On Scheduling a Photolithography Process Containing Cluster Tools

TL;DR

This paper develops a scheduling model for photolithography in semiconductor manufacturing that optimizes resource utilization and reduces delays by effectively managing both individual and cluster tools.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheduling model for flexible flowshops with cluster tools, aiming to optimize photolithography process efficiency.

Findings

Algorithms improve resource utilization in wafer fabs.

Reduction in job completion times demonstrated.

Enhanced on-time delivery performance.

Abstract

Photolithography is typically the bottleneck process in semiconductor manufacturing. In this paper, we present a model for optimizing the scheduling of the photolithography process in the presence of both individual and cluster tools. The combination of these individual and cluster tools that process various layers (stages) of the semiconductor manufacturing process flow is a special type of flexible flowshop. We seek separately to minimize total weighted completion time and maximize on-time delivery performance. Experimental results suggest that our solution algorithms show promise for real world implementation as they can help to improve resource utilization, reduce job completion times, and decrease unnecessary delays in a wafer fab.