Patent ID: 8039203

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a structural building block of a semiconductor device, the method comprising: depositing a first material layer over a semiconductor substrate, the first material layer covering a first and a second region; depositing a first composite layer over the first material layer; forming a first template in the first composite layer using a first and a second lithographic mask, the template comprising first features and second features, wherein the first features comprise a pattern for components of the semiconductor device and the second features comprise a pattern for printing assist features, wherein the forming a first template in the first composite layer comprises: patterning a first intermediate layer disposed over the first composite layer using the first lithographic mask, patterning the first composite layer using the patterned first intermediate layer into the first material layer, after patterning the first composite layer using the patterned first intermediate layer, forming a second intermediate layer over the first composite layer, patterning the second intermediate layer using the second lithographic mask, and forming the first template by patterning the first composite layer using the patterned second intermediate layer; and forming a second template in the first composite layer by removing the second features using a third lithographic mask or a third lithographic mask and a fourth lithographic mask.