An effective invasive weed optimization algorithm for scheduling semiconductor final testing problem

In this paper, we address a semiconductor final testing problem from the semiconductor manufacturing process. We aim to determine both the assignment of machines and the sequence of operations on all the machines so as to minimize makespan. We present a cooperative co-evolutionary invasive weed optimization (CCIWO) algorithm which iterates with two coupled colonies, one of which addresses the machine assignment problem and the other deals with the operation sequence problem. To well balance the search capability of the two colonies, we adopt independent size setting for each colony. We design the reproduction and spatial dispersal methods for both the colonies by taking advantage of the information collected during the search process and problem-specific knowledge. Extensive experiments and comparison show that the proposed CCIWO algorithm performs much better than the state-of-the-art algorithms in the literature for solving the semiconductor final testing scheduling problem with makespan criteria.