a method and apparatus for producing schedules for a wafer in a multichamber semiconductor wafer processing tool comprising the steps of providing a trace defining a series of chambers that are visited by a wafer as the wafer is processed by the tool ; initializing a sequence generator with a value of a variable defining initial wafer positioning within the tool ; generating all successor variables for the initial variable value to produce a series of values of the variable that represent a partial schedule ; backtracking through the series of variables to produce further partial schedules ; and stopping the backtracking when all possible variable combinations are produced that represent all possible valid schedules for the trace . all the possible schedules are analyzed to determine a schedule that produces the highest throughput of all the schedules .