Systematic Construction and Performance Analysis of Cluster Tools Using Timed Petri Net Models

Zuberek, W. M. (2002) Systematic Construction and Performance Analysis of Cluster Tools Using Timed Petri Net Models. In: Brazilian Petri Net Workshop, 2-5 September 2002, 14 Congresso Brasileiro de Automatica, Natal Brazil.

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Abstract

A cluster tool is an integrated, envi- ronmentally isolated manufacturing system consisting of process, transport, and cassette modules, mechan- ically linked together, that is used in manufacturing of semiconductor chips. Because of high throughput requirements, cluster tools perform a number of activ- ities concurrently. Petri nets are formal models devel- oped specifically for representation of concurrent ac- tivities and for their coordination. In timed nets, the durations of modeled activities are represented by oc- currence times associated with transitions, and this allows to study the performance characteristics of the modeled systems. Since cluster tools can be quite complex, a system- atic approach to generating net models is proposed. Net models derived in such a way have modular struc- ture, which is used to determine model’s steady–state performance on the basis of net invariants, without the exhaustive reachability analysis. Performance charac- teristics are obtained in symbolic form, in terms of modeling parameters, so different variants of cluster tools can be evaluated and compared very efficiently, without repetitive model analyses.

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