A Swarm Intelligence Based Rescheduling Method for Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Facilities

An effective rescheduling method takes an important role on improving the operational performance of a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility (fabs). In this paper, we propose a rescheduling method based on swarm intelligence. Firstly, we build a swarm intelligence based rescheduling model (SIRM) including an ant queen agent, multiple job ant agents and machine ant agents. Secondly, we design a rescheduling algorithm (CMRA) composed of three sub-algorithms: sub-algorithm-1 is used by an ant queen agent to transfer an existing static optimized scheduling plan into additional pheromones of job ant agents; sub-algorithm-2 and sub-algorithm-3 are used to convert scheduling related real-time information to dynamic pheromones of job ant agents and machine ant agents, respectively. Finally, a simplified semiconductor wafer fab model is used to verify and validate CMRA. The simulation results demonstrate that CMRA is superior to the original scheduling method to generate a static optimized scheduling plan with better performance on move, step and on-time operational due date rate under uncertain production environments.