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🆭

mask work symbol

Mask Work Symbol

🆭 is the M-in-a-circle mark for protection of a chip’s internal layout. U.S. notices name the rights holder; the similar Ⓜ is a different character.

Text symbol
Search it as
circled m · chip layout · chip protection · microchip · semiconductor
Shows up in
Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws

What 🆭 means

It identifies mask-work protection for an integrated circuit.

A mask work is the planned arrangement of components and connections inside a chip.

The U.S. Semiconductor Chip Protection Act gave it this role in 1984, to protect costly chip layouts from cheaper copying. Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization adopted a chip-layout treaty in 1989; national laws set the protection form.

Formal and technical: a notice mark for chip-layout protection.

A U.S. mask-work notice also names the rights holder; the M alone is incomplete.

Don't confuse it with

1
Ⓜ
Circled M
Generic circled M, not a dedicated chip-layout sign. In the 2019 Unicode proposal, its glyph was described as larger, with the M usually touching the ring.

Questions people ask

1

Why does 🆭 show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.

How to type 🆭

Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 1F1AD, then Alt+X to get 🆭.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “mask work symbol”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 1f1ad, then Enter or Space.
HTML
🆭
CSS
\1F1AD
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
🆭
HTML hex
🆭
CSS content
content: "\1F1AD";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%F0%9F%86%AD
1
On screen
1
Code points
2
JS .length
4
UTF-8 bytes

A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.

Families this belongs to

1

Letters1,265 symbols

µʹـ℀℁ℂ℃℄℅℆ℇ℈