Patent ID: 7666759

Claim:
A method of precisely cutting selected substantially identical conductive circuit elements in an array of such elements arranged in at least one of one or more rows and one or more columns on a substrate, the cutting selectively removing material from the selected elements, the method comprising: generating at least one laser pulse; and substantially simultaneously irradiating the selected substantially identical conductive circuit elements, the step of irradiating comprising: spatially splitting and focusing the at least one pulse to produce a distribution pattern of multiple focused beams to each of a plurality of selected elements of the array and along the at least one or more rows and/or columns of the array, wherein the step of splitting is carried out, at least in part, with at least one acousto-optic deflector and wherein at least one focused beam impinges each selected array element substantially simultaneously and wherein the at least one split pulse selectively and accurately cuts each selected array element at one time.