A Novel CP Approach for Scheduling an Automated Wet-Etch Station

NOVAS, JUAN MATÍAS; HENNING, GABRIELA

Computer-Aided Chemical Engineering

Elsevier

Lugar: Copenague; Año: 2011 vol. 29 p. 1085 - 1089

This paper presents a novel, efficient, and expressive Constraint Programming (CP)model to address the Automated Wet-Etch Station (AWS) scheduling problem. ThisCP model overcomes some of the shortcomings of previous approaches since it canexplicitly take into account the time employed by any empty robot to move itself fromthe bath where it dropped a wafer lot to another bath where it is required to pick up adifferent lot. Such transfer time, which depends on the travel distance, needs to beconsidered to avoid overexposure of wafers in chemical baths. The formulation hasbeen extensively evaluated in productivity maximization scenarios