SOFTWARE SEQUENCER FOR INTEGRATED SUBSTRATE PROCESSING SYSTEM

• US 20080216077A1
• Filed: 03/02/2007
• Published: 09/04/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Applied Materials Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Applied Materials Incorporated
• Inventors: Swenberg, Johanes, Newman, Jacob, Wang, Chongyang, Hickerson, Stephen, Emani, Shyam
• Application Number:
  US11/681,394
• Publication Number:
  US 20080216077A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/102
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/41865 characterised by job scheduling, process planning, material flow
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/34418 Scheduler for sequential control, task planning, control sequence
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention generally provide apparatus and method for scheduling a process sequence to achieve maximum throughput and process consistency in a cluster tool having a set of constraints. One embodiment of the present invention provides a method for scheduling a process sequence comprising determining an initial individual schedule by assigning resources to perform the process sequence, calculating a fundamental period, detecting resource conflicts in a schedule generated from the individual schedule and the fundamental period, and adjusting the individual schedule to remove the resource conflicts.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling a process sequence, comprising:

determining an individual schedule by assigning resources to perform the process sequence, wherein the individual schedule comprises a start time when an individual substrate starts each of a plurality of process steps in the process sequence;

calculating a fundamental period, wherein the fundamental period is defined as time duration between start times of two sequential substrates;

detecting resource conflicts in a schedule generated from the individual schedule and the fundamental period; and

adjusting the individual schedule to remove a detected resource conflict.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the detecting resource conflicts and adjusting the individual schedule are reiterated until no resource conflict is detected.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein adjusting the individual schedule comprises adding a queue time to delay a process step associated with the detected resource conflict to be removed.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the process step being delayed has a higher starting time compared to another process step associated with the resource conflict to be removed.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein duration of the queue time is minimum length required to remove the resource conflict.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein adjusting individual schedule further comprises restricting the queue time to within a queue time constraint.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the fundamental period comprises:

calculating busy durations for all the resources assigned to perform the process sequence; and

setting the fundamental period according to the longest busy duration of all the resources assigned to perform the process sequence.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising extending the fundamental period when resource conflicts cannot be removed by adjusting the individual schedule.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

detecting resource conflicts in an updated schedule generated from the individual schedule and the extended fundamental period; and

adjusting the individual schedule to remove the resource conflicts in the updated schedule.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein the detecting resource conflicts and adjusting the individual schedule are reiterated until no resource conflict is detected.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein adjusting the individual schedule comprises adding a queue time to delay a process step associated with the detected resource conflict to be removed.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein adjusting individual schedule further comprises restricting the queue time to within a queue time constraint.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 9, wherein determining the fundamental period comprises:

calculating busy durations for all the resources assigned to perform the process sequence; and

setting the fundamental period according to the longest busy duration of all the resources assigned to perform the process sequence.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 9, further comprising extending the fundamental period when resource conflicts cannot be removed by adjusting the individual schedule.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

detecting resource conflicts in an updated schedule generated from the individual schedule and the extended fundamental period; and

adjusting the individual schedule to remove the resource conflicts in the updated schedule.

10. A computer readable medium containing a computer program for scheduling a process sequence, which, when executed by a process, performs operations comprising:

determining an individual schedule by assigning resources to perform the process sequence, wherein the individual schedule comprises a start time when an individual substrate starts each of a plurality of process steps in the process sequence;

calculating a fundamental period, wherein the fundamental period is defined as time duration between start times of two sequential substrates;

detecting resource conflicts in a schedule generated from the individual schedule and the fundamental period; and

adjusting the individual schedule to remove a detected resource conflict.

17. A method for scheduling a processing sequence, comprising:

generating a processing schedule wherein there is no waiting period for each of a plurality of processing steps in the processing sequence;

determining a fundamental period according to a busy duration of a bottle neck resource;

detecting resource conflicts in the processing schedule based on the fundamental period; and

adjusting at least one of the processing schedule and the fundamental period to remove the detected resource conflicts.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein detecting resource conflicts comprising detecting conflicts of any resource that is occupied by two or more steps in the processing sequence.

19. The method of claim 17, wherein adjusting comprises inserting a queue time to delay a step associated with a resource conflict to be removed.

20. The method of claim 17, wherein adjusting comprises

inserting queue time to one or more processing steps to remove the detected conflicts of resources;

detecting resource conflicts in the adjusted processing schedule based on the fundamental period; and

extending the fundamental period if the detected conflicts recur.