• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.69-80
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• 2015

The semiconductor industry is one of those in which the most intricate processes are involved and there are many critical factors that are controlled with precision in those processes. Naturally production scheduling in the semiconductor industry is also very complex and studied by the industry and academia for many years; however, still there are many issues left unclear in the problem. This paper proposes an multi-objective optimization-based scheduling method for semiconductor fabrication(fab). Two main objectives are throughput maximization and meeting target production quantities. The first objective aims to reduce production cost, especially the fixed cost incurred by a large investment constructing a new fab facility. The other is meeting customer orders on time and also helps a fab maintain stable throughput through controlled WIP balancing in the long run. The paper shows a trade-off structure between the two objectives through experimental studies, which provides industrial practitioners with useful references.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.120-128
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• 2018

OLED Display fabrication system is one of the most complicated discrete processing systems in the world. As the glass size grows from $550{\times}650mm$ to $1,500{\times}1,850mm$ in recent years, the efficiency of Automated Material Handling System (AMHS) has become very important and OLED glass manufacturers are trying to improve the overall efficiency of AMHS. Aiming to meet the demand for high efficiency of transportation, various kind of approaches have been applied for improving dispatching rules and facility layout, while simultaneously considering the system parameters such as glass cassettes due date, waiting time, and stocker buffer status. However, these works did not suggest the operational policy and conditions of distribution systems, especially for handling unnecessary material flows such as detour. Based on this motivation, in this paper, we proposed an efficient algorithm for improving detour transportation in OLED FAB. Specifically, we considered an OLED FAB simplifying OLED production environment in a Korean company, where four stockers are constructed for the delivery of Lot in a bay and linked to processing equipments. We developed a simulation model using Automod and performed a numerical experiment using real operational data to test the performance of three operation policies under considerations. We showed that a competitive policy for assigning alternative stocker in case of detour was superior to the current dedicated policy using a specified stocker and other considered policies.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2012

This study focuses on the problem of scheduling wafer lots of several recipe(operation condition) types in the photolithography workstation in a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility, and sequence-dependent recipe set up times may be required at the photolithography machines. In addition, a lot is able to be operated at a machine when the reticle(mask) corresponding to the recipe type is set up in the photolithography machine. We suggest various heuristic algorithms, in which developed recipe selection rules and lot selection rules are used to generate reasonable schedules to minimizing the total weighted flowtime. Results of computational tests on randomly generated test problems show that the suggested algorithms outperform a scheduling method used in a real manufacturing system in terms of the total weighted flowtime of the wafer lots with ready times.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.125-137
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• 2010

This study focuses on the problem of scheduling wafer lots of several product families in the deposition workstation in a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility. There are multiple identical parallel machines in the deposition workstation, and two types of setups, record-dependent setup and family setup, may be required at the deposition machines. A record-dependent setup is needed to find optimal operational conditions for a wafer lot on a machine, and a family setup is needed between processings of different families. We suggest two-phase heuristic algorithms in which a priority-rule-based scheduling algorithm is used to generate an initial schedule in the first phase and the schedule is improved in the second phase. Results of computational tests on randomly generated test problems show that the suggested algorithms outperform a scheduling method used in a real manufacturing system in terms of the sum of weighted flowtimes of the wafer lots.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2010.02a
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• pp.464-464
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• 2010

A few years ago, for maintaining high stability and production yield of production equipment in a semiconductor fab, on-line monitoring of wafers is required, so that semiconductor manufacturers are investigating a software based process controlling scheme known as virtual metrology (VM). As semiconductor technology develops, the cost of fabrication tool/facility has reached its budget limit, and reducing metrology cost can obviously help to keep semiconductor manufacturing cost. By virtue of prediction, VM enables wafer-level control (or even down to site level), reduces within-lot variability, and increases process capability, $C_{pk}$. In this research, we have practiced VM on $SiO_2$ etch rate with optical emission spectroscopy(OES) data acquired in-situ while the process parameters are simultaneously correlated. To build process model of $SiO_2$ via, we first performed a series of etch runs according to the statistically designed experiment, called design of experiments (DOE). OES data are automatically logged with etch rate, and some OES spectra that correlated with $SiO_2$ etch rate is selected. Once the feature of OES data is selected, the preprocessed OES spectra is then used for in-situ sensor based VM modeling. ICP-RIE using 葰.56MHz, manufactured by Plasmart, Ltd. is employed in this experiment, and single fiber-optic attached for in-situ OES data acquisition. Before applying statistical feature selection, empirical feature selection of OES data is initially performed in order not to fall in a statistical misleading, which causes from random noise or large variation of insignificantly correlated responses with process itself. The accuracy of the proposed VM is still need to be developed in order to successfully replace the existing metrology, but it is no doubt that VM can support engineering decision of "go or not go" in the consecutive processing step.