SCHEDULING WITH NEURAL NETWORKS AND STATE MACHINES
First Claim
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1. A system comprising:
- a state machine that controls operation of a semiconductor manufacturing system to schedule processing of one or more workpieces, the state machine including a plurality of states associated by a plurality of transitions, each one of the plurality of transitions having a weight assigned thereto, wherein when the state machine is operating within one of the plurality of states, a selection of a transition from the one of the plurality of states to another one of the plurality of states is determined by evaluating the weight assigned to each one of a number of possible transitions from the one of the plurality of states; and
a neural network that receives as inputs data from the semiconductor manufacturing system and provides as outputs the weights for one or more of the plurality of transitions.
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Abstract
Software for controlling processes in a heterogeneous semiconductor manufacturing environment may include a wafer-centric database, a real-time scheduler using a neural network, and a graphical user interface displaying simulated operation of the system. These features may be employed alone or in combination to offer improved usability and computational efficiency for real time control and monitoring of a semiconductor manufacturing process. More generally, these techniques may be usefully employed in a variety of real time control systems, particularly systems requiring complex scheduling decisions or heterogeneous systems constructed of hardware from numerous independent vendors.
52 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A system comprising:
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a state machine that controls operation of a semiconductor manufacturing system to schedule processing of one or more workpieces, the state machine including a plurality of states associated by a plurality of transitions, each one of the plurality of transitions having a weight assigned thereto, wherein when the state machine is operating within one of the plurality of states, a selection of a transition from the one of the plurality of states to another one of the plurality of states is determined by evaluating the weight assigned to each one of a number of possible transitions from the one of the plurality of states; and a neural network that receives as inputs data from the semiconductor manufacturing system and provides as outputs the weights for one or more of the plurality of transitions. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A computer program product comprising computer executable code embodied in a computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computing devices, performs the steps of:
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controlling operation of a semiconductor manufacturing system with a state machine to schedule processing of one or more workpieces, the state machine including a plurality of states associated by a plurality of transitions, each one of the plurality of transitions having a weight assigned thereto; receiving data from the semiconductor manufacturing system; calculating the weight assigned to each one of a number of possible transitions from a current state of the plurality of states by applying the data as inputs to a neural network; and selecting a transition from the current state of the plurality of states by evaluating the weight assigned to each one of the number of possible transitions from the current state.
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17. A method comprising:
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controlling operation of a semiconductor manufacturing system with a state machine to schedule processing of one or more workpieces, the state machine including a plurality of states associated by a plurality of transitions, each one of the plurality of transitions having a weight assigned thereto; receiving data from the semiconductor manufacturing system; calculating the weight assigned to each one of a number of possible transitions from a current state of the plurality of states by applying the data as inputs to a neural network; and selecting a transition from the current state of the plurality of states by evaluating the weight assigned to each one of the number of possible transitions from the current state. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification