Behavior analysis of overhead hoist transport vehicles for track layout design in semiconductor fabs

Abstract

To operate a semiconductor manufacturing system efficiently, modern fabs have widely adopted the Automated Material Handling System (AMHS). This thesis addresses the track layout design for overhead hoist transport (OHT) system. The efficiency of a routing algorithm is affected by the track layout, and already there is plenty of research regarding the track layout design supporting routing algorithms. However, there is no research regarding the track layout design supporting Q-routing (Hwang & Jang 2019), which is a routing algorithm with remarkable performance. In this thesis, we conduct a high-fidelity simulation experiment to analyze the behavior of OHT vehicles in several track configurations. Finally, we suggest insights for the track layout design supporting Q-routing.