Patent ID: 7037744

Claim:
A method of producing a nanocolumnar airbridge structure comprising the steps of: forming a layer of at least one dielectric on a surface of a substrate; forming a set of line trenches, having a trench bottom surface in said dielectric layer, the closest ones of said line trenches being separated by a ground rule distance; transferring a nanometer-scale pattern into the dielectric containing said line trenches; depositing a bridge layer over the surface of said dielectric layer to form a mechanical link between adjacent lines; forming a set of vias within said line trenches extending through said dielectric layer; depositing said vias and line trenches with a liner layer; filling said vias and line trenches with a conductive fill metal to form a set of metal lines; planarizing said metal lines and said liner layers by polishing so that the metal is coplanar with the top of said bridge layer; and capping said metal lines with an electromigration and/or diffusion barrier to produce said nanocolumnar airbridge structure.