A Review of Real-Time Control Strategies for Furnace Batch Sizing in Semiconductor Manufacturing

This paper presents a review and evaluation of a number of strategies for the control of batch queueing processes in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Special attention is paid to policies that include real-time information about the state of the manufacturing facility, particularly the expected timing of future arrivals. The studies evaluated highlight the potential benefits that might stem from taking full advantage of real-time information. These studies clearly show that using knowledge of future arrivals can, in many cases, lead to improvements in waiting time, even in the presence of prediction errors. Several avenues for future research are also discussed.