Production manner of the integrated circuit and the intermediate product and the custom integrated circuit which are used for the production of the integrated circuit

摘要

A permanently alterable, i.e., customizable, integrated circuit has a fuse element and contact pad, and windows extending above the same through an insulative layer. The contact pad window extends down to and exposes the contact pad. The fuse element window terminates just short of the fuse element so that the fuse element remains covered by a thin layer of insulative material. The fuse element and the contact pad reside in a common plane of the substrate and thus can be formed together using a single photolithographic transfer step. Windows of different depth are created above the fuse element and contact pad in a single etching step by providing at least one narrow width etching pattern resist aperture above the fuse element. This slows the etch rate at the fused element relative to that at the contact pad, due to a microloading effect.