Semiconductor Manufacturing Plants: Design of Efficient Operating Policies and Performance Analysis

9403571 Kumar半导体制造是一个复杂的过程，涉及数百个加工步骤。 晶圆多次返回到许多工具，导致高度可重入的工艺流程。 该提案解决了工厂的有效操作、分析和设计问题。 目标是在两个重要方面推进最先进的技术：（1）周期时间性能的优化，以及（2）半导体制造工厂的性能评估。 这项建议追求的是一种研究对某些随机变量的平均值的约束的方法。 它开发了一个程序化的程序来获得性能界限，并说明了它的应用程序，以各种晶圆厂模型和调度政策。 这种方法可以用来建立稳定性，即性能递归，甚至有界的时刻，马尔可夫链的系统。 本提案中提出的研究是应用驱动的，并使用各种工具，从模拟，物流，软件开发，理论。 我们的目标是推进国家的最先进的调度半导体工厂，以及所提出的方法的理论基础。 ***

9403571 Kumar Semiconductor manufacturing is a complex process, involving hundreds of steps of processing. Wafer return several times to many tools, leading to a highly re-entrant process flow. This proposal addresses the problems of efficient operation, analysis and design of plants. The goal is to advance the state-of-the art on two important fronts: (1) Optimization of Cycle-Time Performance, and (2) Performance Evaluation of Semiconductor Manufacturing Plants. This proposal pursues an approach of studying the constraints on the mean value of certain random variables. It develops a programmatic procedure for obtaining performance bounds, and illustrates its application to various fab models and scheduling policies. This approach can be used to establish the stability, i.e. performance recurrence, and even the boundedness of moments, of the Markov chain underlying the system. The research proposed in this proposal is application driven, and uses a variety of tools ranging from simulations, heuristics, and software development, to theory. The goal is to advance the state of the art in scheduling semiconductor fabs, as well as the theoretical foundation of the proposed approach. ***