An agent-based approach for managing symbiotic simulation of semiconductor assembly and test operation

Abstract

The rapid changing business environment of high-tech asset intensive enterprises such as semiconductor manufacturing constantly drives production managers to look for better solutions to improve the manufacturing process. Simulation, though identified to be the most appropriate technique to generate and test out possible execution plans, suffers from long cycle-time in the process of model update, analysis and verification. It is thus very difficult to carry out prompt "what-if" analysis to respond to abrupt changes in these systems. Symbiotic simulation systems have been proposed as a way of solving this problem by having the simulation and the physical system interact in a mutually beneficial manner. In this paper, we describe our work in developing a prototype proof-of-concept symbiotic simulation system that employs software agents in the monitoring, optimization and control of a semiconductor assembly and test operation.

Symbiotic Simulation Control in Semiconductor Manufacturing

“…These include the application of symbiotic simulation for UAV path planning [7], social sciences [8], [9], and business process re-engineering [10]. In the context of semiconductor manufacturing, symbiotic simulation has already been used in [11] to optimise backend operations.…”

Reducing myopic behavior in FMS control: A semi-heterarchical simulation–optimization approach

“…The main different with SbO approaches reported in Section II-5 is the joint work between the optimization module and simulation model. In other works, such as the ones proposed by Low et al (2005) and Zhang et al (2007), the simulation model is only used for evaluating the outcomes of the solutions proposed by the optimization mechanism.…”

Automated Dynamic Resource Provisioning and Monitoring in Virtualized Large-Scale Datacenter

“…Researchers and developers have extensively been investigating various application domains of symbiotic simulation paradigm. [11] demonstrates via experiments that agent technology in a symbiotic simulation loop can be used effectively to carry out the monitoring, optimization and control functions of the semiconductor assembly and test operation. Furthermore, [12] implements an advanced symbiotic simulation-based automation system in decision making and problem solving regarding the operations of the various tools of an entire semiconductor manufacturing plant.…”