Patent ID: 7528069

Claim:
A method for contacting contact pads of an integrated circuit, comprising: providing a dielectric layer over the integrated circuit and the contact pads; forming an opening in the dielectric layer to create an open area in the dielectric layer and expose the contact pads whereby a portion of the dielectric layer is removed between adjacent contact pads; forming a seed layer over the dielectric layer and the contact pads after forming the opening; forming a photoresist layer over the seed layer; patterning the photoresist layer to form trace openings in the photoresist layer to the contact pads, wherein the trace openings in the photoresist layer form lines with widths, wherein a remainder of the photoresist layer masks a first portion of the seed layer and minimum widths of the lines occur over the contact pads; forming metal in the trace openings in the photoresist layer to make electrical contact to the contact pads, the metal not covering all of the open area in the dielectric layer; removing the remainder of the photoresist layer; and removing the first portion of the seed layer.