Problems and Solution Methods of Machine Scheduling in Semiconductor Manufacturing Operations: A Survey

Abstract

Machine scheduling problems associated with semiconductor manufacturing operations (SMOs) are one of the major research topics in the scheduling literature. Lots of papers have dealt with different variants of SMOs’ scheduling problems, which are generally difficult to tackle theoretically and computationally. In this paper, the single machine, parallel machines, flow shops, and job shops scheduling problems from SMOs have been reviewed, based on different processing constraints, e.g., batch processing, auxiliary resources, incompatible job families, and reentrant flow, etc., with the cycle time, flow time, and throughput-related performance measures. Given the vast and diverse nature of the current literature, it is urgently needed to make a systematic survey in order to identify the important research problems, research trends, and the progress of the related solution methods, as well as clarify future research perspectives. We hope the findings and observations could provide some insights to the researchers and practitioners in this domain.

Scheduling of Automated Wet-Etch Stations with One Robot in Semiconductor Manufacturing via Constraint Answer Set Programming

“…Given the actual increasingly growing need to manufacture chips, it is obvious that it is important to dedicate efforts to solve some of the problems arising in the industry with more advanced technology [6]. One of the most important steps in the semiconductor manufacturing industry is the process of wet-etching wherein the circuits are printed on wafers [7,8].…”