[755-1] Area units in IC station

[Konstantinos Dovrolis <dovrolis@cs.wisc.edu>]

This message refers to the issue of measuring the area of a
layout cell. There are three different units for measuring
layout area:

- number of grid squares
- number of lambda squares
- absolute area (say in micrometers^2)

Note that a grid space in IC station is 0.5 lambda.

Let us follow in this course the convention that the
cell areas will be measured in lambda squares. 

An easy way to measure a certain distance in IC station
is with the Menu option: "Others->Measure Distance".
The reported distance is in lambda.

Also, it is suggested that when you report the area of a cell
you use the notation: "X lambda times Y lambda", instead
of giving just a single number. For example, the area
of the inverter in tutorial-3 is 65x27 lambda squares. 

C.