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Rapid thermal processing is a semiconductor manufacturing process which heats silicon wafers to temperatures exceeding 1,000°C for not more than a few seconds. During cooling wafer temperatures must be brought down slowly to prevent dislocations and wafer breakage due to thermal shock. Such rapid heating rates are often attained by high intensity lamps or lasers. These processes are used for a wide variety of applications in semiconductor manufacturing including dopant activation, thermal oxidation, metal reflow and chemical vapor deposition. Precise control of temperature profile and rapid ramp-up and ramp-down rates demanded by a RTP system cannot be achieved with conventional control strategies due to nonlinear and multi time-scale effects. Reinforcement Learning control strategies have been shown to offer superior performance compared to conventional control techniques.