@User Thanks for this reminder. I was tripped up by this early on. I thought I got it but now I have my doubts because the standard cell models look like this:

.subckt sky130_fd_sc_hvl__inv_1 A VGND VNB VPB VPWR Y
X0 VPWR A Y VPB sky130_fd_pr__pfet_g5v0d10v5 w=1.5e+06u l=500000u
X1 VGND A Y VNB sky130_fd_pr__nfet_g5v0d10v5 w=750000u l=500000u
.ends

Where they are still using the “u” suffix. I reflexively copied from this model when adapting the OSU cells which are posted with the M cards instead of the X cards in the earlier style. Should I be doing w=1.5 l=0.5 ? As you noted it is a tricky to remove scale= because the scaling is only done on values that are related to length (e.g. lengths, widths and areas).