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Integration of scheduling and advanced process control in semiconductor manufacturing: review and outlook

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Abstract

Scheduling in semiconductor manufacturing is of vital importance due to the impact on production performance indicators such as equipment utilization, cycle time, and delivery times. With the increasing complexity of semiconductor manufacturing, ever-new products and demanding customers, scheduling plans for efficient production control become crucial. Scheduling and control are mutually dependent as control requires information from scheduling, for example, where jobs are processed, and scheduling requires control information, for example, on which equipment operations can be processed. Based on a survey of the literature, this article proposes a review and an outlook for the potential improvements by binding scheduling decisions and information coming from advanced process control systems in semiconductor manufacturing.

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Acknowledgments

This work constitutes part of the IMPROVE (Implementing Manufacturing science solutions to increase equiPment pROductiVity and fab pErformance) ENIAC European project. In particular, we would like to thank Philippe Vialletelle and Jacques Pinaton from STMicroelectronics for their practical advice.

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Correspondence to Claude Yugma.

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Yugma, C., Blue, J., Dauzère-Pérès, S. et al. Integration of scheduling and advanced process control in semiconductor manufacturing: review and outlook. J Sched 18, 195–205 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10951-014-0381-1

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