Cluster tool design comparisons via simulation

The anticipated transition to 450 mm diameter wafers provides the semiconductor manufacturing industry an opportunity to consider new equipment designs that address issues associated with small lot sizes and high mix production. One candidate design is the linear cluster tool. Compared to traditional circular cluster tools, linear cluster tools have advantages such as high flexibility and greater productivity. In this paper, we develop a simulation of cluster tools with realistic parameters, which incorporates rolling setups and wet cleans. We use the simulation to study the effect of rolling setups and wet cleans with different lot sizes and train levels. For the simulation based on data from a BlueShift cluster tool in production, the linear cluster tool has 5.22% and 4.09% greater throughput with rolling setups and both rolling setups and wet cleans, respectively.