Solving the wafer probing scheduling problem using water flow-like algorithm

The wafer probing scheduling problem (WPSP) is a practical generalization of the classical parallel-machine scheduling problem, which has many real-world applications, particularly, in the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing industry. In the wafer probing factories, the jobs are clustered by their product types. Further, the job processing time depends on the product type, and the machine setup time is sequence dependent on the orders of jobs processed. Hence, it is more difficult to solve than the classical parallel-machine scheduling problem. In this paper, a novel approach, water flow-like algorithm (WFA) is proposed, to tackle this problem. To verify the proposed algorithm, a case study taken from a wafer probing shop floor in an IC manufacturing factory located on the Science-based Industrial Park at Hsinchu, Taiwan. Computational results show that the proposed algorithm performs remarkably well.