TechTalks from event: Technical session talks from ICRA 2012

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Semiconductor Manufacturing

  • Fabrication of a Microcoil through Parallel Microassembly Authors: Chu, Henry; Mills, James K.; Cleghorn, William L.
    This paper presents the fabrication of a three-dimensional microcoil through the technique of microassembly. The microcoil design is comprised of nine out-of-plane micro-sized windings. Each winding was assembled onto the base substrate orthogonally by a robotic manipulator through microassembly. In contrast to the conventional serial pick-and-place microassembly, this work incorporated the approach of parallel microassembly to grasp and assemble three windings onto the base substrate simultaneously for increased productivity. In addition, a vision-based algorithm was developed to automate the parallel grasping process of three windings. This algorithm utilized well-defined templates to provide high-precision position and orientation evaluations for the micro-sized components. The performance of the microcoil fabrication process was evaluated and discussed. To establish better electrical contact between the windings and the base substrate, conductive adhesive was introduced in the assembly process and the electrical properties of the assembled microcoil structure were examined.
  • Petri Net-Based Real-Time Scheduling of Time-Constrained Single-Arm Cluster Tools with Activity Time Variation Authors: Qiao, Yan; Wu, Naiqi; Zhou, MengChu
    It is very challenging to schedule time-constrained cluster tools subject to activity time variation. This work adopts our previously developed real-time control policy to offset the activity time variation in single-arm cluster tools. Then it derives analytical schedulability conditions and efficient scheduling algorithms for the first time. The resultant schedule executed together with the real-time control policy forms a real-time schedule. It is proven optimal in terms of cycle time. A semiconductor wafer production example is used to illustrate the research results.
  • Scheduling Transient Periods of Single-Armed Cluster Tools Authors: Lee, Jun-Ho; Lee, Tae-Eog
    Semiconductor manufacturing fabs recently tend to reduce the lot size, that is, the number of identical wafers in a lot, because of small lot orders and increased die throughput per wafer due to wafer size increase. Therefore, cluster tools for wafer processing, which mostly repeat identical work cycles, are subject to frequent lot changes. We therefore examine scheduling problems for transient periods of single-armed cluster tools that are scheduled to repeat identical work cycles for a number of identical wafers. We first develop a Petri net model for the tool’s operational behavior including the initial transient periods as well as the steady cycles. We then develop a mixed integer programming model for finding an optimal schedule. We also examine how to adapt the simple backward sequence, which is mostly used for scheduling steady work cycles of single-armed cluster tools, for a transient period. We identify a deadlock-free condition and also propose two efficient heuristic algorithms by modifying the backward sequence. Finally, through computational experiments, we analyze the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.
  • DNA as Template for Nanobonding and Novel Nanoelectronic Components Authors: Weigel-Jech, Michael; Fatikow, Sergej
    The importance of nanoelectronics for the future is well-recognized. Next-generation nanoelectronic technologies, for the usage in intelligent implants, intelligent drugs or even ICs for the coupling of destroyed nerves, are sensitive to dimensional change. Therefore, an appropriate packaging is essential to the success or failure of these technologies. In this paper current work to use DNA as a template for bonding at the nanoscale and for novel nanoelectronic components is presented. Moreover, a method is presented, which enables the handling and manipulation of DNA at dry conditions, thus enabling the feasible usage for industrial purposes as well as for science. For this the necessary steps, starting with the immobilization and choice of useable nanowires, followed by the extraction and separation of these wires, the coarse positioning, the immobilization onto the target substrates as well as a proper fine tuning at the target are presented.
  • The Robustness of Scheduling Policies in Multi-Product Manufacturing Systems with Sequence-Dependent Setup Times and Finite Buffers Authors: FENG, Wei; Li, Jingshan; Zheng, Li
    In this paper, a continuous time Markov chain model is introduced to study multi-product manufacturing systems with sequence-dependent setup times and finite buffers under seven scheduling policies, i.e., cyclic, shortest queue, shortest processing time, shortest overall time (including setup time and processing times), longest queue, longest processing time, and longest overall time. In manufacturing environments, optimal solution may not be applicable due to uncertainty and variation in system parameters. Therefore, in this paper, in addition to comparing the system throughput under different policies, we introduce the notion of robustness of scheduling policies. Specifically, a policy that can deliver good and stable performance resilient to variations in system parameters (such as buffer sizes, processing rates, setup times, etc.) is viewed as a ``robust'' policy. Numerical studies indicate that the cyclic and longest queue policies exhibit robustness in subject to parameter changes. This can provide production engineers a guideline in operation management.