We developed a framework for analyzing semiconductor fabrication facilities where each processing step of each product can use a collection of resources. The interaction of these resources is not prespecified by the analysis system but is described by the modeler. Our framework includes three types of modeling approaches: analytic approximation, simulation, and a hybrid analytic/simulation technique. All models are automatically generated from a data description of the facility and the products produced, along with the resource interaction models provided by the user. The novel feature of our approach is that the data description language includes a simple but quite flexible simulation‐like modeling language for expressing resource interactions. Our analytic modeling approach is an extension of the standard decomposition method used for studying networks of queues. In our hybrid analytic/simulation technique we use simulation to estimate processing step flow times to improve the performance of the analytic model.
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