Software for controlling processes in a heterogeneous semiconductor manufacturing environment may include a wafer-centric database, a real-time scheduler using a neural network, and a graphical user interface displaying simulated operation of the system. These features may be employed alone or in combination to offer improved usability and computational efficiency for real time control and monitoring of a semiconductor manufacturing process. More generally, these techniques may be usefully employed in a variety of real time control systems, particularly systems requiring complex scheduling decisions or heterogeneous systems constructed of hardware from numerous independent vendors.

The present disclosure provides a scheduling system and method. This method includes steps as follow. A communication device is connected to a plurality processing stations and receives instant process data of each processing station, where the instant process data includes a main program number and a processing time. According to target yield, delivery time and the instant process data of the processing stations, production line scheduling is calculated, and an estimated production is forecasted. It is determined that whether the actual production of the production line scheduling matches the estimated production. When the actual production is lower than the estimated production, based on the instant process data, a bottleneck station is determined from the processing stations. The machine diagnosis is performed on the bottleneck station to identify an abnormal cause.

A method for measuring throughput of a semiconductor manufacturing tool includes receiving a layout of the semiconductor manufacturing tool as an input, calculating a full capacity number (FCN) based on a number of wafer-receiving slots disposed in at least one component of the semiconductor manufacturing tool, determining a number of wafers to be processed by the semiconductor manufacturing tool based on the FCN, determining a path for the wafers to enter stages of the semiconductor manufacturing tool based on at least one parameter, determining a time for one of the wafers to enter at least one of the wafer-receiving slots based on a feedback value, and determining a process completion time based on the determined time for the one of the wafers to enter the at least one of the wafer-receiving slots.