Machine capacity allocation strategies for scheduling a large multi-chip assembly line

A multi-chip package (MCP) consists of several chip modules in a single package. We consider a scheduling problem for assembling MCPs. In order to assemble an MCP, a lot should repeat assembly process stages such as die attach and wire bonding as many as the number of chips to be assembled. The two key process stages have many parallel machines of various types. A machine processes different types of MCP lots with significant setup times. We therefore should reduce the number of setups effectively while not sacrificing the on-time delivery performance significantly. We propose a scheduling strategy that first allocates the machine capacity of many parallel machines to product groups and lots depending on their production progresses appropriately and then applies known dispatching rules. We report experimental performances of the proposed methods. [Received: 21 June 2009; Revised: 03 December 2009; Accepted: 01 February 2010]