Scheduling Model and Its Algorithm for Two-cluster Tools with Single-blade Robot

Abstract

For the scheduling problem of single-blade two-cluster tools,a decomposition method was utilized to break two-cluster tools up into two independent single-cluster ones.The processing time for buffer modules of the decomposed single-cluster tool was proved to limit in an acceptance period of time.A Linear Programming (LP) model was built for single-cluster tool scheduling problem.An algorithm based on LP and no-collision constraint was proposed.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm was verified by an instance of chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP) polisher in semiconductor manufacturing.