Periodic scheduler for robots in cluster tools

摘要

A method for scheduling the allocation of resources in a semiconductor object processing tool. The method comprises identifying a conflict in a resource allocation schedule for the processing of a plurality of semiconductor objects through the tool over time. The schedule utilizes a fundamental period for scheduling the periodic introduction of the objects into the tool for processing. A conflict arising when a transport mechanism adapted to move the objects to and from the resources in the tool is scheduled to execute more than one transport action in a given time interval. The time blocks associated with the conflict are rescheduled from a present time interval to a different time interval such that the rescheduling of the time block does not violate a post-processing residency constraint for a residency time that the object spends in the resource whose time block is rescheduled.