Wafer fabrication factory simulation language

In the current semiconductor processing environment, the challenge lies in maximizing throughput despite constant changes of technology and product mix. Factory simulation can help analyze these critical processing variables and improve profitably. Although there are many good off-the-shelf simulation development tools, none of them can easily be applied to the wafer fabrication facility with its circular job shop flow and hundreds of processing steps. The author addresses this problem from two angles. First, the advantages of using factory (discrete event) simulation in the wafer fabrication facility are discussed. Second, attention is given to how a wafer fabrication facility simulation language was developed to tackle the problem of designing simulations for the wafer fabrication environment