Power management system for a semiconductor processing facility

Abstract

Semiconductor processing tools in a semiconductor processing facility are coupled to communicate with a power management system. The power management system monitors the power consumption status of each of the semiconductor processing tools. Using the power consumption status of each of the semiconductor processing tools, the power management system stages the operation of the semiconductor processing tools so as to maintain the power consumption of the semiconductor processing facility below a predefined maximum power consumption. Limiting the power consumption to less than the predefined maximum power consumption reduces the per die processing costs without incurring the expense of building a new semiconductor processing facility or without modifying the semiconductor processing tools for larger batch sizes or for greater throughput.