IEEE ICAL 2009 Plenary Talk

IEEE ICAL 2009 Plenary Talk #6

Modeling, Scheduling and Control of Cluster Tools

in Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation

Abstract

Cluster tools provide a flexible, reconfigurable, and efficient environment for semiconductor manufacturing. They become difficult to operate because of residency time constraints and process time variation. This talk addresses their modeling, scheduling and control issues. A generic Petri net model is developed to model them. It describes the robot activity sequence with robot waits included. Hence, to operate a cluster tool is to determine robot wait times. A two-level operational architecture is proposed and discussed. It includes an off-line optimal periodic scheduler and real-time controller. This proposed approach allows a cluster tool to adapt to activity time variation while operate at its highest throughput at the steady-state. The presented Petri net models play a critical role in ensuring proper transient processes and optimal steady-state operations of cluster tools. The advantages of the propose methodology over the existing Petri net methods and mathematical programming approaches are discussed.

Biography

MengChu Zhou is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of Discrete-Event Systems Laboratory at New Jersey Institute of Technology. His research interests are in Petri nets, semiconductor manufacturing, sensor networks, system security, and life-cycle engineering product design. He has over 300 publications including 9 books, 130+ journal papers, and 17 book-chapters. Based on the data analysis from Scopus database (the world’s most extensive database covering science and engineering papers), in the area of Petri nets, Dr. Zhou ranks the top one in terms of the number of publications; and top two in terms of the number of citations. He ranks the top one in the area of automated manufacturing systems in both indices. He is Editor of IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Part A and IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. He was General Co-Chair of 2003 IEEE International Conference on System, Man and Cybernetics, Washington DC, October 5-8, 2003, Founding General Co-Chair of 2004 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Taipei, March 21-23, 2004, and General Chair of 2006 IEEE Int. Conf. on Networking, Sensing and Control, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, U.S.A. April 23-25, 2006 and IEEE Conf. on Automation Science and Engineering, Washington D.C., August 23-26, 2008. He was Program Chair of 1998 and 2001 IEEE International Conference on System, Man and Cybernetics (SMC) and 1997 IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation. Dr. Zhou was the recipient of NSF’s Research Initiation Award, CIM University-LEAD Award by Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Perlis Research Award by NJIT, Humboldt Research Award for US Senior Scientists, Leadership Award and Academic Achievement Award by Chinese Association for Science and Technology-USA, Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE SMC Society, and Chang Jiang Scholars Program Award from PRC Ministry of Education. He was the founding chair of Discrete Event Systems Technical Committee of IEEE SMC Society, and founding chair of Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation Technical Committee of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. He is a Fellow of IEEE.