Study of Relationships Between Scheduling Objectives in Semiconductor Manufacturing

In semiconductor manufacturing, scheduling problems addressed at the operational level involve a rich set of constraints and criteria. As a result, multi-objective optimization algorithms are increasingly preferred over dispatching rules, especially in complex manufacturing areas. This article investigates the relationships between several scheduling objectives considered in the photolithography area. The criteria are first presented and then compared two by two. To this effect, the notion of dominated objective function is used. Various relationships are shown in the general case along with different counterexamples. In addition, an experimental analysis is proposed based on industrial optimization computations of the photolithography area to assess the conflict level between objectives, but also to confirm the relevance of a multi-objective approach. Finally, some perspectives are provided.