Deploying an Advanced Scheduling Solution to Optimize Conflicting KPIs in the Diffusion Area at Renesas Electronics

This work focuses on the scheduling of the diffusion area at a Renesas fab. Scheduling the diffusion area of a front-end wafer fab is significantly challenging due to batching, re-entrant flows, and complex timelink constraints. We present an advanced scheduling solution that optimizes batching, tool allocation, batch launch times, timelink violations along with other operational constraints in the fab, aligning with Renesas' goal of making the best possible trade-offs between competing objectives. The developed method has been deployed in Renesas production lines. Results show significant increase in diffusion batching efficiency by up to 27% and a substantial decrease of timelink violations by up to 54%.