Wafer sojourn time fluctuation analysis of time-constrained dual-arm cluster tools with wafer revisiting and activity time variation

Yan Qiao, Nai Qi Wu, Fa Jun Yang, Meng Chu Zhou, Qing Hua Zhu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

78 Scopus citations

Abstract

A robotic cluster tool involves many activities whose time is subject to some disturbance, thus leading to the activity time variation. It results in wafer sojourn time fluctuation in a process module, which may in turn violate wafer residency time constraints. Some wafer fabrication requires a revisiting process. With wafer revisiting, the effect of activity time variation on wafer sojourn time fluctuation is so complicated that no analysis was reported to the best knowledge of the authors. It is vitally important to accurately analyze it. To do so, this paper adopts a Petri net model to describe the dynamical behavior of cluster tools. With this model, a real-time control policy is proposed to offset the effect of the activity time variation on wafer sojourn time fluctuation as much as possible. Then, the wafer sojourn time delay is analyzed and algorithms are developed to calculate its exact upper bound. With the proposed method, one can check if a given schedule is feasible under bounded activity time variation. Some practical examples are given to show the application of the proposed approach.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)622-636
Number of pages15
JournalIEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems
Volume48
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2018

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Keywords

  • Cluster tools
  • Petri net (PN)
  • discrete event systems
  • robotic systems
  • scheduling and control
  • semiconductor manufacturing

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