Patent 7432536 was granted and assigned to Cree Inc. on October, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method is disclosed for attaching a bonding pad to the ohmic contact of a diode while reducing the complexity of the photolithography steps. The method includes the steps of forming a blanket passivation layer over the epitaxial layers and ohmic contacts of a diode, depositing a photoresist layer over the blanket passivation layer, opening a via through the photoresist above the ohmic contacts and on the blanket passivation layer, removing the portion of the blanket passivation layer defined by the via to expose the surface of the ohmic contact, depositing a metal layer on the remaining photoresist, and on the exposed portion of the ohmic contact defined by the via, and removing the remaining photoresist to thereby concurrently remove any metal on the photoresist and to thereby establish a metal bond pad on the ohmic contact in the via.