Patent ID: 7709344

Claim:
A method of manufacturing a structure, comprising: depositing a dielectric film layer, a hard mask layer, an anti-reflective coating and a patterned photo resist layer on a substrate; selectively etching the hard mask layer, anti-reflective coating and dielectric film layer by reactive ion or gas cluster ion beam (GCIB) etch processing to form openings in the dielectric film layer; stripping away remaining portions of the photo resist layer and the anti-reflective coating; depositing a barrier metal layer in the openings and on the hard mask layer and depositing a copper layer on the barrier metal layer; recessing the copper layer deposited on the barrier metal layer; and removing the barrier metal layer which was deposited on the hard mask layer and hard mask layer by GCIB processing to expose a surface of the dielectric film layer such that the dielectric film layer is planar with the copper layer.