Patent ID: 7271073

Claim:
A method for manufacturing a marker structure on a semiconductor surface of a semiconductor substrate, the marker structure comprising line elements and trench elements, the line elements and trench elements being arranged in a repetitive order in the marker structure, the method comprising: filling the trench elements with silicon dioxide and leveling the marker structure; growing a sacrificial oxide layer on the semiconductor surface; exposing at least a first subset of the line elements to at least a first ion implantation beam to dope at least the first subset of line elements and to change an etching rate of at least the first subset of line elements, said first ion implantation beam comprising a first dopant species and having first ion implementation beam characteristics; annealing the substrate to activate the first dopant species in at least the first subset of line elements; and etching the semiconductor surface to remove the sacrificial oxide layer and to create a topology such that the first subset of line elements has a first level differing from a second level of a surface portion of the marker structure different from the first subset of line elements.