Patent ID: 7326624

Claim:
A method of making a thin-film chip resistor comprising: a step of preparing a material plate having a surface provided with lengthwise breaking grooves and crosswise breaking grooves for cutting the plate into a plurality of chip substrates; a step of forming a thin film of resistive element material on the surface of the material plate; a step of forming a resist film over the surface of the material plate to cover the thin film of resistive element material; a first step of etching the resist film to remove portions of the resist film covering the lengthwise breaking grooves and the crosswise breaking grooves; a second etching step to remove portions of the resistive element material existing in the lenethwise breaking grooves and the crosswise breaking grooves; a step of removing remaining portions of the resist film; and a step of cutting the material plate into individual chip substrates; wherein a masking sheet covering the lengthwise breaking grooves and the crosswise breaking grooves is placed on the material plate during the step of forming the thin-film of resistive material; and the second etching step is performed after the first step of etching the resist film and before the step of removing the remaining portion of the resist film.