IC Layout Basics: A Practical Guide

| 1. | How many squares is each of these resistors? (Assume current flows left to right in each diagram.)
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Answers
| 1. | Length (horizontal) divided by width (vertical) equals the number of squares. |
Typically, for each manufacturing process you have a book of values, probably locked in that small floor safe behind you. The manufacturer might call this the Design Manual, the Process Manual or the Rulebook.
This is where you will look up the resistivities in terms of ohms-per-square for your material. In your book, this will be called either sheet resistivity or sheet rho. (The Greek letter rho is pronounced "row," as in "rho, rho, rho your boat" which only works in the English translation of this book, by the way. I can't wait to see how the translators handle that one.) The symbol for rho is ?.
The process manual will have a sheet rho value for every material you can use in each process. Typically, the manufacturer provides this book of values for you.
The same material processed by different manufacturers could get different values, depending on thickness for example. Your book has all the magic numbers for all the materials for their processes, which they have acquired by extensive testing.
Companies make test chips using big, huge, square resistors. They pass a current through each one, and...