System dynamics and its application to release control for semiconductor manufacturing

Release control has serious impacts on operational performance of semiconductor manufacturing. Based on the summarization of state-of-the-art system dynamics research, the system dynamics model for release control for semiconductor manufacturing was proposed. In the proposed model, the amount of final product storage was set as the level variable, and the throughput rate was set as the rate variable. The rate equations were built according to the relations between the level variable and the rate variable. Taking a simplified semiconductor manufacturing production line as an example, the calculation procedure for the proposed approach was given. Simulation was also used to verify the proposed rate equations. It is shown by the simulation results that system dynamics based release control has the potentiality to improve the operational performance of semiconductor manufacturing.