Patent ID: 7259107

Claim:
A method of patterning a material layer of a semiconductor device, the method comprising: providing a workpiece, a material layer being disposed over the workpiece; depositing a first layer of masking material over the material layer; forming a second layer of masking material over the first layer of masking material, the first layer of masking material being unpatterned and the second layer of masking material defining a first pattern comprising densely populated features over a selected area; forming another layer of masking material over at least a portion of the selected area of the second layer of masking material patterned with said densely populated features according to said first pattern; patterning the another layer of masking material according to a second pattern, said second pattern being different than said first pattern, and at least a portion of the second pattern being larger than and at least partially surrounding at least one of said densely populated features of the first pattern found in the second layer of masking material; using the another layer of masking material patterned according to said second pattern and the second layer of masking material patterned according to said first pattern as a combination mask to pattern the first layer of masking material; and using at least the first layer of masking material as a mask to pattern the material layer.