Scheduling of start-up process for single-arm cluster tools with chamber cleaning operations
In order to improve the cleanliness of chambers,fabs generally perform chamber cleaning operations on cluster tools,thereby improving wafer quality.The start-up process scheduling problem is addressed considering the time constraints of wafer residency and chamber cleaning.Firstly,start-up process activity rule of robot is proposed and the sequence of robot activities is described to achieve the start-up process schedulability.Secondly,the activity time of robot in the start-up process and steady state is modeled.Then,a linear programming model for start-up process scheduling is developed based on the time characteristics.Finally,examples are given to verify the validity of the proposed approach.Compared with the virtual wafer method proposed by the predecessors,the scheduling scheme can effectively reduce makespan and improve the wafer productivity of single-arm cluster tools.