Patent ID: 7525323

Claim:
A method for determining consistency of a permeability of a ferromagnetic material used in a plurality of integrated circuits (ICs), comprising: selecting at least one of a plurality of ICs fabricated in accordance with a fabrication process having associated therewith a critical dimension for conductive line widths, and including circuitry with a plurality of active semiconductor devices, one or more conductors, one or more semiconductor regions, and at least one passive circuit element at least a portion of which comprises a ferromagnetic material having a permeability, and a strip of said ferromagnetic material which has a length with first and second measurement contacts at first and second opposed ends of said length, respectively, and a width substantially wider than said critical dimension; electrically coupling an impedance measurement instrument to said first and second measurement contacts; measuring an impedance of said strip of said ferromagnetic material with said impedance measurement instrument at each of a plurality of measurement signal frequencies to produce a plurality of measured impedance values; and using at least a portion of said plurality of measured impedance values, at least a portion of said plurality of measurement signal frequencies and a plurality of selected permeability values in a plurality of numerical simulations to produce a plurality of resistance versus frequency curves each of which corresponds to one of said plurality of selected permeability values.