{"schema_version":"1.0","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9618930","patent":{"patent_number":"US-9618930","title":"Scheduling start-up process for time-constrained single-arm cluster tools","assignee":null,"inventors":[],"filing_date":"2015-10-20T00:00:00.000Z","publication_date":"2017-04-11T00:00:00.000Z","cpc_codes":["G05B","B25J","G05B","H01L","H01L","G05B","G05B"],"num_claims":14,"abstract":"Due to the trend of using larger wafer diameter and smaller lot size, cluster tools need to switch from processing one lot of wafers to another frequently. It leads to more transient periods in wafer fabrication. Their efficient scheduling and control problems become more and more important. It becomes difficult to solve such problems, especially when wafer residency time constraints must be considered. This work develops a Petri net model to describe the behavior during the start-up transient processes of a single-arm cluster tool. Then, based on the model, for the case that the difference of workloads among the steps is not too large and can be properly balanced, a scheduling algorithm to find an optimal feasible schedule for the start-up process is given. For other cases schedulable at the steady state, a linear programming model is developed to find an optimal feasible schedule for the start-up process."},"analysis":{"summary":null,"layman_explanation":null,"technical_analysis":null,"business_analysis":null,"faqs":null,"topics":[],"tech_cluster":null},"seo":{"title":"Scheduling start-up process for time-constrained single-arm cluster tools","description":"Due to the trend of using larger wafer diameter and smaller lot size, cluster tools need to switch from processing one lot of wafers to another frequently. It leads to more transient periods in wafer ","keywords":[]},"attribution":{"source":"Patentable","source_url":"https://patentable.app","canonical_url":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9618930","license":"CC-BY-4.0-like","license_terms":"AI-generated analysis on this page (summary, layman_explanation, technical_analysis, business_analysis, faqs) may be reused with attribution and a visible link back to the canonical URL above. Patent abstracts, claims, and bibliographic data are USPTO public domain.","required_link":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9618930","citation_suggestion":"Patentable. \"Scheduling start-up process for time-constrained single-arm cluster tools\" (US-9618930). https://patentable.app/patents/US-9618930","copyright_holder":"Nomic Interactive Technology LLC"},"links":{"html":"https://patentable.app/patents/US-9618930","json":"https://patentable.app/api/llm-context/US-9618930","site":"https://patentable.app","llms_txt":"https://patentable.app/llms.txt"},"generated_at":"2026-06-06T08:00:45.360Z"}