Xiaoyi Chen - Foster City CA, US Michael Grimbergen - Redwood City CA, US Madhavi Chandrachood - Sunnyvale CA, US Jeffrey Tran - Fremont CA, US Ajay Kumar - Cupertino CA, US Simon Tam - Milpitas CA, US Ramesh Krishnamurthy - Sunnyvale CA, US
A method for etching a chromium layer is provided herein. In one embodiment, a method for etching a chromium layer includes providing a filmstack in an etching chamber, the filmstack having a chromium layer partially exposed through a patterned layer, providing at least one halogen containing process gas to a processing chamber, biasing the layer disposed on a substrate support in the processing chamber with a plurality of power pulses less than 600 Watts, and etching the chromium layer through a patterned mask. The method for plasma etching a chromium layer described herein is particularly suitable for fabricating photomasks.