Texas Instruments Corporation

Michael A Kilgore

Cynthia C Martin

Paul J Kline

Jerry A Crone

Roe E English

A method and apparatus selects a period of time for evaluating process resources and lots to be processed by the process resources. Selected lots and selected process resource are chosen that are available to be processed by the process resource and that are available to process the selected lots respectively. For each of the combination of selected process and selected lots a tool score and a lot score is determine and combined in order to select a winning score. The factory is controlled through the process resource in accordance with the winning score.

Apparatus and method for controlling and scheduling processing machines

Artificial intelligence diagnostic expert system software is used to interrogate and monitor etcher machine state by directly accessing vital hardware/process sensors. Sensor values and `recipe` variables are analyzed to determine cause of failures and recommend repair strategies, realtime monitoring and analysis of these values allows the expert system to predict failures prior to occurrence and show cause of impending failure.

Growing community of inventors

McKinney, TX, United States of America

Michael A Kilgore