Patent ID: 8633099

Claim:
A method, for use with an integrated circuit device including a stack of dielectric/conductive layers, for forming interlayer connectors extending from a surface of the device to the conductive layers, the method comprising: creating spaced apart contact openings in a contact region of the integrated circuit through a dielectric layer with dielectric layer material separating each of the contact openings, the contact openings overlying an electrical conductor for each of W conductive layers; the contact openings creating step comprising creating a first contact opening down to a first conductive layer; using a set of N etch masks with 2 N−1 being less than W and 2 N being greater than or equal to W, the etch masks having mask regions and spaced apart open etch regions corresponding to selected contact openings; etching, using the N etch masks, the stack of dielectric/conductive layers only through W−1 contact openings to create extended contact openings extending to W−1 conductive layers; the etching step comprising etching 2 n−1 conductive layers for up to half of the contact openings for each etch mask n=1, 2 . . . N; the etching step being carried out so that the contact openings are etched with different combinations of the open etch regions of said etch masks; and forming interlayer connectors in the first contact opening and the extended contact openings to electrically connect to each of the conductive layers.