Capacity planning for cluster tools in the semiconductor industry

Abstract

This paper proposes a new model for cluster tools with two load locks. Cluster tools are widely used to automate single wafer processing in semiconductor industry. The load locks are the entry points into the vacuum of the cluster tool’s mainframe. Usually there are two of them available. Each lot being processed is dedicated to a single load-lock. Therefore at most two different lots (with possibly different processing times and qualification) can be processed simultaneously. This restriction is one of the major potential bottlenecks.Capacity planning is one of the possible applications for the proposed model and the paper demonstrates the integration into a more general framework that considers different tool types and different operational modes.The paper also generalizes an earlier model that is limited to three processing chambers. The proposed modeling approach is based on makespan reductions by parallel processing. It turns out that the performance of the new approach is similar, when compared to the generalized model for three chambers, but the new approach computationally outperforms the generalized model for four and more chambers.