Resistance Calculation from Mask Artwork Data by Finite Element Method

Traditional methods for resistance calculation suffer from some unfavourable features, that make them uncomfortable to use. Although requiring a lot of manual processing, they are rather inaccurate and often claim for severe artwork restrictions (e.g. orthogonal geometry) which conflict with the desire for most dense layouts. This paper describes a resistance calculation program called REX (Resistance Extractor), which is based on the well-known Finite Element Method (FEM). Highly flexible in use, it is able to process designed and parasitic resistors of any shape and material with adjustable precision. REX is part of the layout verification system ALAS, designed for mask artwork analysis of bipolar circuits.