REGULATING; SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

A system and method for a cluster tool apparatus for processing a semiconductor product including one or more processing modules located adjacent each other, each processing module being configured to process a semiconductor module, one or more loadlocks configured to retain and dispense unprocessed 5 semiconductor products, wherein the one or more loadlocks being positioned adjacent one of the one or more processing modules, a robot configured to load, transfer and unload a semiconductor product to and from the one or more processing modules, a hardware controller in electronic communication with the robot and configured to execute a method to control the cluster tool apparatus to close down the cluster tool apparatus to an idle state, the method to control the cluster tool apparatus including 0 determining a status of each of the one or more processing modules, determining if a close down process is required based on the status of the one or more processing modules or based on a close down signal, determine a schedule for a close down process based on if a close down process is required, wherein the schedule is determined based on a semiconductor product residency parameter, controlling the operation of the robot based on the schedule such that the robot performs the close 5 down process. CD) CY) U)) C) 0 C) u)